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News for January 2005
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 28 January 2005 |
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| Another World Turns by Alisa Solomon |
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In Another World Turns, Alisa Solomon offers her perspective on the World Social Forum currently taking place in Porto Alegre, Brazil. There are over 100,000 people participating in over 2000 sessions, including topics such as "Cooperativism as a Tool for Change" and "Art Solidarity". I wish I were there.
Posted: 1/28/05; 12:34:14 PM # |
| Investing for Change by Jeff Reifman |
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I applaud local activist, Microsoft millionaire, fellow nonprofit technologist, and budding writer, Jeff Reifman's exploration of social investing and his candid disclosure of his own finances in an article on Investing for Change in the Seattle Weekly. The upshot is that it's not easy, but there are plenty of resources to explore.
Posted: 1/28/05; 12:33:48 PM # |
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26 January 2005 |
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| The Change Masters |
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In The Change Masters, Fast Company, despite its characteristic capitalist bias, nonetheless offers a fascinating perspective on the 25 organizations that they think are changing the world for the better.
Posted: 1/26/05; 2:54:04 PM # |
| Open Systems for Open Politics |
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The World Social Forum opens this week in Brazil. The 1000 or so computers that will help empower this gathering are running a suite of open source software systems put together for this purpose over the course of the last two years by volunteer programmers from India, Brazil, France and Britain. The applications include the technology for live webcasting of over 400 panels and workshops.
Posted: 1/26/05; 2:49:02 PM # |
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21 January 2005 |
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| NGOs Rally Behind UN Plan to Slash World Poverty |
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I recently pointed to a long term plan by the United Nations to address worldwide poverty and development issues. Most experts agree that the UN's goals are achievable, and international nonprofit agencies are rallying behind this plan. Jonathan Hepburn of OxFam points to the recent $4 billion of aid raised in the weeks since the tsunami catastrophe as evidence that the world can come together effectively.
Posted: 1/21/05; 4:56:04 PM # |
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20 January 2005 |
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| A Theory of Fun for Game Design |
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Raph Koster's A Theory of Fun for Game Design is an important book. On one level, it's a manifesto for social responsibility and artistry in game design. On another level, it's an insightful exploration of human motivation and learning with extensive application to the worlds of grassroots education and activism. One example: Games will turn people off if they are too difficult, as well as if they are too easy. There is a sweet spot where people are in a zone of greatest learning and effectiveness. I think the same holds true for social change work.
Posted: 1/20/05; 4:25:35 PM # |
| Email Marketing Articles From Email Labs |
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Online services vendor Email Labs has collected some of their articles in Email Marketing Best Practices (43 page PDF). It includes some nice advice for reducing bounces and improving subject lines, but I would say it's more of a collection of tips than a framework of best practices.
Posted: 1/20/05; 4:07:49 PM # |
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19 January 2005 |
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18 January 2005 |
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| World Social Forum Principles |
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The World Social Forum Principles are a great example of how to organize a constituency without dictating to it. The forum meets in Brazil next week to further develop strategies for a compassionate and just alternative to corporate globalization.
Posted: 1/18/05; 3:35:50 PM # |
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17 January 2005 |
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| The Martin Luther King You Don't See On TV |
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Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon remind us about The Martin Luther King You Don't See On TV: The Martin Luther King who said that "true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." The Martin Luther King who criticized the United States for appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity," but providing "poverty funds with miserliness." We need his voice now more than ever.
Posted: 1/17/05; 2:27:48 PM # |
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14 January 2005 |
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| Dead Movement Walking? |
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The environmental movement is one of the most devastating examples of how the inherent fragmentation of the nonprofit sector has led to failure. In Dead Movement Walking, Katharine Mieszkowski reviews the current turmoil faced by environmentalists who have been fighting small defensive battles for decades, and therefore losing. I agree with the underlying lesson that environmentalism cannot stand alone as a cause.
Posted: 1/14/05; 11:39:07 AM # |
| New FBI Software May Be Unusable |
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You think you have problems in the area of failed technology projects? In a story about how New FBI Software May Be Unusable, we learn that this is a half a billion dollar debacle. I wonder what their technology planning process was like. (Sep.2006 - updated with new article link.)
Posted: 1/14/05; 11:23:29 AM # |
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12 January 2005 |
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11 January 2005 |
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| Free Software |
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Dmytri Kleiner and Phillip Smith have compiled a guide entitled What Not-for-profit Organizations Need to Know About Free Software. Their contents include: (1) Free software as a global movement. (2) But is it really free? (3) Free beer: when free actually means "at no cost". (4) The four freedoms. (5) No more serial numbers, no more CD keys. (6) Free software: adaptable and sustainable. (7) Old hardware is good hardware. Old software is bad software. (8) So what are you afraid of? Just try it.
Posted: 1/11/05; 6:16:57 PM # |
| Iran Cracks Down on Internet Sites |
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Hossein Derakhshan reports that Iran has cracked down on Internet access, especially weblogs and social networking sites. He proposes a three part response: (1) Technical: using proxies, email, P2P applications, etc. (2) Civil: creating consumer associations for internet users and organizing effective campaigns through them against the censorship. (3) Legal: filing local or even international lawsuits against the government and related organizations or officials for violating the constitution of Iran and international law.
Posted: 1/11/05; 6:09:49 PM # |
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10 January 2005 |
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| Nonprofit Online News Journal December 2004 |
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The third issue of the Nonprofit Online News Journal (35 page PDF) is now available. We're continuing the exclusive content that we started last month. This month we're including an Email Newsletter Quicksheet, which will help you do a simple evaluation of your primary online cultivation tool. We're also publishing reprints of two of the most interesting resources that we've pointed to recently: "Measuring Joy" by Deborah Bedwell and "Gifting Technologies" by Kevin McGee and Jorgen Skageby. The magazine is still a free download.
Posted: 1/10/05; 5:56:21 PM # |
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7 January 2005 |
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| Disinfopedia |
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I'm a big believer in exposing the false "objectivity" of propagandists. Disinfopedia.org is a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests.
Posted: 1/7/05; 2:12:13 PM # |
| 10 Reasons Nonprofits Should Use RSS |
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Marnie Webb has written her 10 Reasons Nonprofits Should Use RSS. The last one is that we're just at the beginning, but the rest all start with "it's ridiculously easy to": Read the web. Discover relevant information. Share the information you get. Participate in conversations. Control your own subscriptions. Allow people to trade your good content. Lend a bit of web real estate. Avoid being a spammer. Contribute to web-wide conversations.
Posted: 1/7/05; 2:07:53 PM # |
| Make it Simple |
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In Make it Simple, the Economist makes a demographic and economic argument about the need for technological elegance. Well, actually, they say "simplicity" but I'm not sure that it should be framed that way. What we're all looking for is that elusive bridge between simple interfaces or rules and rich, complex contexts and outcomes.
Posted: 1/7/05; 2:00:07 PM # |
| List of Faith Based Programs |
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The Associated Press has produced a map of the states with lists of agencies receiving "faith based" funding from the U.S. government in 2003. I deplore the nonprofit habit of chasing new sources of money, but in this case I would be very interested in seeing just how broad a definition of "faith" the Bush administration could accept.
Posted: 1/7/05; 1:45:10 PM # |
| Small Websites, Great Results |
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Doug Addison's Small Websites, Great Results is a decent first book for a small organization, despite its focus on for profit businesses. It doesn't represent the cutting edge of marketing, but it is a solid collection of common sense recommendations. It's greatest flaw, in my opinion, is a distorted use of the word "small" to describe a way of thinking, rather than the size of a site. But it's easy to see how well grounded the author is in the real world troubles of small organizations without much of an online presence, and trouble managing their web sites.
Posted: 1/7/05; 1:23:35 PM # |
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6 January 2005 |
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| The 2004 Election and the Nonprofit Sector |
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It will come as no surprise to any of you that I regard the re-election of George W. Bush as President of the United States as a huge setback for civil society and civil organizations. But given the diversity of the sector, it's remarkable just how widespread the impact might be. In an article on The 2004 Election and the Nonprofit Sector, I browse through the sections of the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities -- the closest thing we have to a list of all the categories of nonprofits -- looking at the record of the Bush administration with regard to each one. It's eye opening.
Posted: 1/6/05; 6:05:31 PM # |
| The One-Minute Risk Assessment Tool |
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ACM Queue has published a one-minute risk assessment tool for assessing the risks of software projects. This article makes it clear that it is based on the real world experience of IT managers. It identifies six risk factors that contribute to project failure: (1) Use of an inappropriate methodology. (2) Lack of customer involvement. (3) Lack of formal project management practices. (4) Dissimilarity to previous projects. (5) Project complexity. And (6) requirements volatility. I suspect these factors could be applied to many projects other than software.
Posted: 1/6/05; 1:32:54 PM # |
| Gapminder |
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I'm very attracted to the persuasive and explanatory powers of images. Gapminder is a nonprofit project dedicated to "Making sense of the world by having fun with statistics". Their fondness for proprietary file formats and their navigation are frustrating, but their use of charts to illustrate issues is sharp.
Posted: 1/6/05; 1:23:46 PM # |
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3 January 2005 |
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| U.S. Gave $1B in Faith-Based Funds in 2003 |
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The U.S. government gave a billion dollars to so-called "faith based" nonprofit organizations in 2003. My reactions are mixed: I don't understand why good work that is done with a formal connection to religion is somehow more based in faith or spiritual values than, say, my own work. I also deplore the government funding of evangelism, which is clearly happening. Finally, I'm amused by the incompetence -- illustrated in one example in this story -- that leads the government to make faith based grants to organizations that use the word "ministries", but are not actually connected to any religion.
Posted: 1/3/05; 9:56:31 AM # |
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