Location: San Francisco, CA

Topic: Rethinking Movement Building

Description:

Technology, access to information (and misinformation) and the changing scale of communications have definitely played a role in igniting social change and affected the way we build movements. Amid all these changes, what’s the role of nonprofit organizations? This panel will discuss the larger picture of movement building, nonprofit organizations, and what we can learn about recent events that change what we do and how we interact with the world we’re trying to impact. With panelists representing various areas of experience and knowledge, discussion will include community organizing, movement building, and the role you and your organization can play in supporting social change.

Presenters:
Amy Sample Ward, Membership Director, NTEN (moderator)
Alfredo De Avila, Senior Program Associate, Applied Research Center 
Noah Flower, Director of Knowledge Management, Monitor Institute
Rashad Robinson, Executive Director, ColorOfChange

Related Links:

• CompassPoint
• Nonprofit Day
• Resources and case studies
• Hashtag: #11npd

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).

• Don’t assume everyone is offline | DavePress – "When I’m talking at events or to meetings of people within an organisation about the benefits of moving communications and engagement activity online, I often have someone put their hands up and say: 'I totally get what you are saying, Dave, but the problem is that we can’t move all this stuff online, because not everyone has access to the web.' There are two responses I usually give here. One is the most obvious and slightly boring, which is that online engagement is an as-well-as, and not an instead-of. Keep doing the offline stuff for the offline people! I might also ask at this point, however, ‘what are you doing to fix this?’. In other words, if a large number of people in an area haven’t the access or the skills to use the internet – what are local public services doing to get this fixed?"
• Kiss Malaria Goodbye – I really like the use of video and the compelling message/ask in this campaign: kiss! I wonder, though, when looking at the campaign information and actions if participants or potential-participants see the connection between responding to the ask (upload your kiss – your kiss can make it better) and the real goal of tackling Malaria? What do you think?
• Get free postage and mail books you can spare to a child in need. | The Giving Effect – I love this campaign because it makes participation easy, let's participants feel like they are making a difference but also helping directly, and can be done from anywhere. Basic elements that should be considered in any campaign. What do you think?
• HOW TO: Create Custom iFrame Tabs on Your Nonprofit’s Facebook Page – "In March 2011 Facebook disabled the popular Static FMBL App that many nonprofits had used to create custom tabs on their Facebook Pages. Rather than having their apps be based on FBML, Facebook has now switched over to iframes. Those nonprofits that have already created custom tabs using the Static FBML app will continue to be supported (not indefinitely, however), but those that want create custom tabs for the first time or switch over to iframes have a few new apps to experiment with, namely Static HTML iFrame Tabs, Static HTML for Pages, and TabPress."
• E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis … – "The truth is that everyone is, indeed, a community facilitator / manager nowadays, as you saw in a recent blog entry where I referenced Gautam’s comments along these very same lines. So I thought I would develop further on this topic, specially since, earlier on today, I bumped into a couple of rather relevant and interesting links very much connected to this topic that I am sure you would enjoy quite a bit. The first one is coming from my good friend, Gautam Ghosh, once again, who earlier on tweeted a link to a blog post that he put together in September 2010 and which, despite the months gone by already, it’s just as valid today, if not more!, than ever before. Have a look into “5 Skills for Online Community Managers” and find out what some of the community facilitator traits would be like, according to him…"

Presentation

Let’s start at the beginning: what is “community-driven social impact” anyway? All of the words probably have different meanings to each of us, but as a term, I mean programming, services, media events or campaigns that emerge from the needs, actions and involvement of the community. CDSI is not something that you thought up inside your organization, even if you thought it up with your community in mind or at heart. It means honestly that the ideas, shape and even strategy came from the community and you as the organization are the ones to support it or nurture it.

But, like many strategies or best practices, it still isn’t right for every organization. First, CDSI requires the right culture; unless your organization, board and staff are going to honor and support an idea that emerges from the community, there isn’t any point in trying to use CDSI strategies. Instead, the community will feel cheated or lied to.  It also requires capacity/staff to make connections and support the community. If there isn’t any capacity to “hear” the ideas, especially since they aren’t usually given directly, then even a well-intentioned organization won’t have what it needs to make the programs or events the community wants. Often times the community’s ideas or needs are shared in ways that require translation, of sorts—someone that can bridge the community and organization, listening to the conversations and identifying the opportunities for the organization.

What’s the foundation of CDSI? You can see CDSI in many things, and most clearly in grassroots organizing or any non-organization led action. The needs and goals of the larger community are listened to by someone or a group of people and they create opportunities for action, service, and change.  But, that doesn’t mean there isn’t real opportunity for organizations to act that part. Especially with the increased use of social media tools to help community building activity around causes or specific organizations.

So, what is that opportunity? Think of it like this:  In “Community-driven Social Impact,” the driving is up to the community; but you can act as the vehicle and event the map for those “drivers.”  Using CDSI strategies and leveraging social media, you can harness the power of the network towards your mission.

Strategy

What are those strategies? Well, you’ll find that much of the work that involves your community, whether it’s building up the community, working on engagement, listening, evaluation, or anything else, involves strategy that goes in a circle. Not exactly as simply as the goldfish, but one that after a few steps feeds back to the beginning. From listening, to creating to evaluating and then back to the listening again so that you can modify and then evaluate, and so on.

The first step: Who’s your community? What are they like: what are the demographics, the data, the stories? Where are they: which platforms or tools do they use and when do they use them? What kind of action and interaction already happens, and what actions or interaction are they looking to find? Whether it seems important in the moment or not, it’s really valuable to make a list or chart or picture, whatever you want, of all the information you have about your community. The more you list and share, the more you’ll start to see patterns or clear paths emerge.

The next step is finding the sweet spot. To do that, you first identify what your community wants to do – what it is coming together around, whether it’s an event, an action, or a movement.  Next, identify what you want to do, what your organizational goals are.  Those two “wants to do” will overlap and that gray area is the sweet spot. It’s important to remember that not everything your organization wants to do or achieve, matches up with with your community wants to do, and vice versa. The key is that that’s okay!  Maybe you provide services, and your community doesn’t want to be providing those services, but they are happy you are doing so. And maybe the community wants to endorse a specific candidate, and your organization doesn’t. But both the community and your organization want to see certain laws passed, things improved, programs created or groups supported.  That’s the sweet spot where you can count on focusing CDSI energy.

After you know who your community is and what they want to do, you probably already identified which tools they’re using. You can compare the tools they are using with the goals in the sweet spot to see if any will help reach those goals or if there are more appropriate tools to start using.  Don’t ever go for a new, shiny, cool social media platform or tool simply because you’ve heard others talking about. Know where your community is and what tools they want to use, and use those. At least if you plan on interacting with them!

Lastly, you’ll want to identify what roles are needed.  Just like throwing a party you need to have someone making food, someone pouring drinks and someone else showing people where the bathroom is.  Just because your network is excited for the party and wants to come, it does not mean that the party can just happen. Someone has to host, someone has to clean up. If your organization has the capacity to do that, there’s a great chance a good party can happen – especially if you’re willing to leave the punch and party games to the community and the natural leaders that emerge, allowing for ownership of the party’s outcome to be shared with the guests, and not just your organization.

Best Practice

That’s a pretty simple four steps for being strategic in CDSI. But what are some best practices? This is an excerpt from a blog post I wrote quite a while ago that compares the roles of gardeners and landscapers in the context of community building. The idea is that as an over all best practice, you want to strive to operate in a way that supports the natural directions of the community, without trying to shape that growth. Here are 3 ways you can operate as a gardener: no short cuts, know your community, and strive to be replaced.

The Gardener creates an ecosystem open to change, available to new groups, and full of fresh opportunities to emerge naturally.  The approach is focused on organic collaboration and growth for the entire community.  The gardener is simply there to help, cultivate, and clear the weeds if/when they poke up.

No Short Cuts

Not taking short cuts means to lead by example:  interact with the community the way you want other organizations and the community members to do.  It’s like the golden rule for community engagement.  I like this picture for this point because often mother ducks will bring up the rear, supporting the ducklings and swimming along side them, instead of shooting ahead and expecting them to keep up.

Another way to not take short cutes is to operate in public.  This means don’t build it in secret and then “launch” it  – regardless of whether it’s an online space, a program or a campaign. If it is really something that is coming from the community, you can’t just take the idea and run; you’ll want to co-create it from idea to implementation.

Lastly, not taking short cutes means asking for feedback and participation from the start. As I said earlier, often the ideas you have come from conversations or learning about the community and not from a specific recommendation (though you may get some of those, too!). So, you’ll want to share what you’re learning and thinking in  real time back to the community so you can find out if you’re right on, or way off the path.

Know Your Community

Knowing your community. Part of doing this well is letting your community know itself. That means don’t take credit where it isn’t yours, highlight the leaders and contributors in the community, and making connections across the network.

Knowing your community also means knowing your role in the ecosystem. It’s important, as I mentioned earlier in the strategy steps, to identify what your role or roles are as the organization and stick to them. Once you start spreading out, you squeeze out room for others to grow and develop or even to explore what’s possible.

Knowing your community also means you help it grow. Sometimes that means making mistakes. Hopefully they are tiny and harmless, and that you’re there to learn alongside the community.  But, it’s just to say that you are in it just like the community is, and not everything we try in life works smoothly. Instead, design for growth and sustainability from the start with lots of room for feedback, evaluation and iterations to continue developing and redeveloping.

Strive to Be Replaced

Striving to be replaced can be a tough one for most everyone. It isn’t exactly in our nature but it is key to the ethos of a community builder. One way to work on supporting your community to not need you managing the program, platform, or whatever else is to encourage interaction without you. This touches back on letting the community know itself. If you’re making connections and supporting conversations across the network, you’re helping the community create strong ties that will not require your time and energy to maintain.

Striving to be replaced also means rewarding and spotlighting leaders. Positive reinforcement is one of the best leadership development practices you can build into your work across the board, whether it’s online or offline, on your facebook page, newsletter, annual fundraiser or neighborhood events.

Lastly, the only way you can really operate in a way that prepares your community to take over for you is to share your toolbox. This is a lot like operating in public but that you are sharing the tools you use and the strategies you use. You can model behavior all you want but if no one can tell what tools you are using to be so successful, there’s no way they can jump in and help man the ship.

Case Studies

Events: NetSquared Camps

Community Driven Social Impact strategies for events – let’s look at the NetSquared Camps pilot. NetSquared had for a few years held a global conference in donated space in Silicon Valley and invited members of the community from around the world to come together offline to learn and share and build.  It was great; the community loved it. Well, they loved the chance to get together offline and build things together, learn from each other and so on. They didn’t love when the government wouldn’t give them a visa to visit the states, or when the costs for international travel around the whole world were too expensive. So, we started listening and asking questions to learn more about what they really liked and what they didn’t need from the old model. And in collaboration with our NetSquared Local organizers, we created and launched the Camps pilot which allows Local organizers to opt-in, receive support and a bit of funding, and get all of our resources and branding to hold regional events that create the same opportunities for convening and collaborating as the global conference did, but without the high costs for travel and logistics.

Campaigns: 350.org

350.Org is a terrific example of a CDSI campaign. When it emerged from the community, it wasn’t an organization at all but a group of people uniting under the call for 350PPM actions and legislation. Using 350 they rallied supporters around the world and it eventually became clear that longer-term “organizational” management could mean more integrated and impacting work from the community.

Media: Connectipedia.org

An example of CDSI media is connectipedia. This resource for funders, organizations and government agencies in the Pacific Northwest was created by the Meyer Memorial Trust in response to the need to capture, share, and retain knowledge from program officers and nonprofit staff that retired their experiences and knowledge with them when they retired from work.

Workshop

Now for the Social by Social game! I created this game in collaboration with my Social by Social co-authors, David Wilcox and Andy Gibson. We’ve modified it and created various versions, depending on whether it was to be played within one organization or with a group (like at the NTC), in just 45 minutes or over a longer period, and so on. This is the abbreviated version and I’m happy to work with you if you’d like to explore other iterations of the game that you can use with your organization.

Step 1

Be sure everyone has a playing surface:

We are going to start in the top left of your grid. You’re going to have about 5-10 minutes for this section so don’t feel rushed. Write down anything and everything you can about your community. As people start to finish at your table, start sharing what you wrote with each other as you’ll probably start to think of more things to add!

Step 2

Great! Now, let’s work on finding the sweet spot! Use the upper right corner of your handout to start identifying the goals shared by you and your community. Again, I’ll ask that you share these with each other as you start to finish.

Step 3

This next part is where it gets fun. I’m handing out cards to each table and you’ll need to share around. These are just to get you thinking so if there is a tool you want to use, you’ll see there are blank cards too.  The numbers represent the level of capacity needed to use the tool, and for the use in this game, I’m going to ask that you use 10 or less so that it’s realistic. Again, feel free to discuss at the table both if you have questions about the tools and which ones you’re choosing.

Step 4

The last section of the grid is for roles. I’m passing out another set of cards to help get you thinking about the roles you may need but note there are always options for other ideas.

Now, I hope that going through that exercise helps you create a framework for talking about projects and ideas, and reinforces that you can in fact discuss social media and technology tools in a strategic way – so long as you put the community and your goals first! We (those in our organizations passionate about technology) also, often, don’t have a way into conversations with people in other departments or with organizational leadership; this process can help you ensure that you can start those conversations by putting the goals and community that everyone in the organization is working towards and with at the forefront of your appeal.

Thanks again to everyone who participated at the NTC! If you’d like to use the game, just let me know and I can help you adapt it for your group!

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Topic: Keynote

Description:  When it comes to nonprofit technology, successful strategy and implementation can mean the difference between staying current and getting left behind. Nonprofit leaders need to keep up with the constantly changing techcomm environment by remaining curious, flexible and ever able to adapt. As technology advances, the demand for personalization increases. At the same time, however, your messaging will likely reach a broader audience than ever before, leaving the question: What is the balance between individualization and generalization? This year’s Nonprofit Technology and Communications Conference will delve into how to design the right eStrategy in today’s iWorld to build an engaged audience for your nonprofit. At the conference, you’ll have no shortage of opportunities to learn, network, share, and have some fun. You will walk away with real tools and ideas to keep your nonprofit nimble and resilient moving forward.

Related Links:

• Conference website
• Registration
• MCMN
• Slides
• Keynote address

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).

• Social Citizens Blog | Immerse. Converse. Disperse. – "This interview is part of our "Social Citizen Sightings" series, in which we highlight how people are using their creativity, idealism, and digital fluency to support their causes every day. Milena Arciszewski is 26. She enjoys camping, reading, adventure travel, and clean socks… and I should mention is starting a nonprofit called Pando Projects. Pando Projects is a nonprofit that empowers people—in particular Millennials—to step up as leaders and develop new, local solutions to the problems in their communities. The initiative seeks to support ordinary people in accomplishing extraordinary things by helping them to tackle national and global challenges. By providing tools and support for people with ideas, the group hopes to empower Americans to change the world, one project at a time. The pilot phase launches this month and will support 15 New Yorkers with ideas for grassroots projects."
• What’s in a word: Abundance, capacity, resource, network and community » ext337 – I really like this post from Marnie Webb, sharing her internal conflict working on the difference between words, like network and community. It's something that I try to tackle by having a clear personal definition, for my own word choice. But that doesn't mean everyone else sees the world, and words, the way I do. What do you think? How do you define the words Marnie highlights (networks, community, abundance, resources)?
• Internet Fame and the True Impact of Influence — SocialFish – "You may be aware that there is a big debate going on in the social media blogosphere about “influence”. We’re all familiar with the mantra that we should be out there leveraging influencers in our communities in order to get the word out about our causes, brands or services… and that makes total sense from a generating-word-of-mouth point of view. But hold on. If you’re trying to do this, and you don’t actually know who your industry influencers are (perhaps because you’re not really immersed in your own open community, or because your community is too large or public-facing to be able to list your champions in an organic way), and you’re looking at some tools out there that purport to measure influence…. maybe you’re starting to think “this is not as easy as it sounds.” Maybe you’re starting to think that influence is not about how many followers someone has on Twitter. Maybe you’re starting to think that “influencer scores” are totally meaningless for your goals and objectives."
• How to connect with your community in 8 words or less | Case Foundation – "What’s the relationship between an organization’s tagline and its strategy? When we announced the winners of this year’s GettingAttention.org’s Nonprofit Tagline Awards (The Taggies), a bit of a debate unfolded about the connection between tagline and strategy. Fundraiser and blogger Chuck English asserted that a tagline is nothing but a tool, and that approaching it otherwise diverts organizations from the critical work of strategy. In response, Katya Andresen, COO at Network for Good, commented, “Taglines are a great test of your strategy. You can't have a clear tagline if you don't have a clear sense of 1) your mission; 2) what is special about your organization; and 3) what your audience cares about.” I couldn’t agree more with Katya. And I was glad to see Chuck raise the issue."
• PayPal and Oxfam offer 100% giving for February | UK Fundraising – "Throughout February PayPal will cover Oxfam's running costs for all donations to Oxfam via PayPal. The organisations describe the "100% giving" campaign as "a completely new form of charity giving in the UK". They claim that "it is the first time a charity has offered a donation scheme in which it is guaranteed that 100% of your donation will go directly to the cause because a corporate partner is paying the running costs"."
• Philanthro-teens delving into nonprofit world – Crain’s New York Business – "In the past year, 79% of girls in the United States have contributed food or clothing, 53% have given their own money, and 66% have asked family or friends to give or volunteer, according to research commissioned by the United Nations Foundation. Today's teens also plan to be generous when they get older. More than 75% say they will regularly give to charity, versus 63% in 1989, according to a nationwide survey by the Girl Scout Research Institute of 3,263 students in grades three through 12."

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).

• Official Google Blog: Explore museums and great works of art in the Google Art Project – Take yourself on an art tour using Google Maps! "One of the things I love about working at Google is that you can come up with an idea one day and the next day start getting to work to make it a reality. That's what happened with the Art Project—a new tool we're announcing today which puts more than 1,000 works of art at your fingertips, in extraordinary detail."
• [Book Interview] Nonprofit Example of Social Media Excellence: National Wildlife Federation – Here is a terrific interview with my friend and colleague Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Federation – she discusses both the tools she uses and the lessons she's learned from managing the social media presence for the NWF. One of the highlights: she notes that they would not have had such success in raising money online if they had not already invested in building up a community of active supporters.
• How Journalists Are Using Social Media to Report on the Egyptian Demonstrations – "The demonstrations are continuing despite the government’s attempts to block communications channels, including the Internet, SMS, TV broadcast by journalists, and mobile networks. Pundits have been weighing in on the role of social media in sparking the uprising, and whether it is a necessary ingredient in accelerating modern revolutions or simply an over-hyped notion. In some respects, the attempt to block communication has done little to stifle reports coming out of the country. Though much of the citizenry isn’t able to broadcast themselves, their stories are being told and amplified by reporters. What’s interesting is that the information flowing out is a hybrid of the “old school” reliance on reports from journalists on location and “new school” amplification through the social web."
• A Devaluation of "Friends" May Be Driving Trust in Thought Leaders – Steve Rubel – "This morning in Davos our CEO Richard Edelman unveiled the key findings of the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer – an annual survey. There's a lot to dig into here. However, I want to highlight three data points that underscore a critical theme that my colleague David Armano and I detailed in our recent trends deck. The takeaway: to stand out in a very cluttered media world, organizations must increasingly activate their internal subject matter experts as thought leaders and do so across several spheres of media – traditional (WSJ, CNN, etc.), Internet upstarts (eg Business Insider, Politico), corporate/owned platforms and social."
• The Battle Against Info-Overload: Is Relevance or Popularity the Best Filter? – "The rise of social media has led to an exponential proliferation of content online and widespread demand for tools to filter that information. Popularity and relevance are the most common metrics through which to filter that content – but are they the best? We asked three people building cutting-edge social software what they think the relationship between relevance, popularity and filtering is going to be in the future. They offered three very different responses. What do you think the future of information filtering will look like?"

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).

• Social Media: A Bubble About to Burst – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – "Are your nonprofit staffers addicted to social media? Do they feel that one day Twitter and Facebook are going to bring in the big bucks and build a huge base of activists that will come to your organization’s rescue when you need their help the most? Perhaps around passing one of the most important legislative bills in your organization’s history? Well, I wish you lots of luck and good fortune." Great piece from Allyson Kapin reminding readers that social media is "part of" a strategy. We know that tools (aka tactics) are what help us implement a strategy, not what it is built around. So we need to remember that with social media!
• Love of Philanthropy Photo Contest « Vivanista | Living Well. Doing Good. – "Join Vivanista in sharing the love of philanthropy by participating in our Love of Philanthropy photo contest that showcases images of what it means to be philanthropic." Great example of digital storytelling and community engagement. Check it out and submit a photo yourself!
• Admitting Failure – "“All my successes have been built on my failures.” – Benjamin Disraeli Human and economic development are complex. Progress requires testing, trialing and constant iteration – in short, many failures. This site is an open space for those in the international development community who want to honestly and publicly share their failures. It is a conversation and it is an archive. It aims to create a culture in the broader international development community where failure is embraced."
• Twitter’s Response to WikiLeaks Subpoena Should Be the Industry Standard | Threat Level | Wired.com – "Twitter introduced a new feature last month without telling anyone about it, and the rest of the tech world should take note and come up with their own version of it. Twitter beta-tested a spine."
• Apple’s Disdain for Philanthropy Hurts Society – Opinion – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – "Holiday season is always a time for giving—but not on your iPhone. That’s because Apple doesn’t allow nonprofits or other organizations to include a direct donation system in the phone’s applications, so the only way to give is to go to a charity’s Web site, a cumbersome process with a small phone-size keyboard. The only question: Is it a mere glitch or a natural extension of Apple’s policy that is generally indifferent to nonprofits and philanthropy? The company’s policies toward philanthropy and nonprofits are growing increasingly problematic as Apple products become an ever larger part of our media and communications landscape."

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).

• Bernholz: Why Juno, Facebook and the rest won't change everything | Voluntary Sector Network | guardian.co.uk – "I recently asked "If this was as interesting as it gets for the web and philanthropy?" We tend to get very excited about new technologies, many of us love the latest gadgets, and we often associate the "web" with "new and different". But the reality is, as Clay Shirky has written, that these tools "don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring". The embedding of knowledge sharing into online social networks such as on Facebook or the recently launched Jumo may be technologically 'iterative', but in terms of how we give, they may actually be a step backward."
• Engagement Ladders: Building Supporter Power – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – "We, as social change organizations, exist to enable the power of our supporters. That is how change happens. Through getting thousands of people to take mass action. Through getting one person to pressure a decision maker. It is the power of our supporters, collective or individual, that we are trying to enable. That's why social change organizations exist–to leverage supporter power over time. We need to know the best way to use that power. Part of it is strategy–what kinds of actions need to happen? Marches? Politics? Direct service? And part of it is knowing what power our supporters possess so they can help us get those strategies enacted."
• The Zoetica Salon: A Peer Learning Community for Nonprofits and Social Media | Beth’s Blog – "I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be co-hosting The Zoetica Salon on my Facebook Page with my Zoetica colleagues, Geoff Livingston, Kami Huyse, and Julie Pippert (the newest Zoetican) where almost 7,000 nonprofit leaders have been engaging in informal peer learning about nonprofits and social media. Our intent is to provide a space for just-in-time answers and share best practices at no charge."
• Facebook Co-Founder Launches Social Network for Social Good, Jumo [IMAGE] – "Today, users can start connecting with all their favorite social causes in one online sphere, as Facebook Co-founder Chris Hughes has launched his much-buzzed-about social network, Jumo." Have you tried Jumo? What do you think?
• Gates funded ViewChange.org launches to showcase development success | Future:Media:Change – "The Gates Foundation is continuing their promotion of stories of global development success through the launch of ViewChange.org this week. The multimedia platform is managed by Link TV and utilizes a back catalog of development-related videos as well as new content procured for the site. The website highlights progress in reducing hunger, poverty and disease in developing nations and is part of the Gates’ broader, “ Living Proof” campaign."
• Scanning for Good – How Nonprofits Can Use QR Codes | NetWitsThinkTank.com – "I’m sure you’ve noticed QR codes by now – those funny little black and white squares that are appearing on posters, business cards, and event lanyards everywhere. These next-gen bar codes are most often used by marketers who want to link to a website or landing page from a visual appeal. If you’re looking for a fun, interactive, easy-to-implement hook for your nonprofit’s next campaign, you might want to check out QR codes."

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).

• Understanding Facebook Places Functionality Opens Possibilities | Community Organizer 2.0 – Debra has a great post walking through the steps to setting up, using, and understanding Facebook’s new geo-social tool, Places. Thanks, Debra, for a thorough guide!
• Is online community engagement “real” « Bang the Table – This is a great conversation starter and thinking piece about community engagement, not just online community. “I am sometimes confronted by a prejudice in my travels; that the relationships developed through online community engagement are less real than those created via face-to-face engagement processes. Like most prejudices I believe it is based on fear and misunderstanding. Earlier this week I was lucky enough to be asked to chair a mini-conference in Sydney about Interactive Community Engagement for the Public Sector. While there were many interesting and engaging presentations one particularly stood out for me because of the challenge it presented to online engagement methodology.”
• RSA – Connected Communities – “Traditional approaches to community regeneration which define communities in solely geographic terms have severe limitations. They often failed to deliver on key social capital improvements such as improving trust between residents or fostering a greater sense of belonging. In this report we argue for a new approach to community regeneration, based on an understanding of the importance of social networks, such an approach has the potential to bring about significant improvements in efforts to combat isolation and to support the development of resilient and empowered communities.”
• Internet Founder Tim Berners-Lee Details 4 Concerns About Future of Mobile Web (Nokia World 2010) – “This morning at Nokia World 2010 in London, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, widely known as the inventor of the Web, addressed the audience in a keynote speech where he spoke about the future of mobile technology, including both the positive impacts it brings as well as the areas of concerns. After encouraging developers to build for the Web, so as to deliver applications that work on all types of devices, even the ones that haven’t been invented yet, he then proceeded to detail areas which need addressing, specifically privacy, accountability, network neutrality and the 80% of the world that doesn’t have access to the World Wide Web.”
• How Useful is Social Media to Nonprofits?  – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – No matter where you look, social media is on everyone’s radar. The big question nonprofits ask is, how useful is social media? In an attempt to help nonprofits answer that question, Idealware, in partnership with NOI, recently released “The Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide.”