Tag Archive for 'socialchange'

Change.org Rings in New Year with More Ways to Make Change

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on January 2, 2009
in socialchange and webtools
. 0 Comments

Today, Change.org launches 7 new community areas.  The new blogs which include:

This brings the total number of cause areas featured in Change.org up to 19!  I’m really excited about the new additions but am most excited about Change.org’s realignment process which started last summer and is continuing to take shape.

Change.org integrated all nonprofit pages and actions into affiliated cause areas so that investigating an area of interest to you is much easier, and taking actions to support the cause (whether that’s supporting an organization working in the field, pledging to make a change or take action, or donating money or time) are available to you when you visit your cause area to read news, and so on.  I think it helps empower individuals to get more involved in a meaningful way (instead of leaving the site because there are too many other things going on, they can zoom in on the one area they are interested in).

How do you use Change.org?  What do you think of the platform, the cause areas, or the actions?  How would you change it or which cause areas would you add next?

What is NPTech?

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on December 12, 2008
in community and events
. 0 Comments

Yesterday I had a very fun opportunity to be one of the speakers for Mark Your Mark’s Social Media Afternoon, a casual event for staff members to come together to learn about and discuss ideas, trends, tools and more relating to social media.  I answered, very briefly, the question, “What is NPTech?”

Here are my slides:

MakeYourMark-NPTech

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: change media)

To share or not to share

The main conversation focused on publicly sharing information vs trying to keep information private (whether it’s reports, data, strategy or even success/failure of projects/campaigns).  Some conversations point include:

  • The culture of sharing in the NPTech community is what creates the most value
  • Everyone wins when you share, discuss, create opportunities to learn
  • Mistakes are the most important part of charting new territory, need to talk about them
  • Sharing takes place formally and informally: presentations at conferences or in reports, online in blogs, in collaborative spaces like wiki, webinars, and so on
  • Keeping information private means lots of groups reinvent the wheel without knowing it
  • Not talking about mistakes mean more and more time, capacity, and money wasted with groups doing the same things wrong

Why social change fits with social media

Social change relies on communities coming together (whether they are geographic, issue, cause, or characteristic based) to make a profound difference on our world.  Social media allows people to come together online in new ways; the tools are only useful, fun, and successful when used as part of a community (how fun is it to use Facebook without any friends?).  Thus, tools that create community are great for communities making change.

Twitter

During the presentation, I was asked about Twitter; specifically what tools I like to use.  I get this question a lot.  My two main Twitter tools are:

  • Twhirl:  I like Twhirl because I can launch a window for both my personal and organizational accounts at the same time, let it run and update constantly whether I am reading it or not (unlike having to visit and then refresh a browser over and over), and let it alert me to replies, direct messages, etc. so I can be as much a part of the conversation as I want throughout the day.
  • Tweetscan:  Sometimes I’m just too busy to give Twitter all the attention it may want :) That’s why I like Tweetscan.  I can set up alerts for different words, like Google Alerts, and have it email me a round up so I can reply when I need to and not miss important opportunities to connect other users to information I may have.

Would have loved to have you all there for Social Media Afternoon!

Let’s keep the conversation going here - what do you think about the world of NPTech (the community that has made a tag a self-identifier) or about social media and social change?

Nonprofit Blog Exchange: Reflections on Blog Action Day

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 24, 2008
in blogging and community
. 2 Comments

As part of the Nonprofit Blog Exchange, I visited the Social Butterfly blog recently - the Nonprofit Blog Exchange connects bloggers in an effort to expand the sphere of readership and exposure (to learn more, check it out).

I was already familiar with the blog, and Social Butterfly’s twitter, too.  But, I realized the blog wasn’t in my RSS reader and thus I was missing many wonderful posts!  I suggest that if you are interested in social media, marketing, and the intersection of the two, you subscribe as well.

Social Butterfly’s post about Blog Action Day, really caught my eye.  Here’s how it begins:

What is poverty?

In researching the answer to this question, I couldn’t escape the purpose behind a campaign by the Association of Public Health Schools and the Pfizer Foundation recently created called “What is public health?” This campaign works to better brand ‘public health’ to the public, while also raising awareness, education and encouraging participation in the public health conversation. Participants are asked to put red “This is public health stickers” on items that they feel represent public health. My challenge: What would this look like if the question: “What is poverty?” was asked?

I read on, and encourage you to as well, but that question stuck in my head.  If we were going to try to put a sticker on everything that labeled it as, “This is Poverty,” how would we even begin? The definition of poverty, or at least as we think of it in public service work and public policy, is so vast and multifaceted.  The number of stickers we would need is unbelievable!

Then, as if she was reading my thoughts, I saw this tweet from my friend Audrey:

spinnerin:  Frustrated by people’s tendency to talk for everyone outside developed countries as though we know exactly what they need.

It’s such a fitting point.  When I first started thinking about sticking those “This is Poverty” stickers on things, I started thinking with my home town first, then my home state, and home country.  After that, I started thinking about London, and the UK as I’m now based here and learning a great deal about the world as it is here.  But to start thinking about puting those stickers on things in developing countries was almost unfair.  I can think of many things to put those stickers on, but I don’t live there every day nor do I face or even really understand the real issues, and definitions of poverty as they exist in developing countries.  By putting a sticker on those things, the issues as we see them from elsewhere, are we even setting the stage for help and change?

How do we first get the people IN poverty, to label things with these metaphoric and real stickers of “This is Poverty” so that help can be defined and created most effectively?

Thanks, Social Butterfly for giving me a moment to relfect on my own post from Blog Action Day, and rediscover your wonderful blog!  And, thanks to the Nonprofit Blog Exchange for connecting us!

Social Actions launches plug-in for bloggers!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on July 31, 2008
in blogging and socialchange
. 9 Comments

Social Actions helps individuals and organizations use social media to plan, implement, and support peer-to-peer social change campaigns so that grassroots solutions to local and global problems can flourish.  I have blogged about them before (and am involved as a project mentor), most recently here.

Today, Social Actions launched a plug-in for Wordpress bloggers that will place ‘possibly related classroom projects’ from DonorsChoose.org at the bottom of posts, so that readers can find opportunities to take action to help classrooms around the world.  DonorsChoose.org “is a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack. At this not-for-profit web site, teachers submit project proposals for materials or experiences their students need to learn. These ideas become classroom reality when concerned individuals, whom we call Citizen Philanthropists, choose projects to fund.”

Social Action Labs, Lead Programmer, Eric Cooper, really did a lot to make this happen and deserves lots of props.  So does Joe Solomon and Peter Deitz from Social Actions, as well as the rest of the crew.

If you have Wordpress, why not check it out!  I will be installing it tonight and you can watch the blog here to see it live in action!  I’d love to hear your feedback about the new plug-in and ideas for other ways Social Actions Labs can be working to build actionable content you and your organization can use!  Learn more on the Social Actions website.