TechSoup Wins Financial Times 2010 Social Innovation Awards

NPC is happy to share that TechSoup Global won the open-vote portion of the Justmeans/Financial Times 2010 Social Innovation Awards . There were 88 other contenders for this Citizen’s Choice Award, but because your participation, we went from 116 to 1,545 votes . Great work everybody, and we deeply appreciate the help from the entire virtual community.

To win the vote, NPC/TechSoup employees and volunteers sent emails to personal contacts and deployed a grass-roots social media campaign to reach out to supporters around the world.

Volunteers rallied fans to take action through Second Life, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Avatars United, as well as through private email campaigns and on blogs.

NPC’s Layal Rabat wrote a powerful blog post which was tweeted to get folks psyched, and as voters left comments about TechSoup, we captured and tweet-shared these from Tweetphoto .

The response was phenomenal! The tweets went viral, Facebook and LinkedIn groups shared the message with other groups, and residents of Second Life reached out to their constituencies in the nonprofit, education and business communities.

What We Learned from Barack Obama’s Social Media Strategy

So how did we win when we were up against multi-million dollar companies with hundreds of thousands of employees and fancy PR firms?

First, we learned from Barack Obama’s social media strategy. For his presidential campaign his team used email, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and many other platforms to get his message out. He maintained a consistent message for his audience, centering around “Hope”. He connected with specific groups and encouraged supporters. Since his supporters believed that he could deliver on his promise, they actively helped him get his message out.

For TechSoup, the words “Social Innovation” fit naturally with its core mission. This was easily apparent to the members, constituents and partners that engage daily with us on many social media platforms. So when we reached out to our global network to help us get the votes, they were there to deliver and help us get the message out.

Thank you everyone. In both the real and virtual worlds, this was truly a Citizen’s Choice award.

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Written by: DustyArtaud

Haiti Relief in Second Life: A View from the Nonprofit Commons Collaboration

The Virtual Haiti Relief campaign in Second Life has become a fascinating experiment in engagement here for us at Nonprofit Commons — I hope we can learn from this endeavor for future work. Over a dozen avatars actively shared their skills by creating interactive experiences, events, fundraisers and outreach campaigns to help raise support for the people of Haiti over 6 weeks this winter. Many hundreds of avatars visited campaign spaces, from the Benefit Music Festival to the Help Haiti Hub aid distribution center.

Haiti Benefit Festival at Nonprofit Commons

This campaign took off when Rhiannon Chatnoir and the Virtual Haiti Relief group was able to take the scripted code from the Relay for Life kiosks and create a specialized Haiti relief kiosk that was spread throughout Second Life. Let’s look at the fundraising numbers and rank of monies raised by this community on our four sims:

2) Health Commons $760 or L$197619
24) Plush Nonprofit Commons $83 or L$21440
28) Aloft Nonprofit Commons $68 or L$17541
72) ECO Commons $16 or L$3910

Total raised from NPC: L$240,510 or nearly $1,000USD (thanks to all of you for contributing!). This campaign as a whole raised L$2,000,000 or over $7,200USD. Together the Nonprofit Commons sims raised more than any other single group working in Second Life.

Much of the money raised was passive — beyond the organized music and arts festival events there were many thousands that came in just by making the means of donation available in public spaces around the sims. There are also over 40 musical acts that donated their time to come play for the festival on Aloft Nonprofit Commons, including LabGraal that packed the sim on a Saturday afternoon.

LabGraal

Lessons Learned:

* Events are essential! Most of our visitors and new guests came for the music festival (hundreds over the course of one weekend)
* Advertising is helpful: It helps to have friends on other sims who will get the word out for us
* Music & Entertainment draws crowds better than most other activities, especially if the band has a following
* It helps to make simple agreements quickly with one organization vs. longer route with foundations/coalition-building
* Offer content that informs as well as entertains — many guests appreciated our speakers and detailed information on how to get more involved in grassroots efforts

Special thanks to those here who supported these events/efforts including Rhiannon for building the kiosks and festival stage, Katydid Something for organizing the music festival, Mia Kitchensink, Brena Benoir, Ninlil Xentiltat & many others here at NPC for building various elements on our sims…thank you for your efforts to make this possible. The Help Haiti Hub will continue to exist for some time to allow us to process how aid and information flows across these spaces.

Dancing at the festival

We are finding that what works inworld connects closely to what works on the ground in Haiti:

HuffingtonPost article on Haitian Solidarity and Giving by Beverly Bell

From this HuffPo article:
“In the meantime, what saved many during the earthquake, and what is keeping them alive today, is a culture and economy of solidarity, or mutual aid. Solidarity is an essential strategy through which on-the-margins communities, and their individual members, can survive and thrive. Today the generosity is on overdrive.”

“Gifting and solidarity are time-honored traditions in Haiti, as around the world. The non-monetary transactions of services, care, and goods are both spontaneous and organized. They honor human relationships and attention to the well-being of the whole, not just oneself. They minimize the role of profit in economic and social relations, and thus keep respect, cooperation, and ethics thriving.”

Haiti Benefit Festival at Nonprofit Commons

We learned a lot by bringing in speakers from Ushahidi, Partners for Others, Sustainable Haiti and many other organizations working with the people on the ground to rebuild and renew.

In the spirit of giving, there are a few organizations where you can be more directly involved:
http://www.sustainablehaiti.org
http://www.crisiscommons.org
http://www.ushahidi.org

Following Ushahidi will show you up to date reports of where issues are noticed and addressed. There are many creative groups solving issues around rebuilding, permaculture and food security, water purification and medical care in remote areas. There’s a long way to go and volunteers will also be welcomed by many groups if you are interested in traveling directly to the region to help rebuild this country.

Help Haiti Hub

We are learning that there’s a lot we can do remotely to help, from fundraising to connecting organizations who are doing good work to collaborate in times of great need. Please share the lessons you have learned here so that we can begin to build better campaigns together at NPC.

Written by: InKenzo

Nonprofit Commons Video Premiers on YouTube

TechSoup and the Nonprofit Commons have released a new video created by machinimatographer Draxtor Despres. Filmed both in real life and Second Life, it shows how nonprofits collaborating in the virtual world can make a difference in the real world, one avatar at a time.

Written by: DustyArtaud

Member Spotlight: Layal Rabat aka Ninlil Xeltentat

Layal Rabat, otherwise known as Ninlil Xeltentat in Second Life is the Volunteer Manager for Nonprofit Commons in Second Life. I had a chance to chat with Layal about her nonprofit work in real and virtual worlds.

What organization do you work for?

I’m currently a student pursuing an MA in the Social Justice and Human Rights (MASJHR) program at Arizona State University. In addition to working with TechSoup and the Nonprofit Commons, I also work withNijel,an organization that seeks to help organizations tell their stories through maps.

How’d you hear about Second Life and the Nonprofit Commons?

I heard about nonprofits in Second Life through one of my professors here at ASU and through the Soul of the New Machine conference at UC Berkeley last May. I hear Susan Tenby speak about the Nonprofit Commons and that sparked my interest in getting involved.

How are you using Second Life to help achieve your goals and those of your organization?

I am using Second Life to help accomplish my personal mission of networking with people from all over the world, and learning together how to use technology to increase efficiency, and give a voice to the voiceless. I manage volunteers for the Nonprofit Commons and match them up with the roles that best fit their skills and interest.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve found using Second Life for nonprofit work?

My biggest challenge is holding people accountable for work they volunteer for. I also have a hard time explaining the usefulness of Second Life in less than a paragraph. I want Tweet-worthy (140 characters or less) justifications to pass along!

What benefits have you experienced?

So far, my biggest success was arranging to have Kyle Reis (Zazoom Zimminy in Second Life) to speak to my grant writing class. He brought his knowledge from the Ford Foundation into my classroom, and gave us a jaw dropping lecture on innovations that the Ford Foundation has been working on. We learned about streamlining the funds request process, the usefulness of social media, and how the Ford Foundation is adapting to the digital age. If it was not for Nonprofit Commons, Kyle and I would not have never met.

Your favorite quote?

“Yea, death and prison we mete out To small offenders of the laws,
While honor,wealth,and full respect On greater pirates we bestow.”

-Gibran Khalil Gibran.

What social media tools besides Second Life do you use?

I’m using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

How can others connect with you?

You can follow me on Twitter @layalzebub, and see more about Nijel.org and the NonprofitCommons on Facebook.

Written by: penguin kuhn

Virtual Haiti Relief: Special Nonprofit Commons meeting tomorrow

[post by In Kenzo @npsl @amoration]

Have you wandered around the grid & web and wondered how you can directly support the people of Haiti?

At our weekly Friday morning at 8:30AM PST/SLT, the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life will be hosting a dialogue with groups working on the ground & across the web to ship supplies, communicate with loved ones and begin the design process for rebuilding Haiti. Many avatars have come together to join international aid efforts through a coordinated virtual campaign.

SLurl to meeting location in Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/88/126/26

From my colleague Joyce Bettencourt, aka Rhiannon Chatnoir of GlobalKids & Vesuvius:

“Virtual Haiti Relief is made up of a group of individuals, some affiliated with various social, cultural, nonprofit and other community groups, within the virtual world of Second Life.

We have come together to help in the relief efforts for those who have suffered in the Haiti earthquake disaster. Collectively we have named our group Virtual Haiti Relief and through this group we will conduct fundraising and promote events for Haiti relief, along with offering resources and cultural information on Haiti.”

We will do our best to aggregate relief efforts coordinated inworld and share them through these channels:

VHR Google group: http://groups.google.com/group/virtual-haiti-relief/
VHR Google calendar: http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=3499jnujlgqkhb18h9752g31bs%40gr…
Twitter: http://twitter.com/VirtualHaiti
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=259449484227
inSL avatar: VirtualHaitiRelief Engineer (for direct donations)
inSL group: Virtual Haiti Relief

There are a handful of ways you can get involved:

  • Many fundraising events are being planned @npsl and beyond: benefit concerts, cultural celebrations, educational events within an integrated campaign available around the grid. Join the groups above if you’d like to get involved or share your fundraising event with the community and contact nonprofitcommons@techsoupglobal.org directly if you would like to host your event at the Nonprofit Commons.
  • A coordinated campaign will link your virtual items for donation/auction sale: please label all gift items to share with VirtualHaiti in the title. Common kiosks are being created to link events, donations and sales together with the www.virtualhaitirelief.org coordinated site.
  • To vote on which charity to benefit visit http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/C2TNFWP — it is possible that we will do a one month campaign for one charity followed by a second month for a second NGO. Your votes will help us determine who will make the most of our virtual donation efforts.
  • Listen to people on the ground in Haiti share their experiences.

    From Kali, aka Jessica from Community Voicemail:

    “Here is a link to the podcast my coworker did about her organization. It details why her organization is able to get aid to smaller communities (and get aid in at all) when larger organizations are failing in this effort.”: http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=19212

  • Get involved with Crisis Camps around the world to develop the technology and tools needed to respond rapidly in Haiti. http://www.crisiscommons.org
  • Stay in touch with great nonprofits working on the ground: some suggestions include Partners in Health, We Can Build An Orphanage, Architecture for Humanity — some of these groups need bulk donations of medical supplies, consumable materials, energy & water purification systems. Mobilize your friends to help!
  • If you are on Twitter, please spread the word by copying and pasting the below tweet:

    Join @npsl & @virtualhaiti in SL 4 coordinating #Haiti relief efforts @ Nonprofit Commons mtg. Fri. 8:30AM PST/SLT http://bit.ly/8dc8mb

Thanks for your willingness to help others in need — we look forward to exploring with you how invisible networks and virtual communities can coordinate efforts in times of crisis. See you tomorrow at Plush to continue this conversation together.

Written by: penguin kuhn

Design Software to Help Your Oraganization’s Work in Second Life

Once you get started with Second Life, you often find that having design software is really helpful when it comes to creating designs and textures in-world. And you may not be aware that TechSoup has some offerings that can help you out. If you use a Mac for design work, TechSoup has a Special Donation of Adobe products that you can take advantage of. These are available to the following types of organizations:

  • Schools and other educational
  • Health services
  • Cultural and historical
  • Community and inner city development
  • Youth and sports
  • Business and farming
  • Civil rights and legal aid

Products like CS Design Premium and Standard 3.3 for Mac and Photoshop CS 3.0 for Mac are among the listings available to more organizations than our regular Adobe donation program. So, even if you haven’t been eligible to receive Adobe donations from TechSoup in the past, your organization may be eligible for the special donation program. Quantities and titles are limited so get ’em while they’re hot!

Written by: penguin kuhn

Live blogging and tweeting from the Health Panel Expo event May 27th


Yesterday’s Nonprofit Commons Health Panel Expo innovative online event in Second Life brought together panelists from health-related organizations, including experts in the disability, HIV/AIDS, mental health and cancer communities. Panelists came together to showcase recent developments in health care research, and to connect efforts in fighting disease and creating a cooperative and supportive environment for patients and their providers. This event marked the grand opening of the Health Commons island in Second Life, the fourth Nonprofit Commons location, that focused on health-oriented organizations.

We had a terrific line-up of panelists for yesterday’s event and a number of volunteers who live-blogged the action by taking summarizing notes into the Second Life text chat, as well as tweeting the action, and blogging the experience.

You can follow the tweets from the event here.

Check out blog entries and pictures about the event and stay tuned for video coverage to follow!

You can also check out the archived panel presentations as we post them:

Health Panel Expo Panels
All times are in Second Life or Pacific Standard Time

9 am Virtual Support for Mental Health Issues Panel
10 am HIV/AIDS Awareness Panel
11am Faster Cures
11:15 am Mobile/Phone Health Information Panel Mixed Reality Event
12:15pm TechSoup Stock Donated HIPPA solutions
1 pm Physical Activity/Dietary Habits/Healthy Lifestyles Panel
2 pm Disability Panel
3pm Cancer panel

Written by: penguin kuhn

The Health Panel Expo – May 27 in Second Life & in the Real World

The Health Panel Expo planning is coming together and the event is right around the corner! Here are the details!

Click here to view a complete agenda of the days events.

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO—May 26, 2009—The Nonprofit Commons, a project of TechSoup Global (TSG), today announced an all-day, innovative online event in Second Life to showcase recent developments in health care research, and to connect efforts in fighting disease and creating a cooperative and supportive environment for patients and their providers. The Health Panel Expo, an international online conference sponsored by FasterCures.org, will be held on Wednesday, May 27, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST (also called Second Life Time, SLT) in the virtual world of Second Life and simultaneously in the real world, being broadcast live at the fourth annual NetSquared Conference at Cisco in San Jose, CA.,The Second Life online event is free to attend and open to all interested participants. It will be accessible through Second Life, and the full agenda is listed on the NPSL wiki.

The Health Panel Expo panelists will include speakers from Aids.gov and Community Voicemail discussing mobile health initiatives; Virtual Ability, Inc., a nonprofit that brings people with disabilities and chronic health conditions into virtual worlds; and Susan Tenby, Online Community Director for TSG and the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life. Other panelists include experts from the disability, recovery services, nutrition, cancer, and AIDS communities.

The Health Panel Expo marks the official launch of the Health Commons in Second Life. As part of TSG’s Nonprofit Commons project, Health Commons seeks to bring together real-world health-related nonprofits, academics, educators, thought-leaders, foundations, and volunteer-supporters to showcase recent developments in health care.

The Health Panel Expo: Event Details

  • The Health Panel Expo is a day-long event with several hour-long expert panels in the virtual world of Second Life at Health Commons AMO island.
  • The Mobile Health Initiatives panel is a mixed-reality session on Wednesday, May 27, from 11:15 am-12:15 pm PST (SLT). The live portion will take place in the real-world of San Jose, California as part of the NetSquared Conference, and simultaneously within the virtual world of Second Life. The panel will also feature interactivity between the two worlds.
  • Panels and tours of Nonprofit Commons’ four virtual locations will take place throughout the day. The complete agenda can be found here.
  • The event will be recorded via live video and audio and will be archived on the NonprofitCommons.org Web site.
  • Watch the live web stream from 11:15 AM-12:15 PM.
  • Twitter hashtag of the event: #npslexpo.
  • Twitter account for Nonprofit Commons in Second Life is @npsl.

Written by: Beth J. Bates

Free Second Life Script Collection

You don’t want to pay for a Visitor Tracker, Chat logger, Power Point Presentation, a video screen, or whatever tool that makes your stay in Second Life more pleasurable?

Or you simply want to learn the Linden Scripting Language? With the free Second Life Script Collection you can have it all. You can make your own SL Welcome Mat, or take apart the scripts, see how they work and learn from it.

Over 150 free SL scripts have already been uploaded for fast retrieval at the NPC http://www.freeSLscripts.com
Share your free scripts too and watch the collection grow.

Have fun,
Adalace

PS: for newcomers, please see the npc toolkit page at
http://npc-toolkits.wikispaces.com/

Written by: Adalace

Canadian Colleges Exploring Second Life in Higher Education – with Mixed Results

This is an interesting blog post from University Affairs about the perceived ups and downs of Second Life as discovered by Loyalist College, the first Canadian college to have a presence in Second Life. The post cites the learning curve to truly understand SL and computer hardware requirements as drawbacks to educating in the virtual world. The college does believe that SL offers the most opportunities for educators.

FULL STORY

I understand that hardware requirements can be an issue, but I am hard pressed to believe that the learning curve is a factor for college students when exploring SL. Thoughts?

Written by: Beth J. Bates