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"Hectic lives, jam-packed schedules and the all-too-common feeling of powerlessness can keep us from doing what we can to make a difference \u2014 even if that difference is simply offering a donation. \nSocial media and the social good movement has revolutionized and re-energized fundraising, with mobile apps making it easier than ever before to do what you can to help others. And it can be surprisingly simple. Knowing that your ability to help others is but a tap away should be motivation enough for you to download these apps and start pitching in. \nHere are five iPhone apps to help in the fight against poverty.\n1. Make Poverty History \n\n\n\n\nThis is an app that doesn't actually do much, but has the potential to do a lot of good. We've all seen the bracelets people wear to show support for a certain cause \u2014 well, here is one for your iPhone. The white band with the words \"Make Poverty History\" can be purchased as a background for your phone for $0.99, with 100% of the profits going to charity.\nWith more than 50 million iPhones sold world wide, and more than 3 billion apps downloaded, if every iPhone owner was to download this one app, it would definitely be a start towards making poverty history. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n2. Give Work \n\n\n\n\nGive Work is a free app designed to benefit the refugees in the developing world. This app is a little strange: It asks you to complete a task on your phone and a person in a developing region will do the same thing. Your partner will get paid for both tasks.\nThe organization behind the app, Samasource, works with refugees by giving them \"life-changing opportunities via the Internet.\" Samasource says that in doing so they \"enable socially responsible companies, small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs in the U.S. to contribute to economic development by buying services from our workforce at fair prices.\"\nTheir services include \"data entry, book digitization, Internet-based research, business listings verification, audio transcription, and video captioning.\" \nIn effect, every time you complete a task, you support a refugee in two ways \u2014 by generating income that goes to their digital training, and your task's accuracy scores help develop and design training programs for the future. The points you create with each task can be traded in by refugees, and a little goes a long way. \nWhen I tried it, the task was to ask a question about personal finances. That task alone earned 5 points, which is enough to buy a tomato, a large banana, and a small bunch of greens for the refugee. For a little time taken out of your day, you can do a lot of good. \n3. Compassion \n\n\n\n\nHere is an app to tug on your heartstrings and open your check book. Compassion gives you access to information on child poverty from its blog, and connects you to the organization's Facebook Page and Twitter feed. Compassion International is a Christian child advocacy group that began providing Korean War orphans with aid and Christian values. \nWith this app, you can search through profiles of children in need of aid in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and the Caribbean and make your selection of who you'd like to sponsor. If sponsorship is not for you, there is also the option to donate directly from your phone to the Disaster Relief Fund. \n 4. CauseWorld\n\n\n\n\n\nCauseWorld is a geolocation app that allows you to check in, earning you karma points instead of badges, which you can cash-in as donations to charities.  \nThe app has you performing \"good deeds\" just for walking into a stores like Trader Joe's and Borders. Sponsors like Proctor and Gamble, Citibank and Kraft donate money for your checkins. You can choose where the money is going: Poverty in Africa, Chilean relief efforts, clean water initiatives, chimpanzee habitats, tree planting efforts, education, and cancer research are just some of the deserving causes.  You can earn more karma points by scanning the barcodes of specific products, and you can download certain associated iPhone apps, both free and paid, to earn more karma. \nTo date, CauseWorld and its karma have been able to offset 1.4 million pounds of carbon, raise more than $100,00 for Haiti and Chile, donate more than 228,000 meals to hungry Americans, plant more than 58,000 trees in rain forests, donate more than 24,000 books to children, and provide more than 18 million liters of clean drinking water. \nIf you are going to check in somewhere it might as well count for something good, right?\n5. Donation Connect\n\n\n\n\n\nIf you're a busy person, it's sometimes difficult to talk to the college-aged kid canvassing on the street for charity even if you really want to. Here is an easy solution: Donation Connect brings all your valued charities right to your phone. \nDownload the app and hit \"Find a charity.\" You'll be directed to a list of categories where you can pick which charity you'd like to support. The amount that you choose to give will then be charged to your wireless bill or deducted from your prepaid balance. You'll never not have time to give again. \nBrought to you by the Mashable &amp; 92Y Social Good Summit\n\n\n\n\nThis post was brought to you by the groundbreaking Social Good Summit.  On September 20, as global leaders head to New York for United Nations Week \u2014 including a historic summit on global issues known as the \u201CMillennium Development Goals\u201D (MDGs) and the annual General Assembly \u2014 Mashable, 92nd Street Y and the UN Foundation will bring together leaders from the digital industry, policy and media worlds to focus on how technology and social networks can play a leading role in addressing the world\u2019s most intractable problems.Date: Monday, September 20, 2010Time: 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. ETLocation: 92nd Street Y, New York CityTickets: On sale through Eventbrite\n\n\n\n\nMore Social Good Resources from Mashable:\n- How Non-Profits Can Maximize a Foursquare Account- 5 Cool Non-Profit Uses of Location-Based Tech- Are Social Media Giving Contests Good for Non-Profits?- How Open Data Applications are Improving Government- HOW TO: Turn Slacktivists into Activists with Social Media\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, wweagle"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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