For those who work in social services, the arts, education, healthcare, environmental action, and elsewhere in the social sector, the phrase “across the board cuts” has to cause an almost involuntary shudder. As executive directors and board members across the country know, Federal cutbacks have a long tale indeed: not only do they mean less funding for U.S.- sponsored programs, but they effect the budgets of states and municipalities (often in the following year or two) leading to more slicing of public funds to vital programs.

Consider nonprofit healthcare and the discussion around Medicare, Medicaid, “cost savings,” and reimbursement and fee rates. The right-wing push to cut the size of government has placed a crosshairs over a major revenue source for the nonprofit institutions that serve communities around the country. Cuts to Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals are among the so-called “automatic” cuts insisted upon by the GOP as a virtual threat to their Democratic counterparts to trim an actual $1.5 trillion from the Federal budget. They’re an axe hanging over the head of the vast nonprofit healthcare system.

Wrote Sarah Kliff in the Washington Post: “Medicare providers are among the clear losers in the debt ceiling deal. Come November, they face two really unpleasant options: absorbing whatever cuts the congressional super committee settles on, or, if the group doesn’t reach an agreement, absorbing an across-the-board budget reduction.”

And that’s direct Federal money. As was clear in the real crisis of 2008, the fall-out is often felt a year or more later when, despite initial Federal stimulus funds, public money declined and states and cities pulled in their budgets. For now, it looks like the charitable tax deduction will survive, but it also seems certain the “Super Congress” will consider it among a package of cuts.

“We assume that the new committee will certainly consider the cap on deductions,” said Jason Lee, a lawyer for the Association of Fundraising Professionals, a trade group that is opposed to reducing the value of the charitable deduction, told the Chronicle of Philanthropy. “So we’re working under the premise that we still have our work cut out for us.”

And as United Way Worldwide CEO Brian Gallagher writes in the Huffington Post: “At a time when unemployment remains high, our nation’s most vulnerable families need more help, not less. States can’t fill the gap and most are cutting their human services budgets. As a result, more and more people are turning to charities for assistance. Thus, any change to the federal tax code that undermines charitable giving is a bad idea.”

And while Twitter and social networks can satisfy the hunger for information with amazing speed, it’ll be interesting to see what role they play in either feeding or tamping down societal panic. In other words, will Twitter and Facebook and all the other forms of sharing links (and fear) assist our global society in dealing with a kind of virality none of us wants to see expanded.

In the early stages of what threatens to be a major worldwide health challenge, the flow of information from my “follows” at Twitter beats any other amalgamation tool. The death toll postings, news of new outbreaks, and government warnings and policies hit my own Twitter stream faster than they do my email inbox, and from a much wider variety of sources. The #swineflu hashtag is a seriously central spigot for information – it took my, for instance, to a Google map created by “niman,” described as a biomedical researcher from Pittsburgh, which seems to be the most complete, up-to-date graphical tracker of the outbreak I can find.

But the #swineflu hashtag is also a virtual spinal tap into the core of societal fear over the kind of pandemic we’ve always been warned about – the one without a cure that jumps species and borders and threatens civil society. Spend some time the hashtag on the pandemic (of course it’s number one) and you’ll peer into that fearful “group soul” – or rather, the fearful group soul of early adopters and techno geeks. Some try to undersell the danger, with playful (hopeful?) references to “hangnails” and government over-reaction and having a good excuse to skip work. But I also sense in some of the joking a rather wishful urge for gallows humor, as if a few good tweets can make it all go away. “More people are currently sick from eating bad alfalfa sprouts than from the #swineflu,” is one such tweet. And yet the WHO and the White House and the EU aren’t freaked out about alfalfa sprouts.

Yet others are far more serious, and the near-instant access to statistics and information about the epidemic clearly forces what is already a well-informed crowd to pay attention to seriously dark news. Here’s one such tweet: “up to 149 deaths in mexico city from #swineflu. That’s .09% fatality. But geez. Its going up so fast! Last nite was .05% fatality.”

One aspect of this pandemic-related information flow is crystal clear – in times of crisis, people turn to their governments for guidance and assistance. The US government’s PandemicFlu site is cited in hundreds of Twitter posts, blog posts, and Facebook feeds and clearly, some wired civil servants are working overtime to keep the official view as up to date as possible.

Clearly, we don’t yet know how bad this pandemic will be – and pandemic it is, with news of cases in Scotland and Spain to go along with Mexico, the U.S and Canada – but I for one find some comfort in a personalized flow of information that didn’t exist a few years ago. After the disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the San Diego wildfires (among others) it became clear that online networks would carry more of the societal weight during times of crisis, that they hold the potential for drawing citizens together to help. This is a new kind of crisis an along with the health warnings and news, we’ll be following the performance of social media in providing information … and in calming fear.

UPDATE: Via Andy Carvin, here’s Wikia’s flu wiki, by Jimmy Wales.

UPDATE II: The Google map has real accuracy problems, and wasn’t created by the Google team. I posted on it @techPresident.

I’ve been asked to participate in Charity Smackdown 09 – a cause marketing event contest between teams lead by Celebrities with Social Media ‘notables’ on each team. Each of the Smackdown Teams has from March 16th at 11pm EST to March 26th to raise as much money as possible for the causes.

My cause, as it has been since last year, is Stand Up To Cancer. Cancer has touched my life in terrible ways through family and neighbors over the past few years, and this is my way to give back. (More stories as the week goes on).

My team is “Team Corbin” led by musician (and High School Musical star) Corbin Bleu, and including Natali Del Conte, Tech Reporter for CNET and CBS’ the Early Show, and Jared Eng of celeb blog JustJared.com. My team is up against some stiff competition, from celeb power like Alec Baldwin and 2 of the stars of Heroes, and also from some top social media celebs like Mashable’s Pete Cashmore, WalMart’s 11 Moms, MCHammer and Chris Brogan.

You can follow the Smackdown on a minute-to-minute basis on Twitter.

The other night in Iowa, he led with the cause in his speech – which was part concession (to Obama) part victory (over Clinton) and part pledge (to keep on campaigning) – as he continued the call for universal healthcare:

And we are so proud of this cause. But I want all of us to remember tonight while we’re having all these political celebrations, that just a few weeks ago in America, Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17- year-old girl who had a — needed a liver transplant, and whose insurance company decided they wouldn’t pay for her liver transplant operation.

Finally, her nurses spoke up on her behalf. Her doctors spoke up on her behalf. Ultimately, the American people spoke up on her behalf by marching and picketing in front of her health insurance carrier.

And, finally, the insurance carrier caved in and agreed to pay for her operation. And when they notified the family just a few hours later, she died. She lost her life. Why? Why?

The Sarkisyan story is so compelling that I suspect whichever Democrat becomes the nominee, her name will be included in the movement for more and better healthcare coverage.

UPDATE: The Sarkisyan family is going to campaign with Edwards in New Hampshire.

He and his mom launched the Chordoma Foundation to promote research of potential cures and galvanize the research community. He works 30 hours a week in Duke labs with professors who have agreed to study the problem. In the meantime, he lobbies congress to implement legislation that would better prevent the accumulation of toxic mold in buildings as toxic mold in his house partly caused his disease.

A few weeks ago, Josh raised $4,200 over three days for his foundation on Facebook “Causes”. By securing the most individual donations within a 24 hour period, he won Facebook’s $1k prize. About 1,300 people (mostly college students – like me) contributed small amounts of money to the cause. Talk about micro-philanthropy!

Micro-philanthropy indeed. I’ve said a bunch of times that the actual funds raised through Causes may be small, but the large numbers of people participating actually sets the table to future involvement and larger fundraising. Here’s a full profile of Josh in the Charlotte News & Observer.