Wired Causes

You are browsing the archives of 2011 July.

I’m a big fan of the 100,000 homes campaign by Common Ground.  Its advocacy on behalf of the homeless is wonderful work.

This week, they sent me their new video.

Here’s what I love: the storytelling, person by person, that shows how much power we have to turn around a life - our own, or that of another person.  As for the intruding statistics and numbers, I wish they’d stopped trying to take a starring role.  I understand it’s the 100,000 homes campaign and that the countdown has significance, but there are more numbers than people. 

The good news is the people are so compelling, they push the numbers away to the far corners of our minds, and we remember what matters. Like Cato, literally jumping for joy in his sunlit home.  I will never forget that image. 

Bravo to a truly inspiring video with a nearly audible heartbeat of humanity.  I love your work, 100,000 homes.

Watch the video and remember—we always have 4 questions to answer.  Cato’s picture speaks to them all in a split second.  So does Bulmon’s impossibly large smile.  Always show:

1. Why me? by connecting emotionally.
2. What for? by showing the tangible change at stake.
3. Why now? by instilling urgency of action.
4. Why says? by using the right messengers.

People, not numbers, answer these questions best.

My favorite part of this message is the way it handles #4.  The true stars of the video are the people in their new homes.  They are the messengers, just as they should be. 

Enjoy.

I’m a big fan of the 100,000 homes campaign by Common Ground.  Its advocacy on behalf of the homeless is wonderful work.

This week, they sent me their new video.

Here’s what I love: the storytelling, person by person, that shows how much power we have to turn around a life - our own, or that of another person.  As for the intruding statistics and numbers, I wish they’d stopped trying to take a starring role.  I understand it’s the 100,000 homes campaign and that the countdown has significance, but there are more numbers than people. 

The good news is the people are so compelling, they push the numbers away to the far corners of our minds, and we remember what matters. Like Cato, literally jumping for joy in his sunlit home.  I will never forget that image. 

Bravo to a truly inspiring video with a nearly audible heartbeat of humanity.  I love your work, 100,000 homes.

Watch the video and remember—we always have 4 questions to answer.  Cato’s picture speaks to them all in a split second.  So does Bulmon’s impossibly large smile.  Always show:

1. Why me? by connecting emotionally.
2. What for? by showing the tangible change at stake.
3. Why now? by instilling urgency of action.
4. Who says? by using the right messengers.

People, not numbers, answer these questions best.

My favorite part of this message is the way it handles #4.  The true stars of the video are the people in their new homes.  They are the messengers, just as they should be. 

Enjoy.

With the debt ceiling debate raging in our nation’s capital, health care advocates have kicked into high gear and are using new social media tactics to engage elected officials in the fight to protect health care rights – Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. Families USA is an organization fighting for affordable health care for [...]

A Review of the “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development” Report

by Keisha Taylor. This was originally posted on the TechSoup Global Blog.

Philanthropists, nonprofits, and the development sector as a whole cannot underestimate the role they have to play in understanding and using technology for development. But they must also be informed about the implications of its use. This is one of the key messages I garnered from the lengthy but interesting and provocative Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development report, recently published by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Global Business Network. Engaging the imagination, it puts forward four global scenarios, with an accompanying fictional case study, that describe how philanthropy and technology may co-evolve for development. I’ve summarized the report and its main points for you as an easy introduction to this important topic. According to Peter Schwartz, Co-founder and Chairman of the Global Business Network “by focusing its patience, capital, and attention on the links between technology and international development, philanthropy will change not just lives but the very context in which the field of philanthropy operates.” While the report does not claim to predict the future, it provides a lot of room for thought to all working in the development sector and for technologists eager to use technology for social good. It not only illustrates how they could influence future developments but how they could respond to a future made even more unpredictable by technology. It examines how philanthropy and technology are now interlinked for development initiatives.

Four Scenarios: Do You Want To Live in Any Of These Worlds?

LOCK STEP: “A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback.”

In this world, philanthropic organisations need greater diplomatic skills to operate effectively because top-down governments will increasingly moderate the environment in which the philanthropists work. This will be sparked by pandemics. Working in the human rights arena will also become more difficult. It may inevitably limit where philanthropists decide to work and cause mergers among philanthropic institutes to increase. Technology innovation is also driven by government and national security concerns, and surveillance technology is increasingly used to monitor citizens, leading to the “fracture” of the World Wide Web as we know it and to decreased entrepreneurship. This, however, leads to citizens’ uprising.

CLEVER TOGETHER: “A world in which highly coordinated and successful strategies emerge for addressing both urgent and entrenched worldwide issues”.

This scenario unfolds an increase in international collaborations and a dwindling of the power of nation states. Transparency and accountability increases as data becomes more available and as the use of technology becomes more important to the work of philanthropists. Technology innovations in energy and water also take prominence. “In 2022, a consortium of nations, NGOs, and companies established the Global Technology Assessment Office, providing easily accessible, real-time information about the costs and benefits of various technology applications to developing and developed countries alike. All of these efforts translated into real progress on real problems, opening up new opportunities to address the needs of the bottom billion — and enabling developing countries to become engines of growth in their own right” is one fictional scene.Collaboration enables governments and the development sector to get and better understand data. This vastly improves the management and allocation of financial and environmental resources and facilitate technology-enabled breakthroughs on climate change and disease outbreaks. Systems thinking and knowledge management become critical skills for philanthropists. And the flow of talent between the business and nonprofit sector blurs the lines between the two types of organisations. Green technology spurs mobile payments development in Africa. Philanthropists also start working in a more virtual way as access to technology increases and cost of technology decreases around the world.

HACK ATTACK: “An economically unstable and shock-prone world in which governments weaken, criminals thrive, and dangerous innovations emerge.”

Coined the doom decade (2010-2020), (so we are actually living in it … if it were to happen, of course) this scenario points to how financial and overall resource scarcity, as well as trade disputes, result in a breaking of partnerships, sparking wars and conflicts, which are played out through the use of technology. Confidence in the use of technology decreases as hacking increases and criminals become more versed in the use of counterfeits. This world, which is filled with IP address thefts, scamming, and viruses affects technology innovation. As a result, “Guerrilla philanthropy,” which focuses on promoting stability and providing basic needs, develops. It tries to identify not only hackers but those technologists who promote positive social change in a very challenging environment. Philanthropist organisations come together using a “fortress model” to counter fraud and lack of trust and to help protect their reputation. They do more work locally than globally. “Dark webs” develop that disallow government monitoring. As insecurity increases, technology tools for “aggression and protection” are in high demand and so are those that allow for hedonistic escape from real life’s stresses.

SMART SCRAMBLE: “An economically depressed world in which individuals and communities develop localized, makeshift solutions to a growing set of problems.”

Within such a scenario, the gap between rural and urban areas increases because non-urban areas have difficulty gaining access to ICT due to a lack of investment in ICT infrastructure. Philanthropic organisations fund grassroots initiatives focusing on the individual followed by the institutional rather than the reverse. Without global coordination, philanthropic organisations become more decentralised so they can quickly identify and respond with local solutions. “Office space is rented by the day or week, not the month or year, because more people are in the field — testing, evaluating, and reporting on myriad pilot projects.” As technology development resources diminish and economic and political instability increases in the developed world, highly skilled migrants return home, spreading knowledge to their native countries and “do-it-yourself innovation” develops. On the other hand, foreign direct investment is scarce because of this. And other problems in the technology innovation ecosystem, such as unreliable Internet and difficulty in accessing capital and markets, persist.

No Future World Without Technology and Collaboration

Clearly a common trait in all of these scenarios is the importance of technology for future philanthropy and the fact that data generated via technology will prove useful for such scenario planning as well as future philanthropic efforts. Collaboration will continue to be a key ingredient for the realisation of poverty reduction, human rights, sustainable development, and political inclusion. The report concludes by saying that “Developing a deeper understanding of the ways in which technology can impact development will better prepare everyone for the future and help all of us drive it in new and positive directions.” This statement rang true as I read each of these scenarios.

A Grain of Salt

However, the report is not without its sceptics. It also does not seem to distinguish between philanthropy from the developed world and the developing world. Therefore, it would be useful to paint a picture that shows what a world that includes philanthropists from emerging and developing countries would look like. The report does say that one “predetermined element” is the “near geopolitical certainty that with the rise of China, India, and other nations, a multi-polar global system is emerging.” However, as we use technology to get even more data to help inform such scenarios, we will increasingly be able to narrow them down to those which are most likely. Or maybe not? For how technology will develop may yet remain unpredictable and, as the report says, “critical uncertainties” will persist. While these scenarios may not play out exactly as described, technology and related data will help us to design more informed scenarios. However, even the strongest advocates of open data must acknowledge that data can also be manipulated, lack inclusivity, and be used to violate privacy and other human rights.

My Take on Scenarios of the Future

I would venture that not only large philanthropists, but civil society organisations, including the smallest, and citizens around the world will indeed have to “co-evolve” with technology to maximise their impact. They must not only adapt to developments in technology but influence the way technology develops to ensure it continues to be used for good. This will help us to create a scenario where the most vulnerable and marginalised receive assistance, fundamental rights are protected, and those that govern can be held to account. A scenario each of us should want to live in.

Later today (at 1 pm ET), Network for Good has a free webinar by Brian Reich: How to Adapt When Everything Around You is Changing - A Nonprofit Organization Survival Guide.  (If you’re busy today, have no fear - just register anyway and after the call you’ll get a link to the recording to view whenever you want!)

It’s based on his soon to be released book, Shift and Reset, and it will cover our constantly changing times. How we communicate, get and share information, and engage each other online and offline is different than it was just a few short years ago. Information moves faster, people are more closely connected, and the level of interest and commitment that people have when it comes to the organizations they engage, the transactions they make, the issues they care about and the causes they support has never been greater.  Brian will talk about how to shift your perspective and reset the operations of your organization to thrive in a connected society.  Register here.

I wrote a small section of the book on how nonprofits can shift and reset online.  Here’s an excerpt from my writing with seven tips:

1. Put the donor at the center. Reorganize your organization around the donor. Tear down the walls around your technology, marketing, fund-raising, and communications departments, and rebuild the organization in a way that creates a completely supporter-centric experience.

2. Approach fund-raising as giving, not getting. You should be approaching your donor, and your life, from a place of abundance. Good fund-raising is about giving—an experience, a chance to change the world, gratitude—not extracting. It’s about conversation, not monologue. Give credit to your supporters instead of yourself. Listen and follow more than you talk and recruit. When people retweet your content or spread the word, profusely thank and highlight them. Spend more time pointing to the work of others and celebrating what they say than you do talking about yourself. Rather than pontificating on a topic, share the thoughts of another person and praise their insight. The more you do this, the easier your job and the more popular you become. It sounds paradoxical, but it works.

3. Think of technology as an embrace. Use technology to build a new intimacy with your community. Start with the basics. Your web site should be architected according to the interests of its various visitors. Your donation page should be as emotionally engaging as your cause. Every e-mail campaign should be segmented according to the interests of your supporters. Then graduate to more: give your community a voice and presence in all you do online (see #4).

4. Be the progress bar of your cause. When we download something, we see a progress bar inching toward an outcome. What is your progress bar? Which events, stories, or experiences can make a donor feel that she’s walking a road with you, toward a destination that is near? I’ve always wished I could give to a community cause online, know that Gail from the accounting department logged my donation, watch Jane add another family to their community outreach plan because of my support, and then see the difference I made in someone’s life. Think that’s impossible? Check out donorschoose.org or kiva.org. They already take a progress-bar approach. People expect tangibility, so give it to them.

5. Make your community part of the solution. By now, we all know we can’t control our message. We should also recognize we should not be our only messengers. So let others speak for you. Have you noticed that the Donors Choose home page often features quotes from people who gave minutes ago, on why they gave? Let supporters write your appeals. Give them the tools to take your message around the Internet. They are better fund-raisers than you, so ensure that all you do online is portable—anything compelling should be grab and go. Make it easier for your supporters to find and connect with each other. That means putting great content within the social networks where they congregate.

6. Cultivate according to who and where the donor is. As all the changes described here start to unfold, you’ll find that people come to your cause with varying degrees of familiarity with it, and keeping their attention in a world where there are more and more ways to give can be a challenge. They may have come to you not because of you, but because of a friend. That means you have extra work to do. Your engagement needs to be tailor-made to how they came to support you, and it needs to hold their interests over time.

7. Tell old stories in new ways. The best way to connect to someone has always been—and will always be—stories. It’s how we come to know and love those around us, and it’s how we deepen our understanding and commitment to a cause. Technology is an amazing storytelling vehicle. You can make a supporter part of a story, transport them around the world with videos and front-line blogging, or enable them to experience the changes they make with maps, pictures, and firsthand accounts. Use the new tools to do the best old thing: share a story that has a soul. That is what our donors want, after all—a fellow being with soul and a shared purpose.

I’ve been thinking about the purpose of this blog in my life for the last few months. I started blogging specifically on technology just over 6 years ago, took about a year hiatus in 2005-2006, and have been writing consistently here ever since. But the time has come for me to stop. Mostly, it’s because [...]

This post was authored by Becky Band Jain, a TechSoup guest blogger and volunteer.

TechSoup is launching a new micro-volunteering initiative called Donate Your Brain. It allows anyone, anywhere, to help nonprofits and other community organizations with quick answers and suggestions for their Internet, software, and other tech needs.

TechSoup’s Donate Your Brain is a way for nonprofits, NGOs, libraries, government agencies and other social mission-based organizations to ask tech-related questions and get quick answers. Questions posted in our forums, LinkedIn group, or on Twitter will get a rapid response from volunteers. This new initiative is ideal for those of you who would like to get involved with providing tech assistance on the social networks where you are already active.

Here’s how you can get involved:

• Search and save the hashtag #TechSoupDYB, and respond either via tweet or following a link to the forum post.

• View questions & share answers in the TechSoup Global LinkedIn group.

• Use GoogleAlerts or a similar service to let you know about any new forum posts, blogs or tweets that have been tagged with #TechSoupDYB.

See here for further instructions, or to jump in to the discussion. You choose which questions you want to answer, whenever you want to answer them!

This is part of an ongoing Voices from the Community series of blog posts culling popular topics of interest from the TechSoup Community Forums and other online channels.

In response to NetSquared’s July Net2 Think Tank on the topic of Building a Culture of Accessibility, I’ve compiled some of the suggestions and discussions from TechSoup’s Accessible Technology and Public Computing forum.

Opening Hearts and Minds

As our community discusses the topic of building a culture of accessibility, an important distinction arises. Beyond — or, perhaps more properly, before — the nuts-and-bolts business of making accessible technology and making technology accessible, comes the foundation for such. As community member and Executive Director of Knowbility Sharon Rush points out, a culture of accessibility requires “open hearts and minds, the ability to listen and look in new ways, the willingness to lay aside basic assumptions, and a true commitment.” Jayne Cravens, host of the TechSoup Volunteers and Technology forum, echoes Sharon and notes that too few IT managers and web developers make accessibility a priority.

While some web developers may feel that meeting accessibility standards is too large an effort, Rush holds that the time is right to take that very effort on. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of People with Disabilities “has recognized access to technology as a foundational right in today’s world,” while the United States Department of Justice has begun looking at extending American Disabilities Act protections to the Internet.

A Plethora of Resources

Luckily, resources abound for anyone wishing to learn more about how to develop more accessible technology.

Sharon Rush weighs in again, this time with some of the best resources for learning about web accessibility methods. At the top of her list is the Web Accessibility Initiative of the W3C, the group responsible for official standards, web protocols, and practices.

Peter Cheer, host of the TechSoup Accessible Computing and Public Technology forum, grants that the wide array of information about web accessibility standards might seem overwhelming. But he goes on to offer a nifty resource that is aimed at a more general audience while not attempting to be comprehensive. This e-book from the OneVoice for Accessible ICT Coalition outlines the first measures a web developer should take toward making a site accessible. Entitled The First Seven Steps to Accessible Websites, the book answers the question: Where do I start?

In addition to online resources, there are also on-the-ground events and conferences organized around the topic of accessibility. Peter Cheer shares the upcoming 3rd Annual CUNY Accessibility Conference slated for August 4, 2011. There is also the Accessibility Unconference in Boston on September 17, 2011, and the 2011 da Vinci Awards on Sepetember 22, celebrating global excellence in assistive technology.

Tools for Free

Free tools are another great assistive technology resource that our community shares information about on the forums.

Peter Cheer notes that the Verbally app for iPad offers useful features: an onscreen keyboard with word prediction in combination with word/phrase choices, as well as male/female speech synthesized voices. And it’s free, to boot.

Another recent free tool that Peter brings to our attention is the new release candidate version of the Open Source MS Windows Screen Reader from the Non Nisual Desktop Access (NVDA) project. Highlights include automatic reporting of new text output in a variety of clients, support for global plugins, additional key bindings for braille displays, and more. Community member and TechSoup Web Content Developer Carlos Bergfeld agrees that it’s a great tool, although it doesn’t play as well with Google Chrome.

Perhaps this is not surprising, as it seems that Google’s apps are also not working well with screen readers and other accessibility tools. As Jayne Cravens points out, this is particularly a shame because some of the institutions that have led the charge in compliance are the same ones outsourcing certain functions to Google — most likely without knowing how this impedes accessibility.

A Place to Start

This lack of knowledge again raises the fragmented nature of information available on accessibility, as well as the difficulties in enforcing standards. It’s an ongoing issue that will need continued discussion and examination, but entities such as TechSoup and NetSquared highlighting the challenges and fostering dialogue with the community is one place to start.