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International Agencies and Organisations with an ICT Focus
	I recently stumbled across this directory of International Agencies and Organisations with an ICT focus. It's woefully incomplete, but will give you a nice glimpse of the landscape. Posted: 12/15/05; 12:45:05 PM #

CivicSpace Event System Workflow Diagrams

It's great to see a nonprofit software developer using workflow diagrams to help connect their design work with the business processes of their users. For years, I have been wishing this was a widespread practice, but for now I will have to celebrate CivicSpace's use of such tools in developing the workflow for their event management systems. Take a look. I hope you will be inspired to use this technique to map out your own work, whether or not you are involved in software. Posted: 12/15/05; 11:47:02 PM #

Teaching RSS: A Discussion

I've been evangelizing about RSS (a simple content syndication format) for a while, so it's great to see people like Marshall Kirkpatrick taking the lead in developing approaches to teaching RSS. He emphasizes demonstration and he's developed pitches of varying length with which I encourage you to experiment in your own efforts to leverage this tool for sharing information. Posted: 12/15/05; 11:36:01 PM #

Online Giving White Paper

Craver, Matthews, and Smith have published a paper on the state of online giving in the U.S. (15 page PDF) as of October 2005. Their observations include: (a) In terms of the proportion of donors giving online, we are still in the early stages, but progressing rapidly, particularly in political campaign giving, disaster relief, and issue advocacy. (b) Generational differences are not as important as education when it comes to predicting online giving. (c) An organization's best donors are the ones most likely to want to give online. This last observation is consistent with my recommendation for the last ten years for organizations to build their online work around their existing donors. Posted: 12/15/05; 11:29:41 PM #

Scan of DoD Protest Database Tracker

In some cases, you might not have to just guess whether you or your organizations are being spied upon by the U.S. government. Take a look at this scan of a Department of Defense database of protests (8 page PDF) to see if you might be in there some place. We need to start publishing all of these, from every agency, so that we can see how vast the scope is, so every community and organization can see how they might be affected, and so that we can act together before this erodes the culture of civil society even further. Posted: 12/15/05; 11:09:35 PM #

Is the Pentagon Spying on Americans?

I'm beginning to wonder if there is anyone who is not spying on American activists. Now it looks like the U.S. military is spying on groups both large and small, including house meetings of Quakers! I wish I could point you to the full 400 page report referred to in the NBC coverage of the matter, but at least this is getting mainstream attention. In other countries, I have seen what even a hint of this kind of domestic spying can do to the willingness for people to get involved, not just in politics, but in anything. If you depend in any way on an environment conducive to public involvement -- whether it's through donations or volunteering -- I hope this issue is on your board's agenda. Posted: 12/15/05; 11:05:26 PM #