Online Community Resources from NetSquared

"Amazing things will happen, if you just ask," said Pim Techamuanvivit, aka Chez Pim, the creator of Menu for Hope, and a speaker at last night's Net Tuesday in San Francisco. It was by asking that she got food bloggers and other food lovers to donate raffle prizes to Menu for Hope like tea with Harold McGee, coffee with Thomas Keller, and dinner with Eric Asimov. And it is working. As of this writing (5:15 PM PST) the Menu for Hope campaign has been up for about 3 days and has already sold $12,510.00 in raffle tickets to benefit the UN World Food Programme. Techamuanvivit attributes the campaign's success to, "Community with a capital C." Most of the people who donate and bid on the prizes are part of the food blogging community.Matt Flannery also started Kiva by asking his community for help. He and his wife emailed their wedding guests and asked them to fund seven entrepreneurs in Africa. Kiva, "grew in concentric networks of community," Flannery said. They are presently providing $20,000 a day in loans to aspiring businessmen and women who are working their way out of poverty.The audience had more questions than we had time for: Have you ever had prizes not be delivered? How do you prevent fraud? How do guarantee that the entrepreneurs are reputable? Both speakers explained different ways that they protect their donors, but in the end their answers were the same. Trust. Kiva chooses their lenders through recommendations from highly regarded microfinance institutions (MFIs). Techamuanvivit "knows" all of the people who donate prizes through the food blogging community. Neither project can 100% guarantee that all of their loans will be paid back, or that all of the prizes promised will be delivered, but so far their track records are good. Kiva has had a 0% default rate on their loans and Menu for Hope only had one prize not be delivered because of a shipping problem--you are not allowed to ship salt to Italy. "I guess they have enough salt in Italy," said Pim smiling.

Tonight I posted the following entry on the podcastpickle forum, and I feel like it's important enough to cross-post here.  The podcastpickle is an active community of podcast producers and listeners.  There's been a recent discussion about the role of nonprofits in podcasting and this was my response: I’m excited to hear more people chime in about the importance of giving nonprofits a voice in the podcasting world.  I’ve talked to a lot of you before and I think we all see eye-to-eye on what podcasting has to offer in the way that nonprofit organizations communicate with (and recruit new) constituents.

Project screenshot: Get original file (64KB) Supporting organization: Hands On Bay Area URL: www.handsonbayarea.org Project Description: Hands On Bay Area Day is an event during which twelve-hundred volunteers at 51 community service projects across the Bay Area completed more than 7,000 hours of service valued at more than $120,000. This day is also the biggest fundraising event for Hands On Bay Area, when a large part of its budget is acquired through donations raised by volunteers. It is an organization that provides year-round service to the community.Hands On Bay Area is a unique organization with a mission to mobilize communities to action. Many people find it difficult to volunteer for several reasons: trouble choosing what activity to do; the long-term commitment often required by organizations; and the number of hours organizations request weekly or monthly of volunteers. 

First, I want to say thanks to Paul Treadwell for posting the most recent nonprofit innovator profiles: the Food Museum Blog and the Circle of Life/Julia Butterfly Hill's blog.  Wahoo! I have had so many folks send in great ideas for other organizations and projects to profile, and here at NetSquared we have some orgs we are interested in seeing up on NetSquared in Action too, so  I am including an expanded list from my "OK, 1,000 Case Studies" post of organizations and projects we'd love to have profiled for NetSquared in Action.  Give 'em a click.  And if one (or more!) speaks to you, shoot me an email (so I can make note of who you're profiling and your efforts won't be duplicated) and write 'em up. It only takes 15-20 minutes.  Just register on the site, log in, go to the "Put Your Voice in the Mix" page, click on "submit your case study" and fill out the form.