Some new items to report in the socialtech category ..
Fellow Web of Change‘r (2005) Leda Dederich of dotOrganize has recently launched a new report: Online Technology for Social Change: From Struggle to Strategy which covers a broad range of tools, tactics and strategies for grassroots network building and advocacy campaigning. One of the interesting outcomes of the project has been the development of The Organizer’s Tool Crib which is an online, participatory listing of tools and web services to support online organizing. The site is just starting, but offers the great feature of a user review system, much like the format I’ve been considering myself for The NonProfit Matrix.
As well, I’ve just read an interesting post by Greg Bloom on the Personal Democracy Forum blog. Greg was reporting on a summer training workshop held by the New Organizing Institute in Washington in late August, and he notes a couple of good tools for online organizing
On the second day, my patience was rewarded almost immediately after the email seminars were over, during a show-and-tell of various web sites. Benjamin Rahn took us through his Act Blue, which seemed to singularly encapsulate why we were all here: in just a couple of years, the site has proven its usefulness as a fundraising tool — not just for any and all would-be candidates, but for individual supporters as well. (Rahn made sure to note that a tool that can inspire said supporters to actually do the fundraising for their candidate is not built into the platform.)
The brightest moment of all (IMHO) came when the plucky Working Assets folks showed off their brand-new Volunteer for Change, an event-sharing site for non-partisan activism. On Volunteer for Change, organizations can advertise their events, provide instructions and contact information, and prompt volunteers to invite their friends. When you sign up for an event on the site, you’ll be sent reminder emails — a week before and a day before — and thank-you emails afterwards. Heads snapped to attention across the room upon hearing that the thank-you emails ask volunteers to submit feedback on the event, and organizations’ feedback rating is then compiled and displayed next to its event listings. Some organizers will fear this development for the same reason it delights me: an organization that lists an event on Volunteer For Change is going to have to take particular care that the event will make good use of its volunteers’ time — if it wants to be able to attract any volunteers in the future.
Link to Greg’s post: http://www.personaldemocracy.com/node/1002
