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.
Courtesy of Bernhard Drax, we now have a wonderful new Nonprofit Commons Video. Draxtor did a fantastic job putting this together. If you like what you see, be sure to check out more of our Nonprofits and Second Life videos and Draxtor’s weekly Life4U show “The Drax Files”.
Written by: penguin kuhn
Tomorrow, April 28th at 11 A.M. PST/SL, Robert Bloomfield and Metanomics hosts Susan Tenby (aka Glitteractica Cookie) of TechSoup, and the American Cancer Society’s Randal Moss, Director of the Futuring and Innovation Center.
Monday’s event will take place on Muse Arena on Muse Isle, as well as through Metanomics’ event partners, and filmed and streamed live on SLCN.tv.
Afterward, if you wish to discuss the topic further, miss the live event, or hope to network with others in the virtual business community, attend “Metanomics Rewind” on Muse Isle. This week’s episode of Metanomics will be rebroadcast on Tuesday at 3:00PM SLT.
Contact Bevan Whitfield or JenzZa Misfit in SL for more details or visit the Metanomics site.
Written by: penguin kuhn
Anika Pastorelli gave a presentation at our weekly meeting last Friday about the need to help the Nonprofit Commons (NPC) better articulate the rationale and benefits of nonprofits participating in NPC. Measuring impact, both qualitative and quantitative is a crucial part of our development efforts, so please take a moment to add your input to help support NPC:
1) Add your nonprofit experience on The Case for Non Profits in SL wiki page.
2) Take a brief survey about your NP’s impact in Second Life.
Written by: penguin kuhn
Check out our very own Susan Tenby aka Glitteractica Cookie getting a shout-out from Jon Stewart on last night’s Daily Show!
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Hmm, I wonder if will Jon’s avatar self be venturing into Second Life one of these days, even though his favorite name is taken.
Written by: penguin kuhn
Today, in the Nonprofit Commons weekly meeting, a group of Nonprofit Commons members (entire project team was not at meeting, but it is: In Kenzo, Ozma Malibu, Rhiannon Chatnoir, Kali Idziak, Amulius Lioncourt and others) discussed their Mash-up Challenge project. I am voting for this project, and I am endorsing them.
The Transition project’s mission is to combat homelessness and to help those in transition envision a real life situation where they will have a home. To that end, the homeless participants will build their virtual homes, the 40 virtual world participants will be able to tell us whether they feel closer to being able to design a real-life reality that includes a home. The mash-up will work with Second Life and other web tools to create a homelessness resource portal for finding local service providers quickly, a widget tool flexible enough to import and embed across webspaces and virtual worlds.
Their findings will help determine whether virtual worlds like Second Life are an appropriate tool for people to use in redesigning their lives. Starting from the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life, the Transitions team will be mentoring new residents in lifeskills and building new homes along through the website A Place for Dreams, , where new opportunities will emerge. They plan to offer full life-skills trainings, business tools and microloans, one-click services.
Here is the chat transcript from the meeting, where they describe their project and their experience with the Mash-up Challenge. They participated in the Google Hackathon last week, and had a very productive learning experience (there are 8 members of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life on the team, and it is led by Evonne Heyning and Sandy Andrews, both Nonprofit Commons members).
Below, is the chat transcript from their presentation about their very cool mash-up:
[8:59] Ozma Malibu: ok, the transitions project will provide resources to displaced/homeless/in transition folk, on several levels
[8:59] Ozma Malibu: one of which is in SL
[8:59] Ozma Malibu: AND last Friday, Amulius and I attended the Google hackathon and got so much help!
[8:59] Manifold Destiny: can you explain what that means? homeless in SL?
[8:59] In Kenzo: http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/transitions is the document we have started to help the community get onboard with this project
[9:00] In Kenzo: Looking at RL homelessness through an SL lens, seeing if we can make a positive impact thru SL and other web tools created especially for those “in transition”
[9:00] You: google hacjkathon was a techsoup/netsquared event
[9:00] In Kenzo: We have applied for the mashup challenge with Netsquared
[9:01] Ozma Malibu: Volunteer engineers from Google were at the hackathon along with Netsquared, and after being guided to think things out we got to work with each attending engineer to see how their expertise would fit with our goals
[9:01] In Kenzo: To build web tools that will provide easy one-two click searches for those who need basic living care
[9:01] In Kenzo: and a portal that will encapsulate our collective work, as each of the group leaders here has contributed a vital piece
[9:02] In Kenzo: Community VoiceMail, Bridges, Floaters all serve this community already, we are consolidating their services and other data from around the web to make it easier for people to find what they need and move forward
[9:02] In Kenzo: At this point, we would love you to visit the website at Netsquared and give us your vote, make comments and ask questions there
[9:02] In Kenzo: http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/transitions
[9:02] Carmen Gray: /great idea Kenzo 🙂
[9:03] In Kenzo: We need lots of public support, and others here re welcome to join us if you see a programmatic link with your nonprofit work
[9:03] Jani Myriam: That *so* rocks!
[9:03] In Kenzo: we will be doing an SL pilot soon!
[9:04] Buffy Beale: Yes please everyone take a minute and vote for us
[9:04] In Kenzo: we will rock the vote today, come and help us gain a little momentum for this work. ozma and the team here has put a lot forward to build an SL pilot project, helping those in transition build new lives here
[9:05] You: and help these avatars win the big prize for teh net squared contest
[9:05] In Kenzo: We are REALLY EXCITED about this opportunity, and opening it up for people to start new businesses and lives through this imagination space….we will provide mentionship and grounding, tools and resources together and we invite you to join us
[9:05] In Kenzo: for the web space, for SL, for this community and most of all for those looking for a new life, we are building aplaceofdreams.org and will gather these elements on the web in the coming months. thanks for your help.
9:06] In Kenzo: http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/transitions
Written by: Glitteractica_Cookie
NPC resident Community Voice Mail (http://www.cvm.org/) was recently recognized for their work; from the press release:
Community Voice Mail today announced it is the recipient of the prestigious Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) Directors Nonprofit Excellence Award on National Corporate Philanthropy Day in New York. The national nonprofit is being recognized for its exceptional long-standing partnership with Cisco and the Cisco Foundation, who nominated it for the award. The partnership is being honored as an excellent example of how a nonprofit organization and global corporation can come together and have a significant impact on major social issues of homelessness and the technology/telecommunications gap that exists for the poor.
Congratulations!
Written by: madcowley
NPSL on MSNBC. Cool.
Written by: Creech
The Grand Opening of Kiva in Second Life’s office was a grand success. Our final avatar count was 41, which included the people who dropped in through the ceiling. There were several reporters there, including the editor from Prim Perfect.
There was dancing and champagne, and talks by Skeeboo Tammass (Joe), Elron, and Julles Boucher (Julia) about Kiva and Kiva Friends and all that is going on in Second Life about Kiva.
Daniel, who did the Norwegian translation, won the $25 Kiva Gift Certificate. Fletcher Dovgal won the Door Prize $25 Kiva gift certificate.
The largest linden donation during the official party was made by Parhelion Palou, and Mandee Odriscoll was the ‘newest’ avatar who made a donation. Mandee actually joined SL this morning just to attend our party, she read about it on myspace. Both our winners will get (real life) 2008 Kiva calendars (made by Kiva Friends).
The party lasted an hour longer than planned, and the donations kept coming in. Our neighbours in the NPC Bridges for Women donated enough for an entire loan. Our final count was 22,488 Linden, making this our largest fund raising day ever. To translate to real life, we made enough for about 2 1/2 Kiva loans.
Another success of the day was our increase in volunteer help, a few people offered to help us out and join our grassroots organization. So its been a great day for Kiva in Second Life at the Non Profit Commons.
Written by: julles
KivaFriends in SL is starting to tour Second Life. These tours are social events open to everyone, they are very informal, we will just be visiting sims together to explore and learn about what’s going on in Second Life. When we can, we’ll have the sims owners join us and give us personal tours.
The first tour will be January 12th, 10:30am – 12pm SL (Pacific time). Details about the event are
here but please note the place is not correct. We will be meeting at the NPC commons and then going to Ectopia Island. Join us at any time. We’ll be riding the trains and gondolas and learning about goods and services which promote a socially and environmentally sustainable world. We’ll also be banging on drums and walking around and laughing a lot.
(ASIDE, as a word of caution – be very careful when you enter your event at secondlife.com/events because it goes to eventful but edits don’t).
Come by the Kiva office in the NPC (#23) for more information.
Written by: julles
The Transgender Day of Remembrance began nine years ago as a way to honor victims of transgender hate crimes and raise public awareness about such violence. Yesterday was the first Transgender Day of Remembrance in Second Life. Elysium Gardens, along with the Transgender Resource Center hosted the first Second Life service in memory of victims of violence against transgendered people. The event lasted all day and provided Second Life avatars worldwide a space to honor and remember victims, such as Gwen Arajuo.
The service included many Second Life residents and supporters sharing memories and their personal stories and experiences of those who were victims of suicide or transgender hate crimes. At a candlelight evening ceremony, Jani Myriam of the Transgender Resource Center gave a touching remembrance address.
You can find out more about the Transgender Day of Remembrance by visiting: http://www.rememberingourdead.org/day/.
Written by: penguin kuhn