Global corporations continue to grow in influence: according to World, Inc., 51 of the world's 100 largest economies are now corporate.

Fortunately, global corporations are simultaneously increasing their commitment to social issues: traditional corporate philanthropy is being augmented by corporate "Social Good" initiatives which both consider the corporation's own behavior and also offer social good programs for consumers.

Here are four organizations with model "social good" initiatives (each attended Forum One's recently completed Online Community Summit):

• Yahoo for Good: providing services across a range of topics for their 500 million+ users;
• AIM for Good: AOL's initiative linking their popular AIM service to charity and advocacy efforts;
• LinkedIn for Good: social networking and publicity services for non-profits;
• YouTube Nonprofit Program: providing a customizable channel, publicity and fundraising services to non-profits.

These efforts, and many other corporate efforts like them, provide wonderful opportunities. There is one major shortcoming, however: non-profits by and large don't know about them. At Forum One we've completed 1000 projects for over 300 non-commercial organizations, and corporate social good initiatives are almost never on the radar (the two most frequent exceptions are Google's Grants Program, which provides free online advertising, and Salesforce's Donation Program, which provides free CRM solutions to non-profits).

How can this situation be improved? First, it would be useful if there were a good accounting (and updated directory) of corporate social good initiatives. This would be a fine project for any organization which spans sectors (the Omidyar Network comes to mind), or even for one of the corporate initiatives themselves. Second, non-profits need to think more aggressively (and less defensively) about corporate partners, and corporations need to turn to experienced non-profits to further their efforts. As government funding shrinks and most foundations are tapped out, corporate social good initiatives represent a huge opportunity for the social sector.