We’re at the BALLE2014 conference this week to show support for the social enterprises and the organizations that help them grow. One of The Breaking News Network’s charter as a community network is to amplify the messages of local social enterprises through our 400 city feeds.

The Breaking News Network, the largest hyperlocal media network devoted to social good, curates and aggregates the best media and blog news feeds in 400 cities, ticker taping in real time 24×7 to an aggregate 600,000 local readers. Not only do we aim for comprehensive and interesting local news and events coverage (avoiding car crashes and petty crime) , we focus on making it simple for the community to get their word out by amplifying their social media.

The community voices that our city feeds amplify include mayors and city councils, local museums and performing arts organizations, nonprofit news networks, local newscasters, indie filmmakers, and good causes. In fact, anybody who needs a community voice. We’re positioned to be a Twitter-based communal resource, akin to a community bulletin board of social media sourced news.

We enable the #crowd to contribute

We firmly believe in the power of social media at the local level. We want to empower BALLE members to be able to reach their local audience via one or more of our 400+ Twitter feeds globally.

It’s simple to contribute, just add a #hashtag to your tweet

If you are a BALLE member, you can tweet through our Breaking News Twitter feed (whatever city you are from) simply by adding the #hashtag of the name of the city in the body of your tweet:

Only authorized BALLE Twitter accounts can be amplified. We have authorized all of the Twitter accounts on the BALLE2014 “Tweet Sheet”. If you’re not on this sheet, you need to apply with us here so we can authorize you. It’s our community service to sustain local social enterprise. Once authorized, we simply request no spamming or lack of creativity.

Our community service to support fundraising for social enterprise

The Breaking News Network also offers a second free community service through our sister company BNN Funding called #CrowdfundLocal, a program that makes crowdfunding accessible to social enterprise three ways:

1. Campaigns can be crowdfunded on any domain name, including the campaigner’s own website, allowing campaigner to develop a dedicated, owned crowdfunding platform. (This is important, localized crowdfunding doesn’t need to be on Kickstarter).
2. Zero crowdfunding fees. Campaigns have credit card processing included at standard fees of 2.9% of pledged amount + $.30 per transaction.
3. Campaigns are provided free local social marketing support after approval by BNN Funding. National support across 400 cities in the BNN media network is also available.

For more information, follow @bnnfunding or contact us at bnnfunding@gmail.com