Edward Norton @ Crowdrise For Charity

Recently named U.N. goodwill ambassador and nominated for a DoSomething.org Award, actor Edward Norton initiated Crowdrise.com earlier this year, an online social network that encourages youth to fundraise for causes they care about.

Crowdrise.com hosts a community where anyone can create a free personal or charity account. It features opportunities to start and share fundraising projects as well as donate or vote for other projects, with the added pizazz of earning points for actions taken. For every one dollar that a member raises or gives, there will be a reward of ten points. As points accumulate, they could be turned in for prizes, though the prizes are yet to be revealed.

Norton was inspired by the admirable success of an online campaign for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust. Crowdrise.com’s trademark is as simple as it appears to be. It doesn’t root for any particular cause, but instead, embraces all types and focuses more on pushing the public to simply just give.

“I think people sometimes don’t have a lot of money to give themselves but they want to give to causes they care about so we’re hoping that it makes it easier, especially for young people who understand social networking and things like that, to use it as a tool to make an impact on the issues they care about,” Norton said on WENN.com.

The network has daily contests to motivate the online community to donate, such as “Donate $29 for a chance to win an Apple iPad” or “Donate $9 for a chance to win an Apple Macbook Pro.”

With almost 2,000 fans on its Facebook and over 1,400 followers on Twitter, Crowdrise.com, which is supported by Seth Rogen, Will Ferrell and Jonah Hill, has grown exponentially since its launch and will continue to do so.