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South African NGO Website Awards of 2006

I'm not normally enthusiastic about web site awards, but I was pretty excited last week when I watched SANGONeT announce the South African NGO Website Awards of 2006. The thing that pleased me was to see how presenting the awards along side of the criteria will help influence the practices of other organizations. The five criteria, which in part followed some advice of mine, were communication centric: (1) Objectives: What are the communication objective of the website and are they expressed? (2) Accessibility: Is the language and site accessible? (3) Marketing: How does the website capture the attention of the first time visitor? (4) Cultivation: How does the website retain the attention of the return visitor? (5) Tone: What is the tone of the language on the website. Posted: 3/19/06; 11:09:51 PM #

The Power Shift and the NGO Credibility Crisis

In the most recent issue of The International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law, James McGann and Mary Johnstone have an important article on the global role of civil society organizations, entitled The Power Shift and the NGO Credibility Crisis. The authors make an appeal for increased transparency and examine six factors contributing to that need: 1. Democratization and the Civil Society Ideal. 2. Growing Demand for Information, Analysis, and Action. 3. Growth of States, Non-state, and Inter-state Actors 4. Improved Communications Technologies. 5. Globalization of NGO Funding. 6. Paralysis and Poor Performance of the Public Sector. Posted: 3/19/06; 11:01:43 PM #

Dynamics of Power, Inclusion, and Exclusion

The Dynamics of Power, Inclusion, and Exclusion (22 page MS Word document) is a great primer on power relation analysis by Just Associates. It presents several useful taxonomies of social power relations and takes a good look at different expressions and contexts of power differences. The ultimate purpose of the document is to serve as a tool for social justice activists, but this sort of thinking is valuable in a great many situations. Posted: 3/19/06; 10:47:19 PM #