A community-led project, providing space to meet and network, all to create a cooperative learning environment and foster outreach, education, fundraising, all in a virtual environment.
As we mentioned on the blog, TechSoup’s online community staffers along with expert consultants presented at the NSAC (National Sexual Assault Conference) hosted by CALCASA (California Coalition Against Sexual Assault). The five of us social media “chefs” set up our TechSoup social media kitchen at the conference lounge, where folks could drop-in during the conference and get one-on-one help with their social media questions.
Day 2 was a presentation from Jessica Dally, Evonne Heyning, Susan Tenby, and I on Multimedia Storytelling and Events where we explored the importance of telling your story in a compelling way to engage users with your cause. Evonne gave several examples of anti-violence groups, such as The Girl Effect and We End Violence that have effectively used video to tell their story in a compelling way. Many conference-goers noted the terrific posters on display from We End Violence that took a direct approach, with a touch of humor to bring attention to an important issue.
Helping out in the TechSoup kitchen was a terrific opportunity for us to meet with nonprofit workers in person and really get a sense of the kinds of issues that they are dealing with in their every day work. We addressed a range of questions from, “How do I get Twitter and Facebook to connect with one another?” to “Should you have a public Facebook page when privacy and confidentiality are big concerns?” to “What’s the best way to collaborate online with a group of people?” I also let folks know about a free resource they might not know about, the TechSoup forums, which is open to anyone to post technology questions anytime and get expert answers.
Had a great time at the Common Grounds tonight, dancing and networking with other NPSL tenants. The theme was “Stripes”; and everyone showed up looking their stripingly best!
Zinnia brought up a great question: how can we best share our successes in SL with each other? Of course parties like Common Grounds are always good, but we need to think of more ways to include our peers in other countries and vastly different time zones. Some ideas thrown out there were more community events at various times to accommodate the different times zones, weekly meditation, yoga or tai chi gatherings. We can also use the written word to share our news – post it on the NPSL facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/nonprofitcommons) or write about it on this blog. And how about a Linked In group? All great ideas! If you can think of anything else, bring it up during open mic at a Friday meeting.
TechSoup’s Nonprofit Commons in Second Life have been great at bringing people together to network, share, and learn about technology and how it can enhance their nonprofit work.
TechSoup has answered the community’s technology questions via telephone, email, and on TechSoup’s forums. This has also begun to occur on TechSoup’s social media sites such as their Linked In and Facebook group.
In keeping with this tradition, we have decided to experiment with having TechSoup Technology Help Desk Office Hours inside Second Life.
Basically, this is Tech Support not just for Second Life related questions, but for any technology involving TechSoup members and the TechSoup community. This can include basic help with social media as well.
I have been holding these office hours regularly for a couple of weeks and it appears that between 4-6pm Pacific Time has been ideal so far. But, suggestions will be taken into consideration on when this should be happening.
So, feel free to stop by and ask questions about the technology that serves your organization’s needs today. I
f we don’t know the answer, we will make sure to get you to someone who does. You can help us get the word out to other organizations about the availability of this service.
Examples of questions you can ask us:
How do I find information about building a good Website for my organization?
Are there any good calendar solutions available for free out there?
How can I get in touch with someone that will help me figure out how to install MS Office that I bought from TechSoup?
To see a list of topics that you can discuss on TechSoup’s forums, click here.
This week the @NPSL leaders are speaking at the National Sexual Assault Conference hosted by @CALCASA in Hollywood, CA. Susan Tenby and Megan Keane are on a panel with Janet Fouts today on LISTENING online, engaging through finding, hearing and connecting with your greater audience.
There are presenters and exhibitors here from state and government agencies, nonprofits and technology service providers assisting the domestic violence and sexual assault agencies around the United States. Some use very unusual methods to get their stories across.
Tomorrow Jessica Dally, Megan Keane, Susan Tenby and Evonne Heyning will be leading a panel at 8:30AM Thursday on storytelling across many media channels online. We look forward to sharing tools and tips with this audience and sharing them with you! We are doing a mixed reality tour today at 2PM with Buffy Beale inworld if you’d like to join us here #NSAC.
Events this week:
Mixed Reality Tour led by Buffy Beale!
Wednesday September 1st at 2PM PST from 2010 National Sexual Assault Conference (NSAC)
in Hollywood CA. Follow @calcasa and the #nsac hashtag on Twitter http://calcasa.org/nsac/
8:30AM Friday meeting at the Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheatre
Join us this FRIDAY AM for Meet Your Neighbor with new tenants Laura24 Kiranov of HorseNet and MacZ Urbanowicz with Global PlanIt, along with a recap from the NSAC Conference and more on the NPC Wiki as we build it together at http://bit.ly/nonprofitcommons
Last week at the NPC:
Rik from Global Kids (Rik Riel inSL) shared approaches to transitioning 16 & 17 year olds into the adult grid, use of PG sims for youth-friendly zones and combining sims with allied organizations. There was consensus that we want to invite youth to participate at NPC and create some sort of portal space for new teen tenants. Denise Harrison at NPC wrote a great article on this shift for teen educational programming: http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/08/30/k-12-groups-stranded-in-second…
Sandra Andrews spoke about Amy Sample Ward and Netsquared’s work with the Community Organizers Handbook (Ozma Malibu inSL), now available on the web at http://organizershandbook.wikispaces.com/
Layal (Ninlil Xentiltat inSL) spoke to the desire of many organizations to create office hours, and Tina Walker has been working with her on the wiki to track office hours and avatars available.
Penguin and the web team have been hard at work bringing on new bloggers and helping to train, with help from Ninlil on Flickr and In Kenzo on the content. New bloggers are welcome to add pieces on upcoming events, opportunities of interest, inworld meetups relevant to our work at NPC.
Penguin, Glitteractica, Kali and In Kenzo will be at the NSAC Conference with @CALCASA sharing social media secrets for nonprofit organizations along with mixed reality tours on September 1st.
Reminder: Submit your Projects to the FACT Social Justice Challenge at NetSquared
The French American Charitable Trust (FACT) and NetSquared are pleased to announce the second annual FACT Social Justice Awards. Submissions are now open for your innovative Projects that leverage web and/or mobile technologies to foster collaboration around social justice issues. Learn more about the Challenge and how to participate here: http://netsquared.org/challenges/fact-social-justice-2010
Classes:
Builders Brewery – BUILDING FLOWERS AND PLANTS, CLASS 1
4:00 AM SLT
Instructor: Ishtar Roussel
Builders Brewery, Dockside
In class one we will make a group of wild roses or similar type flower. You will learn how to choose quality textures for your plant making, how to use cam controls to help with plant making, how to apply textures to the faces of the prims, how to make your flowers flexible, how to arrange the prims to form the plant shape, and how to add wind to make the flowers move slightly in the breeze.
This class is suitable for people who are new to building, and we will move at a gentle pace. It is not suitable for anyone who is not yet familiar with the controls in their viewer.
An Easy Inworld Tip:
Snapshots from inworld events can be sent directly to your favorite photo service via email address – send to email when taking a snapshot by grabbing the custom URL from Flickr or your photo host. Don’t forget to tag your photos #NPSL so we can find them.
The Nonprofit Commons is excited to let you know about the FACTChallenge for the FACT Social Justice Awards.
The French American Charitable Trust (FACT) and NetSquared are pleased to announce the second annual FACT Social Justice Awards. Submissions are now open for your innovative Projects that leverage web and/or mobile technologies to foster collaboration around social justice issues. Learn more about the Challenge and how to participate below.
About the FACTChallenge
FACT is committed to addressing the fundamental inequalities and injustices in our society by helping develop and sustain networks of community-based groups in the U.S. and France that educate, organize, and empower people to actively participate in developing public policies that directly affect their lives.
Our Challenge theme this year is “Collaborate for Social Justice.”
We chose this theme because beneath all the new platforms, widgets, tools, social media, and innovative products lies the potential for people to collaborate in new ways with one another.
The FACT Challenge seeks to surface innovative Projects that leverage web and/or mobile technologies that foster collaboration around social justice issues.
How to Participate
SHARE: Let your friends, colleagues, and networks know about this opportunity to profile ideas and find collaborators!
SUBMIT: Submissions are now open – submit your Project today!
SUPPORT: Even if you don’t have a Project to submit, your feedback and comments will help other Projects improve – get ready to share!
Learn More
Visit the FACT Challenge pages below for more information:
I just attended TechSoup’s latest free Webinar: Online Collaboration Tools, steamed live at the Plush amphitheater. Speakers were Jon Warnow from 350.org, Jay Boren & Ronald Ho from Google.
First, 350.org: Jon talked about some of the tools his org relied upon to pull off large scale offline events. Last year they held 352 events in a sing day of action. Main points:
Event organization must be done “in the cloud” to allow collaboration & productivity when traveling.
Skype for communication, planning.
Dropbox filesharing. Stores files in the cloud and on your computer…all team members can access from any location. Also uses democracy.org, Salsa platform (browser-based organizing/constituent tools), and Flickr, of course, to organize their thousands of photos.
Next up – Google Apps: free communication, collaboration and publishing tools. (Free for orgs with up to 50 staff). Their goal is to make collaboration easy and run “in the clouds” so anyone can access. (Wow, ‘in the clouds’ is certainly the phrase du jour!)
Note: Jay Boren authors monthly newsletter for nonprofits on Google resources; sign up info is here: http://www.google.com/nonprofits/
Google Docs: free, secure file creation and storage! Can edit files anywhere there is internet access. Can select who can access/edit. Can bulk upload to your computer/server.
Google Calendars: share calendars, access remotely
Google Mail (Gmail): can have custom .org email for all staff
Google Sites: Can use for secure company Intranets and easily create rich websites. Easy form creation. Ideas for form use: Silent Auction, Constituent registration, question/feedback
All apps are mobile as well, so you can access your stuff while on the go. Comprehensive tutorials and training are provided for all google apps.
Events this week: 8:30AM Friday meeting at the Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheatre http://bit.ly/nonprofitcommons will give you a direct teleport to our main gathering area
Wharf Ratz happens Tuesday nights at Aloft Nonprofit Commons, northern side wharf with Brena Benoir and Coughran Mayo!
WEBINAR: Online Collaboration Tools Thursday, August 26, 11 am Pacific time at the Plush Amphitheatre
It doesn’t matter if your organization is large or small, or if you have a complex network or have no server at all. Knowing about online collaboration tools can help organizations and individuals be more effective, for less money, especially when your staff is not located in one central location.
In this free webinar, Kami Griffiths will interview Jon Warnow from 350.org to learn about the tools that they use to accomplish their mission specifically Google Apps, Skype and Salsa Labs-Democracy in Action. We’ll also hear from Jay Boren, from Google, who will provide more information about Google Apps and the ways that nonprofits and libraries can take advantage of this suite of free tools.
Last week at the NPC:
Megan at TechSoup (Penguin Kuhn inSL) announced changes to the blogging system on www.nonprofitcommons.org and invited our tenants and community members to get involved as bloggers. Talk to Megan if you would like more information on how to become a blogger!
Layal (Ninlil Xentiltat inSL) shared progress with the Community Gateway project, soon to be installed but also decommissioned as an official gateway as Linden Lab is discontinuing the focused orientation program.
Evonne (In Kenzo inSL) introduced the estate managers on each sim and opened the door for new estate managers to join our team on ECO Commons. We are working with the Anshe Chung team to place new estate managers on Plush while updating our lists for the NPCHelp Desk.
Jessica (Kali Izdiak inSL) introduced the Field Trip idea for visiting other sims with our community, a mix of good building inspiration and fun exploring new places.
Glitteractica Cookie will be away for a few more days and Kali, InK, Ninlil and Penguin can assist any tenants by emailing nonprofitcommons@techsoup.org
Submit your Projects to the FACT Social Justice Challenge at NetSquared
The French American Charitable Trust (FACT) and NetSquared are pleased to announce the second annual FACT Social Justice Awards. Submissions are now open for your innovative Projects that leverage web and/or mobile technologies to foster collaboration around social justice issues. Learn more about the Challenge and how to participate here: http://netsquared.org/challenges/fact-social-justice-2010
Classes: August 26th at 1PM with Builders Brewery: 1:00 PM SLT
PUTTING IT TOGETHER WHEN BUILDING A HOUSE (or office)
Instructor: Auryn Beorn at Builders Brewery, Dockside
When we build a house, it’s common wanting to add some nice features, as doors that open/close remaining linked to the main build, having a controller that allows us to tint the windows or setting lights ON/OFF. So let’s put it all together in this class, and build a fully featured house. Class length: 90 minutes. Prerequisites: Editing and linking prims, editing scripts.
In case you missed: The Digital Catalog was released by TechSoup Global recently featuring all services and stock available to nonprofits! Visit the Digital Catalog at http://home.techsoup.org/pages/catalog.aspx
Thank you for your contributions to the Nonprofit Commons! For questions contact nonprofitcommons@techsoup.org for fastest response.
One thing I always enjoy about Craigslist Foundation Boot Camp is getting to know very small organizations. A lot of people stopped by our booth and told us about the challenges their one-or-two-person nonprofits are facing. It’s an important perspective, and a big part of TechSoup’s user base. Working with a tiny staff and budget brings a litany of challenges, but it brings some amazing opportunities too.
The low-budget ethos is encapsulated no better than in the Seattle Free School. SFS doesn’t accept donations and doesn’t apply for grants. Volunteers teach free classes in rooms donated by other local organizations. In two and a half years, SFS has grown from a simple idea into an impressive institution, with classes in topics ranging from crochet to Linux installation to getting Irish citizenship.
Founder Jessica Dally came down from Seattle to give a talk called Run Free: How to Transform Your Community Without Money. (Jessica is also a Nonprofit Commons member and NetSquared Local organizer.) In a one-hour presentation, Jessica took on the daunting task of convincing a room full of people trying to start and grow nonprofits to consider a no-budget model. She started with a simple question: What do you need to start an organization? People called out various budget items (a space, computers, staff, telephones) as well as intangibles (attention, a mission, passion). Next, she asked which items from the list you can’t get for free. We selected a handful of items from the list — publicity, computers, space, and a few others — and for each item we came up with, Jessica explained how SFS had gotten it for free or made do without it.
Publicity? Jessica explained that when she first started SFS, she’d spend a lot of money and time printing flyers and taking them to community centers and coffeeshops around Seattle. One day she realized that there was no way she’d get the fliers everywhere in Seattle; why not crowdsource the job? Now, she posts the flyers on Twitter and Facebook, asking followers to bring them to their own neighborhood spots. “It’s just one copy. You can even print it off at work if you don’t tell anyone,” she joked. But the publicity hasn’t stopped there. A no-budget organization is a compelling story, and it gets SFS a lot of publicity. The school has been featured in every major publication in Seattle, and many of those have been cover stories.
Computers? Jessica and the people who work with her use their own personal computers. This one gives me a small case of jitters: it’s become increasingly common for nonprofit staff to use their own computers at least some of the time, and that’s fine if it’s an understanding that all parties are comfortable with. For any organization doing this, I’d strongly recommend that you use remote backup tools and/or online collaboration tools like Google Docs, Zoho or Microsoft Office Web Apps.
Phones? Jessica explained that at first, she simply put her mobile phone number on SFS’s website. Once she started getting enough calls that it became a problem, she switched to Google Voice. That kind of ad hoc decision-making was a major theme in Jessica’s talk: you don’t need the fancy solution right away; just use the simplest solution that’ll work until it stops working.
Space? SFS began by holding all of its classes in meeting rooms at the library. But as the school got more attention, local organizations started actively courting SFS to hold classes at their offices, with the idea that it was good marketing for them. If SFS were a traditional nonprofit, it’s possible that other local organizations with their own budgetary woes wouldn’t have been so generous.
Finally, someone asked, “How do you support yourself?” Some were bemused by Jessica’s matter-of-fact reply, “I have a day job. Actually, I have three day jobs.” She said that she works about ten hours a weekmonth for SFS, but that those ten hours are all spent on programs, not on fundraising and accounting. When I interviewed NOZA founder Craig Harris a few years ago, he told me that when people start nonprofits, they’re invariably surprised to learn that regardless of what the organization does, they’ll be spending most of their time fundraising. Looking at it that way, there’s something to say for foregoing the fundraising and just getting a day job.
Does a no-budget model make sense for every organization? Maybe not. But we can all learn something from organizations like the Seattle Free School about finding creative solutions and relying on our communities.
Microsoft and NOZA are TechSoup product donation partners.
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Discuss This in Our Forums
What are the advantages of operating with no money? What are the drawbacks? What’s your secret to running your nonprofit on the cheap? Join this Emerging Technologies forum discussion.
Weekly Update from the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life
Events this week: 8:30AM Friday meeting at the Plush Nonprofit Commons Amphitheatre http://bit.ly/nonprofitcommons will give you a direct teleport to our main gathering area!
August 19th at 11AM: WEBINAR TechSoup for Faith-Based Organizations http://bit.ly/tsfaith
Last week at the NPC: Steven Toussaint is our newest resident on Health Commons with the new Alzheimers Association of NYC: Visit their site at http://www.alz.org/nyc/ or check out their new hilltop office on Health Commons!
In Kenzo and Ninlil Xentiltat (Evonne and Layal) gave a detailed Flickr tutorial on how to use the #NPSL tag on uploaded photos along with how to create groups, sets, printed goods, badges for your website and inworld Flickr applications.
Ninlil shared progress on the Community Gateway that will be installed soon on Aloft Nonprofit Commons with the help of Parhelion Parou and Brena Benoir, thank you all for your ideas and contributions.
A special note that the new NPChelp@nonprofitcommons.org alias is now operational for SL-related mentor questions, there are also 6 mailboxes on the four NPC sims that will allow you to drop a request directly to our mentors.
Glitteractica Cookie will be away for the next two weeks but Kali, InK, Ninlil and Penguin will be around to assist any tenants by emailing nonprofitcommons@techsoup.org
Classes: August 20th at 3PM with Builders Brewery: 3:00 PM SLT SCRIPTING: Reading Notecards: The Truth Game Instructor: Auryn Beorn Builders Brewery, Dockside I’m sure that, at least once in your life, you all have played “truth or dare”. Wouldn’t it be nice if we were able of setting an object for playing the first part, “truth”, with our friends? Wouldn’t it be nice, too, if we could learn the basics of working with notecards at the same time?
In case you missed:
Boost your fundraising: On August 17 and 18, get GrantStation for only $99. Identify private and government grantmakers with GrantStation’s online database and use the tutorials to secure funding. Already have a GrantStation membership? Add another year during this two-day offer. http://www.techsoup.org/stock/promo/?cg=sp Have more questions about GrantStation? Post them here: http://bit.ly/gstation
Thank you for your contributions to the Nonprofit Commons! For questions contact nonprofitcommons@techsoup.org for fastest response.
