4.03.2008 - 10:18am ET

(CSRwire) WASHINGTON, April 3, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Make it Your Own Awards polls are OPEN! Bebo and YouthNoise are center stage. And who gets $25,000 is up to YOU!

Online voting for the Make It Your Own Awards, an initiative of the Case Foundation, is open at Bebo.com and YouthNoise.org. The Make it Your Own Awards is a new grants program that challenges people to connect, innovate, and activate their communities.

To celebrate the voting, Bebo and YouthNoise are co-sponsoring a competition to award the best "community dream" videos $500 - the Share Your Dream Awards.

The winning videos will be those that best capture the idea behind the Share Your Dream Awards - the premise that each of us must take responsibility for the challenges facing our community and for bringing our communities together to take action. Go to http://www.bebo.com/shareyourdream for details on how to submit your video for the Share Your Dream video competition and to vote in the Make It Your Own Awards.

Joanna Shields, President, Bebo said: "TheShare Your Dream Awardsreally speak the language of Bebo and our community has the potential to act as an engine for grassroots social change. Bebo is all about people coming together to explore ideas and share their passions and to make a positive impact. These awards will give people the opportunity to make a difference within their local community."

"We believe the partnership between Bebo, the Case Foundation and YouthNoise offers the best possible combination of network reach, financial support and philanthropic authenticity to this program to advance the humanitarian and social advocacy of young people. By communicating with youth in their web-based environments and bringing them an opportunity to identify and develop their causes, the partnership will support them as they begin a life time of engagement,"
said Ginger Thomson, YouthNoise CEO.

"We couldn't be happier than to be partnered with both YouthNoise and Bebo on this project," said Christine Fanning, VP for Partnerships and Marketing at the Case Foundation. "The Make It Your Own Awards are all about dreams - dreams for our communities and dreams for ourselves and dreams for each other. We know that the dream videos we'll see from Bebo and YouthNoise members will be full of fun, full of community and thought provoking."

The Make it Your Own and Share Your Dream Awards programs are an outgrowth of 'Citizens at the Center,' a white paper by Dr. Cynthia Gibson released by the Case Foundation in late 2006. The paper suggests that if people are to get engaged and stay engaged in their communities, they must have more chances to connect and figure out how they can work together for the common good. The Make It Your Own Awards were also designed to show people how online, social networking tools can help expand their networks and increase financial and volunteer support in their communities.

About The Case Foundation

The Case Foundation was created by Steve and Jean Case in 1997. The Foundation invests in individuals, nonprofits, and social enterprises aiming to connect people, increase giving, and catalyze civic action. For more information, visit www.casefoundation.org.

About YouthNoise:

By tapping the potential, creativity and determination of young leaders and leveraging technology to support them, YouthNoise supports young people as they restore the environment, eradicate poverty, eliminate disease, support human rights and reinforce and raise the awareness of all people. YouthNoise provides young leaders with a technology platform that offers them the opportunity to build movements for consequential positive change in their communities. For more information, visit www.youthnoise.com.

About Bebo:

Bebo is the world's leading global social media network. Building on the notion of traditional social networking websites, Bebo combines community, self-expression and entertainment to enable its users to consume, create, discover and share professional and user-generated content through the Bebo website. Bebo has 11.4m unique users in the UK and a total membership of more than 40 million worldwide. Bebo also ranks as the UK's most engaging social network with users spending an average of 33 minutes on the site per usage day.* Bebo was founded in 2005. www.bebo.com.