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A friend, ex-teammate, and heroine of mine is cycling 11,900 km through Africa.* Carola is making this epic trek in aid of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, a Canadian organization doing major things for people affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa, and the Tour D’Afrique Foundation… yeah, who?

The Tour D’Afrique Foundation is a six-year-old David in a peloton of Goliaths. Little guys like this can get lost in the fundraising fray, so it’s no surprise I had never heard of them — the budget is small, they have few international associations and there are no celeb ambassadors to sex things up. But they DO something clever and logical and important — they provide bikes to health-care workers and other people who help make communities work. As they operate on a small, agile scale, you can easily see the difference twenty Euros makes. Children are taught, babies immunised and adults supported because of organizations like this one. This is truly good work.

Where does social media come into all this, then?

Well, that’s the annoying bit. It doesn’t — yet. Looking at a — doubtlessly under-resourced — charity like the Tour D’Afrique Foundation, social media tools could and should be harnessed to get this cause blipping on more people’s radars, but the digital divide is still getting in the way. Their site is clunky, hard to navigate, and does a good job of hiding the best bits about them.

But I think change is coming.

One of the things that makes me so excited about social media is that these tools are easy to use. Sure, I’m an early adaptor, but I’m also a tech-phobe who still can’t reset the microwave clock. And I am very hopeful that this new wave of user-loving social media tools will offer voices like this one everything they need to be heard… and that the audience will continue to grow.

I’m listening, and I bet I’m not alone.

*Like on a pedal bike, with a hard little bum-pinching seat, and sleeping in a tent, and forgoing hot showers, and all this for three months. I’m all for putting my money where my mouth is, but the buck, for me, stops a LONG way short of 12,000 clicks on a two-wheeler. Brava, girl.

I kept hearing this at last week’s Social Networking World Forum. It’s the kind of ego-free advice we should all just take already, and it goes double for fundraisers: Make life easier for your message by using what’s there already.

Top example: Twestival, which I blogged about last month. In hitching their wagon to the team of wild stallions that is Twitter, charity:water fished where the fishes are. They used a powerful tool to tap into a flourishing community. And while it didn’t rake in all the hoped-for cash (preliminary results say $250,000 of the hoped-for $1 million), Twestival got people talking, raised some cash, and raised the bar for like causes and events. Now the bar is Twestival.

Who was that mysterious lone fisherman?

We media types have this bizarre need to create our own party, again and again and again. Always striking out for a new fishing hole. Is this an ego thing? Do we think it reflects poorly on us if we take our new message to a place that’s been bubblin’ over for a while? Use a non-pristine page for a new idea? Pah! Enough already! I’m not calling for a synchronized collective ditch of the urge to invent, but I am suggesting that if Mama Necessity has left the room, maybe we should take the hint and bust our own move.

Use the tools that already work, and use them well enough to make an impact.

Go where the party is, talk where the listeners are, fish where the fishes are.

Well it didn’t take long for those worlds to collide!

Twestival’s ‘tweet, meet and give’ happens tomorrow, 12 February. It’s a super-publicised day of real-life social events (in 175 cities!) for a good cause, and it all started on twitter. The aim: raise $1 million for charity:water.

I think this is a fascinating little experiment, and I’m really curious as to how it’s going to go. The first Twestival happened in London in September — and now, less than five months later, it has gone global, grown a conscience and hired a band (ok, several major-label artists). By anyone’s standards that’s an impressive feat.

So will it work? I’m going to go out on a limb (bird pun; sorry) and say YES… but not for the obvious reason.

Sure, I think people want to raise money for this amazing cause, but I also think social media’s queen bees are buzzing about Twestival because they wonder what will happen when we cross the on/off line. Does digital fun play well in the real world, or will we all trek out and shuffle home early? Could talking to each other possibly be as fun as tweeting at each other? I’m not so sure… but I’d love to be proven wrong.