Just in time for Earth Day, National Geographic has released an impressive resource designed to connect users with the planet and provide users with the ability to search and track important conservation projects around the Globe.
The Global Action Atlas enables you to support local projects tackling the major challenges of our time. This beta is under development; more projects, action opportunities, and other features will appear soon.
The Global Action Atlas spotlights hundreds of local, cause-related projects from around the world to a large audience of concerned citizens, giving individuals opportunities to take action by donating, volunteering, advocating, and sharing information. The Atlas enhances and extends the mission of the National Geographic Society --to inspire people to care about the planet-- by turning inspiration into action.
The site is built around an interactive Microsoft Bing Map viewer that displays the location of hundreds of projects as icons. The Atlas focuses on major issues and themes including climate change, conservation, cultures, energy, exploration and humanitarian affairs.
Users are invited to join as members so they can share and track important projects of interest. The benefits of joining include:
Become a Fan of projects (either publicly or privately)
Comment on projects
Donate to projects
Track your donations to projects
Manage your list of fanned projects
View your fanned projects on an interactive map
Receive updates from the projects and topics you care about
For the Atlas, NGS has teamed up with GlobalGiving, a recognized leader in the online charitable-giving community and registered 501(c)3 organization, as it has an infrastructure for processing donations, including tax receipting and regular disbursements of donations to participating organizations. GlobalGiving also assists National Geographic in vetting the organizations featured on the Atlas.
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