Update: Based on all the wonderful feedback we got at the Netsquared conference, we've made some significant changes about how to implement our core ideas. We hope you'll read about that below, and also check out the assessment section. We'd really love to have you get involved!

We are building a social communication tool that uses a recommender system (similar to netflix.com or amazon.com) to help individuals and organizations understand which opportunities they are most likely to find interesting.

Communicating and collaborating online is no longer as simple as connecting with more people; the Internet is far too large and information overload can be as uninspiring as silence. Our solution is targeted information. When social change organizations use Squarepeg to build relationships, our recommender system will help them focus on individuals that are most likely to be inspired by their work. Individuals who use Squarepeg to find opportunities and organize people will have a more enjoyable user experience because we will mashup recommender data and social data, and filter out information that individuals are unlikely to act upon.

We believe that the social sector stands to benefit from recommender technology similar to how the private sector has - less wasted time for individuals and more action for organizers.

Our country is facing the Iraq War, the War on Terror, the Drug War, environmental policies, support for Africa, education, and health.

Our congressional representatives are supposed to represent our interest, but are under increasing pressure from lobbyist, corporations, and big money. 

Govit is a website that is inspired to help balance the power, and get your voice heard on the issues.

•  On Govit you can learn about popular legislation, and discuss it
• Vote on legislation and have your vote sent instantly to your representatives
• Compare your votes to your representative and other members
• Connect with other members and rally support for issues

Economic growth, good governance, better community health—Souktel believes that all of these goals depend on something simple: Jobs and the income they bring. A poor family’s best hope for survival (and a brighter future) hinges on its ability to earn and save money. But in most USAID countries, labor markets are in chaos—not because there’s a lack of jobs, but because there are no good information networks to help job-seekers and employers find each other: Web access is low, public/private resources are few, and infrastructure is poor. As a result, job-searching is expensive, time-consuming, and risky.

But a huge number of low-income communities have basic cell phone access, even in rural areas. Souktel leverages this technology to bridge job information gaps in emerging markets—by creating a mobile “job matching” application that helps reduce unemployment and boost local growth.

Our solution is simple: From any phone, job-seekers create SMS "mini-CVs" that include basic data on their skills, location, etc. These are then sent by mobile to our central database--which hundreds of employers search daily, via web or phone. From their side, employers create similar “mini job ads” and post them on the same database—so that job-seekers can search these jobs from their own phones. The database also matches job-seekers/employers who have similar profiles, sending them SMS alerts with each other’s data.

By creating an interactive, accessible platform that ‘levels the playing field’ of access to job market information, Souktel narrows digital divides & breaks cycles of poverty and unemployment. We impact communities (especially young women) on a social level by empowering them to discover that they have more choices and resources than ever before. We impact them economically by providing better information which lets more people find jobs/staff; more ‘job-matching’ leads to more income for families, more productivity for businesses, and more growth for communities.

If successful, this project will give rise to the first complete, readily updated, and geographically presented portrait of Alaska's conservation issues. Conservation efforts across our state will be presented in their navigable context. People will be able to understand Alaska's conservation issues more readily than ever before possible, and through their own lens of importance, rather than digging through the many perspectives of individual, dispersed nonprofits.

The effort will raise awareness and support for conservation, as well as increase community spirt among the over 100 conservation groups across our state.

Those outside of Alaska often imagine Alaska as a pristine wilderness, with the Arctic Refuge being surrounded by oil developers poised and prepped for environmental disaster... while the rest of the state remains untouched and safe. But this isn't the case-- there are mining prospects across Alaska for gold, copper, zinc and more, plans to mine coal for shipment to Asia (a quarter of the Earth's coal reserves are here), shipping routes from the Pacific risking destroying the world's largest fisheries, and the last of the Earth's temperate rainforests, with more than half of them clearcut. Hundreds of thousands of Alaskans rely upon these resources for their livelihood.

By creating a platform for sharing information on the vast array of issues across our state, this project will change the way nonprofits work with each other, and greatly improve the way we communicate with the rest of the world. "Issue of the day" conservation trends can be muted in favor of greater transparency, public understanding, and cooperation.

Information like this has never been objectively collected and presented in one location because of the understandably inward focus of conservation nonprofits, which have a vested self-interest in presenting only their own issues. However, as the cost and means for presenting and revising content steadily decreases, and technological breakthroughs are provided by the Web, GoogleEarth, and GoogleMaps, we can create a truly groundbreaking website about an iconic place, offering a model for conservation cooperation applicable across the globe.

The conservation community has the willingness and data to make this happen. We need the expertise to design and market a winning approach.

The Gift Of A Helping Hand Charitable Trust

Contact: Program Director

17148 Waltham, Detroit, MI 48205

Website: http://www.tgoahhct.org

E-mail: tgoahh@hotmail.com

Tax ID: #38-3640111

Shelter Mission

The Gift Of A Helping Hand Emergency Shelter will eliminate homelessness and domestic violence one shelter at a time. We will provide the homeless with the valuable resources, assistances, support groups and opportunities needed to help them to become self-sufficient, self-reliant and living productive and abusive free lifestyle.

Advocacy Philosophy

Domestic violence against women must stop. Let us end the violence, afford battered women and help safeguard them against future abuse, mandate restitution and offer resources for independent, violence-free living.

The search for freedom from domestic violence is often a long and arduous process and it cannot occur until battering and terrorism cease. Even then, it is obstructed unless the battered woman can achieve autonomy and self-determination. Please help us continue our fight against domestic violence against women. With your support we can continue fight against domestic violence against women.

The Gift Of A Helping Hand Emergency Shelter will provide housing for the 60% of homeless single mothers with children and the 39% of homeless single mothers with children leaving out of domestic violence situations in southeastern Michigan.

There is a greater demand now more than ever to provide housing for the homeless constituency because these individuals needs a mailing address in order to be able to apply for a job, job training, educational training and other human services assistance that will help them to become self-sufficient and self-reliant.

While making available housing for the homeless constituency and giving them the opportunity to have access to a telephone, mailing address, day-care services and job referral opportunities will help us toward our goal of eliminating homelessness in southeastern Michigan, while in the long-term making our project and the issues of homelessness we are addressing a success.

Our program promotes diversity and economic self-sufficiency through workforce initiatives. The program will provide resources for our clients to domestic violence support groups, classes and other valuable human services programs. The program will make available outreach programs for the children residing in the shelter such as after school programs and activities.

Nearly 1 million people are homeless on any given night. Most homeless families who received needed services like substance abuse treatment, education and job training, stop being homeless. Homelessness is a condition that we have the power to end. Nevertheless, on any given night in metropolitan Detroit, Michigan 50,000 individuals and families are homeless. Sixty-percent of the homeless constituency are single mothers with children and twenty-one percent of adults employed in the United States are victims of domestic violence's (65% female, 35% male).
Domestic violence in the single greatest cause to injury to women ages 15 to 44 in the United States. In metropolitan Detroit, Michigan 0.2 percent of the cases are domestic violence's and 0.4% of the cases are chronic.

However, only 1,995 emergency shelter beds exist to serve this population and many individuals and families are turn away every night because the homeless shelter facilities are fill to their capacity. Twenty-three percent of shelter guest are a child who enter the shelter with their families in metropolitan Detroit, Michigan and other Wayne counties. So we seek your support in helping us to complete The Gift Of A Helping Hand Emergency Shelter, so we can provide housing for the homeless single mothers with children.

Sincerely,

Cathy P. Russell

An entire generation of youth in southern Africa is in crisis. In Swaziland alone, a country smaller than New Jersey and with a total population of one million people, UNICEF estimates there will be 120,000 orphaned children by 2010 – representing 22% of all children in Swaziland.

Kuluma is a project of YouthAssets’ whose mission is to empower youth in southern Africa, particularly those heading households, by engaging them with information and communication technologies to connect them to the knowledge they need to broaden their choices for the future. With this urgent need to support orphans, traditionally strong communities are being strained beyond capacity. Although their parents have died, youth are encouraged to stay on their homestead to continue to claim their house and land – a very valuable asset for food production and shelter. However, they remain isolated from support networks and resources without an adult caretaker and are responsible for raising their brothers and sisters on their own. A mechanism is needed to reduce their isolation and connect them to the resources they need.

Kuluma proposes to take advantage of the mobile phone network in Swaziland, our pilot country, to connect youth who are heading households and give them a voice.  Connecting small groups of youth via teleconferences, youth will have the opportunity to tell their story and give and receive support from their peers. Each group will receive a collective fund to manage and to decide collaboratively how to use the money (distribute the funds evenly, use it as capital to start small businesses, or any other idea) to support themselves sustainably and effectively. YouthAssets will learn from the youth themselves, and will use this knowledge to develop scalable strategies to reach more of the 10,000 orphan headed-households within Swaziland.

Please select Kuluma for USAID's Development 2.0 Challenge and help YouthAssets to support youth headed-households in Africa. Thank you.

Since 1995, Green Map System has engaged communities worldwide in charting a sustainable future. Now, we’re taking the next step by merging local knowledge and our freshly updated iconography with a Google Map mashup to create an open interactive Green Mapmaking website that will inclusively help people worldwide quickly share their own selection of sustainability sites, pathways and resources online. The resulting interactive Green Maps will be viewable from our own and many other websites, starting in mid-2008. With open commentary, green ratings, multimedia elements, 'impacts index', mobile access, on-site markers and more, everyone will be able to get involved.

My Green Map (working name) will give a powerful voice to thousands and ensure that an enormous diversity of successful sustainability activities and critical issues are shared with the broadest audience possible. It will merge the booming ‘local first’ and green development movements with social networking and interactive mapping. It will draw from a rich data source: thousands of green living, nature, social and cultural resources already charted on 335 published Green Maps, used by millions both near home and while traveling.

Our network of 450 locally-led map projects in 50 countries will be the first to add sites to My Green Map. Each of their mashups will be linked to profiles and the locally-designed Green Maps already viewable at GreenMap.org. Once technical and financial barriers to participation have been overcome, we intend to phase in public mapmaking and behavior change assessment, mobile formats, thematic worldviews, and more. Thus, the N2Y3 Mashup Challenge can play a key role in promoting inclusive participation in sustainable community development around the world.

Love Me Sexy is designed to be a one-stop place for teens and young adults to access comprehensive sexual health and relationship information. Currently a teen would need to spend considerable time doing online searches to locate information related to sexual health and relationships. We want to create a place where youth can find listings of local health clinics, ratings of contraceptives, hotlines, and other sexual health & relationship resources. This mashup would be searchable by topic, location, and gender. In addition to factual information, users will be able to rate products and services providing the crucial peer-to-peer aspect that young people relate to. We envision a site where you can find information on the best health clinics, places providing AIDS/STD testing, product ratings (sexual toys, pregnancy kits, contraceptives, etc), hotlines & resources. Accessible via mobile technology, Love Me Sexy will make it simple to access all-inclusive information about sexual health and relationships. We envision this as the first phase in constructing an expansive “personal health” site for young people with future areas devoted to nutrition & exercise, mental health, and other relevant health topics for youth.

The African Soul, American Heart humanitarian project, supporting Sudanese Lost Boy and war orphan Joseph Akol Makeer, will build a orphanage / orphan center in Duk Payuel, southern Sudan, to provide food, shelter, school supplies, and other basic life needs for the 2,000+ orphans of that village. A really successful fundraising campaign will allow us to build other orphanages / orphan centers for the 16,000+ orphans in Duk County, southern Sudan. The project team has 30 hours of video footage; we are working towards a 30-50 minute documentary about Joseph's life and his goal of building an orphanage in his home village. The documentary will be complete by fall 2008; a fundraising goal of $100,000 has been set for fall 2009, the orphanage / orphan center will be operational by fall 2010, although some aid can be delivered as funds are raised.