Rob Stuart shared my birthday, Jan. 11th. We were both part of the 1-11-11 club. But we also shared more than that – the nonprofit technology field. Rob was the godfather. The last time I saw him was in 2009 in San Francisco at the NTC – he attended almost of them from the time they were called the roundup. I just learned that Rob passed away, leaving behind a wife and two daughters. I’m shocked and saddened.
Back in the mid-1990′s – after 15 years of working the nonprofit sector, I got obsessed by technology and started working as the network weaver for an online network of artists called ArtsWire. That’s when I first heard about Rob Stuart who at the time was Director of the Rockefeller Technology Project, at the Rockefeller Family Fund. His projects included the National Strategy for Nonprofit Technology and the Circuit Riders Program. I also heard there was a list serve for Circuit Riders where peers and colleagues provided support.
After meeting him at a conference, he added me to the circuit riders list – and thus started my career in the nonprofit technology sector because I could connect with my peers. I had wanted to travel to Kansas City in 2000 to participate in the conference, but didn’t make it. Finally, I was lucky enough to attend my first “roundup” in 2001 in Denver as the NTC was called in those days. That’s where I met Holly Ross. I got hear the legends in the nptech sector in the early days talk about their work and was inspired.
The photo above is of Rob Stuart in 1997 at a meeting in Montana to create a plan at what eventually became NTEN – thoughtfully documented in photos by Gavin Clabaugh and included in the nptech history wiki.
Rob, you will be missed. Thank you for leadership and inspiration in the early days of our field – you are the godfather of the NpTech Movement.
Allison Fine suggested that we have a way to honor Rob – perhaps a NTC scholarship or Award for the craziest idea for the NpTech field and the winner gets the latest and coolest early adopter technology tool.
Show some love in the next fews at To Mama With Love, a creative social fundraiser that leverages the emotional connection we feel with our own mothers or our own pride of being a mom. Epic Change is inviting everyone to participate in an online collaborative art project to honor moms around the Globe.
I created a heartspace using a photo of my mom and are dancing. She always encouraged me to participate in the arts. Growing up, I took ballet lessons, played flute, attended concerts, learned how to draw, painted with water colors and oil paints, wrote poetry and short stories, learned how to spin wool and weave fabrics, sew, theater improv.
Embracing the arts as a child and into my adult years has made me learn the value of experimenting and creativity. And it’s all because my mom opened the doors and pointed the way and said “try this.”
Stacey Monk, founder of Epic Change, says forget spending money on stuff to celebrate your mom on Mother’s Day. Instead, unleash your love to the world to make it a better place for Mamas & children everywhere by heading right over to To Mama With Love and create a heart space.
Last year, this campaign had hundreds of people sharing their love for hundreds of moms, and nearly $20,000 USD was raised to build a home for the TwitterKids of Tanzania and their classmates who attend Mama Lucy Kamptoni’s school in Arusha, Tanzania.
This year’s campaign hopes to raise $65,000 to invest in Mama Lucy’s secondary school in Tanzania, Renu & Maggie’s schools in Kathmandu & Surkhet, Nepal, and Suraya’s women’s shelter in Afghanistan. Learn more about the women being honored and create your heartspace for your mom here.
I’d like to point two really good social media practices for this campaign. Stacey’s been running this campaigns since 2008 that combine core human emotions – giving thanks or love. She has also built up a responsive core group of supporters.
Nonprofit tech and social change bloggers are supporting the campaign with these inspiring posts.
To kick off the campaign, they rallied their base by inviting them to a “secret Facebook Group” to share details of this campaign. They also asked this group to sign up for “secret missions.” Having a group of ardent supporters help you spread your campaign by maintaining an ongoing relationship with them is a core value of a networked nonprofit – and Stacey’s Epic Change is an excellent example.
Another Mother’s Day campaign is this customizable video about the World’s Greatest Mom from Momsrising who are advocating for legislation to make the world a better place for mothers.
How are you going to honor your mom on Mother’s Day?
This year’s Day of Service featured three different projects – a computer recycling project and installation of a wireless network in Washington, DC’s largest homeless shelter and meal preparation at DC Central Kitchen. Approximately 100 volunteers participated in service activities. Event 360 was a sponsor for the Day of Service.
My role was to document the event and collect stories. I was lucky enough to work along side Mark Horvath and Shawn Ahmed, both experts at capturing stories on video and sharing through social channels. This post is a roundup of the videos, photos, and tweets from the day.
Tech Recycling Day
This volunteer service opportunity was intended to provide the homeless with job opportunities and an income through electronics recycling. Nonprofit techies helped collect, sort, and assess technology equipment for refurbishment and recycling at the WildTech Shelter.
The first shift of volunteers arrived on site at 7:00 am and we were given an orientation and an overview about how computer refurbishing can be an economic empowerment tool for the homeless and save the environment. The good folks at Event360 kept us warm and powered with coffee!
Later in the morning, we were joined by another group of Day of Service volunteers who headed straight to the DC Central Kitchen — located in the same building as the WildTech Shelter — to serve as volunteer meal preparers.
While this may not be tech-focused, it’s still a great way to give back to the DC community. Robert Egger, founder, greeted us and gave the group an orientation.
On the wall, was something that Robert Egger referred to as “Codified Transparency” a bill of volunteer rights. In the video below, he explains the concept of how they want every volunteer to understand their impact and give them feedback in person and on the social web. To be a little meta, here’s a photo by Mark Horvath as the video was being shot.
Wireless Network Installation
A group of volunteers, with parts and guidance from Cisco, installed of a wireless network at the WildTech Shelter. This network will enable residents to access the Internet for job searches, ID requests, and everyday communications.
The Art of Story Capture
I focused on shadowing Mark and Shawn and asked them questions about their practice of story capture. Mark and Shawn have different approaches and philosophies, but the interviews yielded some insights about best practices.
Here’s a few points:
1.) Be prepared. Make sure you have caffeine and your devices or charged. If you don’t, you risk falling asleep or your camera will.
2.) Mark captures the story in a linear way and views it as a time line. He may grab stills, but will do a video to capture an interesting sound byte to explain different points in the time line.
3.) Mark uses an “extended arm” a mono pod that allows you and your interview subject to be in the shot without having a camera person. Since Mark works solo, this is a useful tool. Here’s an example.
4.) Shawn’s strategy is to find an interesting person and then capture their story. He will interview them for five minutes or longer, knowing that they will ramble. He later edits for the nuggets of gold. This requires editing which can be time consuming. This is in contrast to Mark who likes to capture the nuggets without editing and post quickly.
5.) Both Mark and Shawn tweet as they capture. Mark calls this “reality tweeting” and writes his tweets in a style that engages his audience and leaves them wondering what will come next.
6.) Mark likes using the FLIP camera because it is easy and it models that you don’t need an expensive camera to do this work. There’s a trade off because it has a built in mic.
7.) Both Mark and Shawn try to capture enough video without getting overwhelmed, although that it is difficult to avoid. Shawn knows when he is finished when he is filming for filming sake, rather than to tell a story. Both agree that a little bit of redundancy is good in case you mess up.
I’ve been participating in the Day of Service since 2001 and this one was the best ever.
Note from Beth: On my way to Kenya for the Ushahidi Board meeting, so enjoy this post by Manny Hernandez.
We at the Diabetes Hands Foundation started the Big Blue Test in 2009 with a simple premise meant to raise awareness about the importance of physical activity for diabetes management: testing your blood sugar, exercising 14 minutes, testing your blood sugar again and sharing the results with the community.
In 2010, we wanted to let people know about the Big Blue Test through a video that we’d hope would go viral. How viral? At least 100,000 views was our goal… not millions of views, but enough to make it one of the most popular diabetes videos on youTube (competing with Nick Jonas and Wilford Brimley).
Viral videos can’t be fabricated: we know that. They become viral. But, with the funding from a sponsor (Roche), with the advise and help of David Edelman from DiabetesDaily.com and Riva Greenberg from DiabetesStories.com and the direction of Sean Ross, we produced the best video we could.
To help the video go viral, we got Roche to also agree to make a $0.75 donation for each view the video got up to 100,000 between Nov. 1 and Nov. 1, World Diabetes Day (i.e. up to $75,000 if we reach or pass 100,000 views). These funds will be donated to the Diabetes Hands Foundation and they will use the donation to help the Life for a Child program, run by the International Diabetes Federation, and Insulin For Life, two global, humanitarian organizations that provide diabetes medication and supplies to children in the world’s poorest countries.
Once we launched the video on Nov. 1, we asked the community (the diabetic blogosphere, nonprofit geeks, friends, family… you name it) to watch it video and share it, because (literally), each view equals a donation that will help a child with diabetes in need.
What kind of impact can $75,000 make for these programs? Ron Raab, President of Insulin For Life told us:
“Every time someone watches this video, it will make a real contribution to someone actually staying alive. These donations go a long, long way. In places we assist, like Ecuador, less than 50 dollars keeps a person needing insulin alive for an entire year as it covers the transport cost for us to send the donated insulin.”
What has the response to the campaign been so far? Amazing! At the time of this writing, we were about to hit 85,000 views, 800 likes and 370 comments and have a couple more days ahead of us to reach the 100,000 views goal. On Twitter, there have been nearly 4,000 tweets including #bigbluetest in the past 11 days.
By the time, the donation is made, the lives of thousands of children with diabetes in need will have been saved. So, if you have not watched the video yet, please check out the Big Blue Test video. If you have watched it, take a couple of minutes and watch it again. Regardless, watch it, share it and save a life.
I’ve been an active member of the Slideshare community, sharing, browsing, and collaborating on content and watching how nonprofits use the platform from about November 2006. Today, I have over 200 presentations in my account, some with tens and thousands of views. Presentations and instructional content are an important part of my content strategy and the lifeblood of my work as a trainer. Slideshare helps set my work free and share it with nonprofit professionals all over the world.
Slideshare has run a regular contest, “The World’s Best Presentation,” and this year is adding a nonprofit category. The contest uses a hybrid model of crowdsourcing – popular vote and then review by a panel of judges. I’m one of them, along wit …..
Guy Kawasaki is one of the best known authorities on presentations and social media. David Armano is an expert on visual communication with several very popular presentations on SlideShare. Carmine Gallo is the author of Presentations Secrets of Steve Jobs and Business week columnist on presentation & communication. Jane Hart is the founder of Center for Learning and Performance technologies and an expert on social media in the educational space.
The contest is sponsored by 3M and there are some great prizes, including the 3M pocket projector and Macbook. For details on how to enter, click here.
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