To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Connected Citizens: The Power, Peril, and Potential of Networks – This new report from the Knight Foundation and Monitor Institute explores engaged communities: "Ten years ago, a tiny web site asked people to volunteer to write their own encyclopedia. Today, Wikipedia is the most widely used reference work in the world. Rapid advances in digital media and technology are changing how we connect to information and each other. The way we engage in public dialogue, coordinate, solve problems—all of it is shifting. New networks are emerging everywhere. It’s exciting—and frightening. What is this new network-centric world? What does it mean for community change?"
• The US will use Twitter and Facebook to issue terror alerts – "The U.S. government is working on a new warning system to replace their oft criticized five-color coded terror index, and according to a new document obtained by The Associated Press, they're turning to Facebook and Twitter." How do your social media channels fit in your organization's emergency communications plan?
• Repair Interview: Joe Solomon of 350.org on Climate Change and Building a Movement – "Social Media Coordinator, Joe Solomon took some time to explain what 350 really means, talk about transforming community inspiration into political power, and share a story about how his work with 350.org inspired him in ways he never imagined." Check out this terrific interview with Joe – I'd love to hear your ideas, reflections and stories about how you are inspired to make change!
• Mobilizing online communities in the Face of Disaster: Tips … – "On the 12th of March, one day after the tragic earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan Ichi – Hiroyasu Ichikawa – the NetSquared Local organizer from Tokyo sent an e-mail to our NetSquared Local Organizer listserve asking for the best practices for mobilizing online communities in the time of a disaster. In the weeks that have followed, Ichi’s e-mail provoked a series of responses from all over the world. In this post, we hope to voice many of the tools, resources, and tactics that have been shared, in hopes of encouraging others around the world to get involved with the digital relief efforts."
• 6 questions to prepare you for a social media crisis – "In social media, the disasters people talk about most are fundamentally crises of public relations. These fall into two types: crises that originate in social media, and crises that originate offline. In the era of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, both types of crisis require a rapid, social media response. Looking at the most recent social media crises is one way to think about the kinds of challenges for which you need to prepare. But social media has a way of ensuring that each crisis is different from the last, so if you’re prepared to handle a YouTube meltdown, you’ll probably get served with a FourSquare nightmare. That’s why it pays to look for principles of online crisis management that will be relevant in the long run."

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Net2 Think Tank: Online Fundraising Lessons Learned | NetSquared – "The Facebook application Causes recently announced it hit the $20 Million mark in donations. The America's Giving Challenge from Case Foundation spurred $2.1 Million in donations for charities this past winter. But, despite these numbers, for most organizations and causes raising money via social media is still a hard thing to do. There are different rules and new opportunities with online fundraising and every platform or application comes with a different community and varying functionality. So, what have you learned from trying your hand at online fundraising? This month's Net2 Think Tank asks you to share a lesson learned from online fundraising."
• Social Enterprise | GreenXchange: Crowdsourcing Social Innovation – Marcia Stepanek discusses the newly launched collaborative effort amongst diverse companies to create an open area for innovators and innovation. "Launched last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, GreenXchange (GX) is a new Web-based knowledge exchange that is being spearheaded by 10 companies and social enterprises, including Nike, Best Buy, and Creative Commons, the San Francisco nonprofit that works to expand the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. Its seven other backers include Yahoo!, IDEO, Mountain Equipment Co-op, salesforce.com, 2degrees, the Outdoor Industry Association, and nGenera, a corporate strategy think tank."
• 10 must-read Facebook resources for non-profits – Ross McCulloch – Ross has a great collection of resources about using Facebook, including Pages vs Groups, adding paypal, examples and case studies. Whether you are already using Facebook for your organization or not, this is a good place to go to learn more about how to use the social networking platform to it's fullest.
• Seth's Blog: Random rules for ideas worth spreading – Seth Godin shares a list of rules for those times you develop an idea worth spreading. My favorite rule: "Seek out apostles, not partners. People who benefit from spreading your idea, not people who need to own it." Have you found any of these to be true in your own idea sharing and development? Which are best/worst?
• 350.org: giving new meaning to “new organizing” | Working Wikily – This is a great case study about community organizing from the 350.org campaign. "A lightbulb went on in my head while I was listening to the PdF webinar last week that laid bare the machinery that made it possible for 350.org to achieve the most widespread day of political action in history back on October 24th. We’re still in the midst of examining the various threats that traditional “membership organizations” are facing and the story of 350’s success is one of the best illustrations I’ve seen yet of the new model. In the words of 350 organizer Phil Aroneanu, “It’s about concerned citizens who are looking for a meaningful way to engage. It doesn’t make sense to ask them to click once and that’s it. That’s not a believable theory of change. Building those [local] leaders is the secret to the way that we organize.”"

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Digital Media and Learning Competition: Applications now open! | NetSquared, an initiative of TechSoupGlobal.org – "The 3rd Digital Media and Learning Competition, from the MacArthur Foundation, is now accepting applications. In partnering with the White House, National Lab Day, and videogame makers Sony and EA, the Digital media and Learning Competitions has prizes up to $200,000 and is open to all kinds of innovative projects (including games) that make use of digital media for education and social change. Submissions close January 22, 2010."
• » Your Mobile Giving by State – Wendy Harman at the American Red Cross has posted a map and data about the funds donated via texting "Haiti" to 90999 to support the victims in the Haiti earthquake crisis. It's really interesting as far as mobile fundraising, but also just that the ARC are able to gather, analyze and share data like this in close to real time. Thanks for all that you are doing, ARC!
• 7 Things I learned From #Beth53 Fundraiser and PoST Class – Beth's Blog: How Nonprofit Organizations Can Use Social Media to Power Social Networks for Change – Beth shares some great lessons from the fundraising campaign she recently ran for her birthday. "This post harvests what I learned and what I still don't know about the birthday campaign strategy and measurement as well as guest teaching a graduate school class." My favorite lesson? 5.) Design for People To Self Organize!
• After Copenhagen: Turning Activism Into Impact – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – There's a great guest post up today from Michael Silberman on the Frogloop blog: "Going to the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen (COP15) was the closest I've come to a good strong punch in the gut — the type that makes you question much of what you once believed to be true. But it was also one of the best wake-up calls I could have asked for.

  …That means setting aside our shiny online tools and tactics long enough to ensure that we're using them to deliver real impact."

• 1 vote can equal $1 million « Nonprofit Communications: Duck Call Blog – "Today is the first day people can vote in the final round of the Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook. Between now and January 22, people who add the application can vote up to five times for five individual charities. Much has been written criticizing the contest and the initial selection of 100 charities who already received $25,000 and are now vying for the grand prize of $1,000,000. But, despite the controversy in the first round of results, I think there are some positive lessons that can be learned for nonprofits of all sizes."

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• URGENT: Facebook Pages are changing | facebook | social-advice- Advice for charities – More information about changes coming to Facebook – this time it's more changes in the way Fan Pages function. A great read if you have a fan page for your organization as these changes are said to go into effect in early 2010.
• Debating the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference – "Over 1,000 young people from 100 different countries will gather online to debate climate change. This is the largest single ongoing panel of discussions outside of the conference itself and the range of young people involved gives it an unmatched reach. This unique project will allow young people from vastly different countries to get involved in probably the single greatest challenge the world faces. Israelis will get together with Iranians, Americans with Afghanis, Sudanese with Singaporeans and they'll discuss what to do about climate change."
• Click For a Cause | Conduit – Conduit's Gives 2010 project offers $3.6 Million for 100 Nonprofit Organizations! "Since 2005, hundreds of thousands of web publishers have used the free Conduit Platform to increase engagement, grow web traffic, and drive revenue. We are now putting that experience to work with Click for a Cause to help struggling non-profits to engage and energize their communities in order to increase participation and ignite fundraising efforts during this difficult economic time."
• Social Media Today | If the Army Can Put Its Doctrine Up On a Wiki, You've Got No Excuse – "A few weeks ago I had the privilege of watching an astounding event – a room full of Soldiers typing Army doctrine onto a wiki so that Soldiers in the field could make changes as they were discovering new and better tactics in the midst of fighting a war." This is a great case study for anyone looking for support in those hard buy-in conversations…
• George Weiner: Will You Marry Me? What Not-For-Profits get Wrong on the Web – "The "Will you marry me?" (WYMM) syndrome turns every online messaging opportunity into a nail begging to be hit with the donation hammer. I can point to dozens of orgs that create sites that are essentially fundraising brochures with donation buttons and paragraphs about the history of the organization. There are also not-for-profits that take the WYMM mistake beyond web sites and into their social media strategies, advertising opportunities, newsletters and partnerships."
• Women, Social Media and Influence (cont’d) « A. Fine Blog – If you haven't seen the two recent posts from Allison Fine about women and social media, you should join in the conversation! She's posed some very interesting questions and shared some of her ideas – but most importantly there are lots of comments that are just as critical, thought-provoking and interesting! Do join in!

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Have you always wanted to be a 'climate insider'? | TckTckTck – The 350ppm movement is doing a lot of hard work in the lead up to the talks in Copenhagen this December. "Our latest feature is a global rapid response community we launched last month, called ClimateInsider. ClimateInsider is fast becoming the new media hub that will support a digital rapid response network leading up to and during Copenhagen climate change summit." Check it out and apply to be an Insider now!
• Facebook Charity Interview Questions – Earlier this year, John Carnell created a series called Twitter Charity Interviews that has over 40 interviews with nonprofits using Twitter talking about how, why, and what they do with the micro-blogging tool. Now, John is looking to replicate the process but focus on Facebook. If you want to share the ways your organizations is using Facebook to engage with supporters, visit this link to get the questions and the submission information.
• Give to the Max Day – GiveMN – giveMN.org created Give to the Max Day as a way to kick off use of the new giving platform. It was more of a success than they expected with huge numbers of participation and donations! You can see the full results here and check out the site, too.
• Strategy stuff – a three pronged approach – "Drawing together a few discussions I have been involved in recently about the different types of documents an organisation – such as a council – might need to put together to define its approach to engaging online, I thought it might be useful to set out how I think it could be done."
• New Start Magazine: The toolkit for practitioners in regeneration, economic development & sustainable communities – "New Start is the toolkit for regeneration practitioners. It's a creative and informative magazine, but it's more than that: it's an online news service, a recruitment aid, a partner for organisations wanting to spread learning and to showcase good practice, and the place that the sector's leading thinkers use to kick-start a debate on key issues."

Learn more about 350.org and get involved in the Day of Climate Action!

Every month, a group called #4Change organizes open & lively conversations about how web-connected communities and our use of social media tools are helping to create change in the world. #4Change Chats are hosted on Twitter – Read “Join the Conversation” below for ways to jump into the discussion.

The next #4change chat is this Thursday – we hope you can join us!

Details:

• Date: Oct, 8th
• Where: Twitter (search for #4Change
• When: 2 – 4 pm US Pacific Time, 5 – 7 pm US Eastern Time, 10pm – 12am London, UK (Late!)
• Topic: How does the web & social media change the way we address climate change?

(Image from Blog Action Day – their topic this year is also climate change!)

We are at a crucial moment in time for the climate movement (and all of humanity). World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen in December to draft the next major global climate treaty – and organizations, communities, and people from every corner of the planet are stepping up to make sure this treaty gets our planet back on a sustainable path. Copenhagen is a galvanizing force that’s driving a lot of innovations and experiments – which means there’s going to be lots to discuss! Many of the questions we explore will likely also be applicable to other movements.

Starting the Conversations:

Here are some questions to consider:

• How does online discussion and networking connect with and support offline action?
• How does the web change the way we organize for climate action? What are the key ways the game gets changed?
• What role does new media & storytelling play in this space?
• What are the impact of online petitions and how can they be most effective?
• How can we help connect & empower the climate movement together using online tools? What technologies are both available & needed?
• How can the web facilitate culture shifts? As network weavers, how can we faciitate culture shifts?
• What are the top actions the social media community can take to join and support the climate movement?

And here are some examples to consider:

• TckTckTck, 350.org, Avaaz, 1Sky, Energy Action Coalition, many others – All wired organizations working to catalyze and inspire people and communities to come together and take action for the climate.
• Project Survival – Seven new media teams, one for each continent, will report on the most compelling climate stories from around the world.
• WiserEarth & WiserEarth API – Open database of over 100,000 environmental & social justice organizations anyone can search and webby folk can integrate into their site.

Join the Conversation!

1. If you want to contribute to the conversation, you’ll need to have a twitter account (it’s free).
2. To follow the conversation (whether you are planning to contribute or not), use http://search.twitter.com or another application to search on Twitter for “#4Change”
3. Jump in to the conversation by adding “#4Change” (without the “”) to your Twitter message
4. Feeling brave? Check out TweetChat – it’s a great application that integrates with your Twitter account and makes chats more fun! You can turn it off after the chat.

Rules for #4Change Chat

1. #4Change will be structured around a series of questions which all participants can respond to. Send your questions to @engagejoe to have them considered.
2. Introduce yourself in 1 tweet at the start or when you join.
3. Stay on topic!
4. Be cool.

Join us for the chat this Thursday – looking forward to discussing the role social media can play in creating a safe climate future!

Description:

Sustainability requires doing more with less, constantly learning how to get more out of every pound of material and watt of energy. The creation and communication of this knowledge occurs in social networks of relationships, empowered by social media. Join us for a discussion and exploration of how social media are being used to accelerate our transition to a global sustainable culture.

Presenters:

• Emily Gertz – Change.org
• Jon Lebkowsky – Social Web Strategies
• John McElhenney – Clear Green Technologies
• Rob Reed – Max Gladwell

What is sustainability? – Jon Lebkowsky

The ability to maintain a certain process or state.  We’re really talking about using no more resources than we can replenish.

What is social media? – Jon Lebkowsky

Blogs, wikis, social network platforms, forums, chats: aka user generated content, conversations, communities.  Publishing plust interactivity, participatory.  Low barrier to entry.  Emergent, peer to peer conversations and sharing of knowledge.  Many channels, both personal and professional.

How are the two related? – Jon Lebkowsky

Tech has radically altered production and transmission of knowlege and information.  Sustainability depends on knowledge; social media facilitate knowledge production, processing and distribution.  Human sustainability is a social construction and social media the havey equipment that supports that  consturction.  Examples:

• WorldChanging: knowledge prodution and sharing
• 350: robust advocacy
• BrightGreenLiving wiki: crowdsourced knowledge
• MyHerefordshire.com: communities of efficiency
• World Data Center for Climate: shared computational cycles
• Sustainable South Bronx: guerrilla R & D

You can mount challenges that are effective in spreading the word and making our message accessible to more people who can make their own decisions.

Who is Max Gladwell? – Rob Reed

A heroic ideal: our social and environmental problems are solvable; social entrepreneurship; information technology.  Started with mega trends of social media and green living.  The nexus of social media and green living: brands that combine the two, like good2gether, knowmore, givingpal, justmeans, causecast, kiba, ecoflip, blog action day, donorschoose, changents, wikigreen, greenhome.  Both are trying to decentralize information and resources so that they can be distributed across the world.

Green or Sustainability? – John McElhenney

Reduced operating costs, increased productivity, use less energy and water; improved health due to improved air quality; reduced environmental impact.  “Social media is just PR with new tools. One of the tools are social networks.  Within a social network, you socially network :)”

The Social Media Formula – John McElhenney

P x P / (I – M) = T

People multiplied by platform divided by an indivudal’s ability to express themselves minus misses or clash of style that degrade the community equlas trust.

How do we connect? – John McElhenney

Communities; twitter, rss, threads; in person; by affinities; passions.

Social Media Influencers: as an individual you can join forces, share ideas, communicate.
Social Media Communities: as a community of thousands we can demand accountability, ask questions, etc.

Sometimes we forget to think small enough – Emily Gertz

Not everyone has the means, opportunity, etc. to change the energy system.  They want to know what to do at home.  There are only a number of ways we could be directing people’s efforts into local efforts and promoting clean energy at home.  Big groups think too big and small groups think too small.

Examples:

• National Phrenology Network: asking people to report blooming data in their area
• The Great Sunflower Project: sign up, they send you seeds and you send in data about those feeding off the flowers
• Tweetawatt: will send out information via twitter about energy usage, on Makezine.com
• ClimatePrediction.net: allow your computer, when not in use, to be used to help scientists run predictive tests for climate change

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Follow #smfs on search.twitter.com for the real conversation from this session!

Global Giving is a website that connects you to “over 450 pre-screened grassroots charity projects around the world. It’s an efficient, transparent way to make an impact with your giving.” Global Giving Green is way to help the fight on poverty while also fighting climate change with the same gift. Many projects in the past that have targeted poverty, have also contributed to climate change.

“GlobalGiving Green is a brand new way for you to help solve that dilemma. Using a unique scientific evaluation system, we’ve carefully pre-screened initiatives that offer win-win solutions — helping people while protecting the planet.”

Find a green project and learn more about Global Giving Green!

What projects serving communities has your organization undertaken with ‘green’ in mind? Do you think organizations need more help finding ways to green their work?