Net Squared Innovation Fund Award
Have a vision of social change? Using a new or existing technology tool to turn your vision into reality? Nominate your project for the NetSquared Innovation Award.
The Net Squared Conference is being held on May 29th-30th in San Jose. The conference is focused on 20 social change projects that use technologies, tools and communities of the social web to create sustainable societal change. Net Squared has created a Technology Innovation Fund to financially support projects selected by the NetSquared Community.
If you or someone that you are aware of is working on a social impact project using technology you should consider nominating the project for a NetSquared Innovation Award.
Britt Bravo, Community Builder for NetSquared and Non-Profit and NGO Contributing Editor for Blogher explains that they are looking for projects that:
- Use the power of community and social networks to create change
- Use existing/newly developed technology tools for social impact
- Have a plausible financial model
- Have a clear way to measure success
- Exhibit extraordinary leadership, passion and resourcefulness
- Exhibit a passion for social change
The project guidelines are here and online submissions are being accepted until April 6th 2007, noon PST. On April 9-14 all the projects that have been nominated will be voted on by the public on the NetSquared web site.
On April 16th the top 20 projects will be announced and those 20 NetSquared Featured projects will receive an all expense paid trip to San Jose for the NetSquared Conference.
You can see the most recent projects that have been submitted here.
Tags: NetSquared, NetSquared Conference, NetSquared Innovation Fund Award, Media 2.0, Non-profit, Non-profit tech, innovation, Britt Bravo
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Net Squared Live Online!
The Net2 conference begins on May 30th in Santa Clara and if like me you are not one of the lucky 350 participants, Marshall Kirkpatrick informed me that there is a remote conference, live online at http://netsquared.org/remote. How cool is that going to be?
There is chat which features "special Q&A sessions with NetSquared speakers and other guests." The agenda is here and a speakers list is here….there is even a frappr map. Net2’s mission is to help non-profits understand and use the tools of the social web, or as they put it remixing the web for social change. Relationships are, of course what non-profit capacity building is all about and the tools of web 2.0, blogs, wikis, online social networks, RSS, podcasting, vlogs are transformational tools to enable non-profits to achieve their missions faster and further than ever before.
So, if you haven’t been to Net2, you need to; and sign up for the remote conference. I’ll see you there!
Tags: Net2, Net Squared, non-profits, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Web 2.0
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Google: This One Is A Brilliant Move
Google appointed Dr. Larry Brilliant to head its corporate philantrophic program, Google.org.
Google has pledged 1% of its annual profits and 1% of its stock with a current value of 1$ billion to Google.org. Dr. Brilliant according to the WSJ has had extensive non-profit public health and private-sector tecnology experience. His background includes working to eradicate small pox in India and serving as a physician to members of the Grateful Dead.
Google.org has defined several initial directions: The Acumen Fund which invests in market-based solutions to global poverty, TechnoServe which supports entrepreneurship, Water Research in Western Kenya, Planet Read an organization that works to improve literacy in India, and the Google Grants program that provides free advertising to non-profits.
Dr. Brilliant says he is going to provide a focus on conquering public health issues as a necessary part of conquering poverty. The WSJ quotes Dr. Brilliant as saying that the Google motto, "Don’t be evil" is what brought him to the Google job, "Its very hard to find another company that starts out on a conscious path to do good and not do evil," he said.
I guess his favorite Grateful Dead song was probably not, Friend of the Devil.
Technorati Tags: Google, Google.org, non-profits, public health, Grateful Dead,
Social Entrepreneurship for Seniors: Purpose Prize
A great deal is being written about the aging baby boomers, that attention grabbing, developmental stage defining, amorphous yet distinct, demographic group that I count myself as a member of…..I think sometimes that one of our most distinctive characteristics is our lack of acceptance of aging but perhaps that, along with the feeling of distinctiveness itself, is just part of the developmental stage process. So, the addition of aging to baby boomer, aging baby boomer, as in, I am an aging baby boomer, is a bit disconcerting.
There are several recent blog posts asnd articles specifically addressing the aging baby boomer paradox. David Wolfe at Ageless Marketing frequently writes great posts about aging and baby boomers in the context of marketing. His perspective is shaped by developmental stage theory and in his view the second half of life is very different than the first in regard to internal versus external focus. In our later years, we focus outward and seek to understand the meaning of life, specifically the meaning of our lifes.
James Hillman, a psychologist and the author of 20 amazing books, wrote one book, The Force of Character and the Lasting Life that says that the purpose pf aging is the fulfillment and confirmation of our character. His thesis is that even the ravages of old age have a purpose: changes in sleep patterns allow us to experience elements of nighttime that we missed when asleep or the decline in short term memory allows us the opportunity for longer term reflection. He writes, "Aging makes metaphors of biology." He speaks of life being cyclical and that if we want our lives not to stray too far from our character, we need to make tiny adjustments like a sailor with a hand on the tiller, constantly correcting course though never exactly on-course.
It is in the second half of life that we feel the pull to stay close to our families and to work toward the social good. The benefit to society was termed, "return on experience(ROE)" by Civic Ventures, a San Fransisco non-profit that develops outreach programs for baby boomers and seniors to serve the public good. They are launching a program in June called the "Purpose Prize" that will award $100,000 each to five social entrepreneurs who according to the Wall Street Journal are "individuals age 60 or older who are trying to improve their communities through their work." Applications will be taken at www.leadwithexperience.org beginning on Tuesday, December 6th.
Civic Ventures says according to the Wall Street Journal, that in addition to helping the five social entrepreneurs they also wish to highlight the results of a survey they conducted that indicated that three fifths of adults in their fifties said they wanted to use the next stage of their lives to serve their communities. Civic Ventures notes that the oldest of the baby boomers will turn sixty in January, the healthiest, best educated population of Americans to reach the stage that Civic Ventures calls "pioneers"…a stage of life between middle and later life, neither young nor old. Essentially, baby boomers will become senior boomers….as we turn sixty we will be, now let’s not choke when we say it, seniors.
The Senior Lawyers Project is another non-profit that uses over 60 talent for the prublic good. With a budget of $175,000 and three employees, they have sent 200 US attorneys to developing counties over the past four years.
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Leo Burnett: Packaged Good
Leo Burnett, a Publicis Group agency, has just launched a kind of non-profit American Idol called Packaged Good. Burnett is requesting proposals from non-profits that are in need of a marketing campaign. They are looking for an unknown entrepreneurial nonprofit with potential to become known, ala Habitat for Humanity.
"Our goal, as always, is to invest ourselves and our expertise in a worthycause. What differentiates this new effort from our pro bono assignments are three key elements," said Leo Burnett USA Chief MarketingOfficer Ben Kline."We want to build a brand from scratch. We want the relationship to belong-term. And we want to fully leverage our strengths to help a worthy cause receive the awareness and recognition it deserves."
The deadline for submission is December 20th. Political and religious groups need not apply according to the Wall Street Journal. A decision will be made in early January. Complete details are available at the Packaged Good web site.
Technorati Tags: Leo_Burnett, Packaged_Good, nonprofit
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Blogging For Non-Profits and Social Entrepreneurs
I am doing a blogging workshop on Septemeber 27th at 8AM at Provident Counseling , 2650 Olive Street, St. Louis, Missouri for non-profits and social entrepreneurs. If you are interested in attending, email me!
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