The Salvation Army bell ringer?

That’s so old-school.

This year, people and organizations raising money for charity and community development projects are using the power of Twitter to raise money and awareness.

Here are a few of those projects from travel bloggers we admire:

@Travellerspoint: The Hippo Rollers Project

Maybe you’re broke this holiday season. That’s ok– there’s still a project you can support.

The Travellerspoint travel community will donate a certain number of hippo rollers to African communities for each milestone reached in their crowdsourced wiki travel guide. All you have to do is write: Travellerspoint will buy the hippo rollers.

What is a hippo roller?

According to Travellerspoint, “a hippo roller is a large drum that can hold 90 litres (24 gallons) of water and can be pushed along the ground, making it much easier to transport clean drinking water. It’s a simple technology that has the capacity to make a huge difference in places where water is scarce.”

Read all about the Hippo Rollers Project here.

@travelinggreen: Adopt a Koala

A big supporter of the Matador community, @travelinggreen is a green travel and green living blogger at traveling greener. The site has lots of green gift ideas for the holidays; one of them is the Adopt a Koala program.

@MatadorNetwork: Brave New Travelers Youth Scholarship Fund

We’ve just announced the launch of our fundraising campaign for the 2010 Brave New Travelers Youth Scholarship Fund, which will send as many as 15 inner city students abroad for the first time. No problem if you’re strapped for cash: we’ll accept donations as low as $1.00.

@nerdseyeview, @deliciousbaby: Passports with Purpose

This is the second year that the founders of Passports with Purpose have used Twitter to raise money for a pet project: this year, they’re building a school in Cambodia. Matador has donated free tuition to our travel writing program at Matador U; read all about it in this article.

@joanna_haugen: Karikuy-Haugen Machu Picchu Porters’ Fund

We recently profiled Matador associate editor JoAnna Haugen’s Karikuy-Haugen Machu Picchu Porters’ Fund. There’s no better time than the holidays to help JoAnna realize her goals for this ambitious project. Read about the fund and learn how you can contribute by visiting her blog.

Community Connection:

Do you know about a project we missed? Leave your Twitter handle and some basic details in the comments section below.