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

Givvy is a comprehensive online giving management system launching in early June. This is a real project with a dedicated team working without funding at this point.

Charitiable giving is personally and emotionally rewarding. By providing a framework and set of tools to improve the way we support our causes, Givvy users will feel more satisfied and successful with their giving.

Givvy is a system to enable donors to accomplish the following:

1. easily create and manage their giving plan
2. research over 1 million charities/nonprofits
3. execute their giving (donate thorugh Network for Good) and track donations made via other methods (mail, phone, etc.)
4. analyze their giving footprint - what types of charities, what geographic reach, how close their actual giving is to their plan, etc.

At Givvy we believe that better tools for giving can result in a better world.

This is a simple mashup using Network for Good’s donation API, with a particular focus on enhancing the donor experience with a virtualization of recent donations.

The NFG API mashed-up with a Google map would show all donations made to specific causes (by location) for a given time period over a US or World map.

This could be used on the homepage of Network for Good - to inspire others based on the action currently taking place.

If we join the user base of Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and AOL AIM, we have more than 300 million people around the world.
Plus, if we consider that the best method to communicate/inform about a cause is the mouth-to-mouth.
Then, we have the P2P Donation via Instant Messaging mashup.

My idea consist in a serie of Instant Messenger add-ons that permit the users donate and invite more users to get more information and
donate for a charity through the Network for Good API, giving quick and easy access to donation, and improving the donator experience.

The features of this add-ons are:
* Search for charities or volunteer oportunities
* Share/Tell your friends about a charity
* Make a donation for an specific charity
* Get news/information about the charities that you support
* Use Badges/images/icons for the charities that you support

Please, feel free to leave feedback/suggestions about this idea.

Topology Framework .NET is more a support to other projects aiming SEA and other GIS-related Environmental Protection and Community Improvement incentives.

Thousands of communities will be able to access data and map resources in their neighborhoods quickly, easily and at no cost to them. Advocates and service providers will be able to use a high-quality, well-designed, reliable platform for uploading data of their choosing and mapping that data against a wide range of demographic data, area resources, and other variables. This project will also allow nonprofit and community advocates across the U.S. to share and learn from each other how they can better use the power of mapping to advocate for and inform change. Not least, communities will be spared countless hours of effort and scarce dollars trying to build such tools from scratch, enabling them to focus more on the important work of finding the right data locally and interacting with people and organizations in their communities. The goal of our project is to make the public functionality of HealthyCity.org, the mapping tool we developed to serve Los Angeles, available throughout the U.S., free of charge, to nonprofit and community organizations. We believe this can be done in a fairly cost-effective and sustainable way, and we are looking for good thinking on how best to do it.
Examples of how Healthy City has worked in Los Angeles include:
- Mapping of overcrowded, multi-track calendar schools, to support a proposal of $25 billion in school construction bonds approved by California voters
- Analysis of areas of highest need for preschool facilities in Los Angeles, leading to over $100 million commitment of funds to develop preschool space
- Mapping of violent crimes and analysis of prevalence of gang crime, to identify priority areas for the City of Los Angeles
- Mapping the mismatch between concentrations of homeless people and availability of shelter space
- Grants analysis for foundations, including determining the location of grantees, the dimensions of their service areas (with information gathered by survey), and the magnitude of grant dollars relative to target population in grantees’ service areas

• Stories Matter. According to recent research by Wharton professor Deborah Small, stories are far better than statistics at generating an emotional response that inspires giving.
• Pictures = 1,000 Words. “Fund-raising appeals do best when they are crafted around a single gripping image." (The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 7/17/07)

Citizen guardianship over public-interest information channels is essential to democratic debate and socially responsible media policy change. Independent, noncommercial and community media are struggling to survive while multi-billion dollar industries grow more powerful from the cables they run under the public roads and the licenses they use to broadcast on public airwaves, fighting off public obligations at every step. How can we create an environment where diverse media thrive? This is about how and what we communicate. Today's emerging information technologies have the potential to connect the world as never before. New media tools enable us to share solutions, strengthen cultures, and create new levels of accountability and transparency in governments and corporations, as well as, among social change organizations. THIS PROJECT could make local, regional national, and international media advocacy activities accessible to anyone interested in holding information gatekeepers in check. It would provide concerned citizens with 1) tools to feedback to broadcast, cable, satellite, radio and internet content decision-makers, 2) tools for messaging policy makers, and 3) motivation to transform individual viewers/receivers/"consumers" into participating media rights advocates by provide opportunities to get involved. THE PROJECT would also address a pressing need among media advocacy players in the U.S. Accessing information about partnerships, collaborations, new initiatives, etc. is klunky and time-consuming. Bridge-building between and among advocates across regions and issues is timely, if not urgent in today's media landscape. The widest gulf exists between grassroots and local media justice organizations and Washington D.C. Policy change efforts. The connection between scholarly research and community advocacy is developing, yet improving knowledge of and access to organizations would expedite productivity (and therefore, positive policy change). THIS PROJECT could minimally, be the gateway to more efficient networking, alliance and partnership initiatives and collaboration. Funders and/or investors would use the service to gain pertinent information about media issues or potential grantees. This mashup would help strengthen media movements, and ultimately be the e-support of efforts that preserve the free expression of diverse perspectives.

Nonprofit organizations and social change activists will spend less time struggling and searching for software solutions, and more time applying appropriate tools to magnify their mission and impact.

A digital divide exists for nonprofit organizations wanting to effectively use software to support their programs and operations. Plenty of excellent information exists, but it’s distributed on a range of web sites, mailing lists, and online groups that make answers, especially comprehensive ones, hard to find. Even when organizations know the URLs, they have to check a number of sources and also browse voluminous Google listings to research a specific software need or a technology area. And those not familiar with the organizations that provide this type of information find themselves lost in a sea of information about software, without any way to find the best starting places or to separate credible from not-so-credible sources. There needs to be a better model for empowering nonprofits to effectively find and use software rather than search for answers.

The Nonprofit Software Knowledge Mashup will provide a well-maintained central source of the available nonprofit software knowledge resources, pulled together through a combination of smart aggregation and knowledgeable moderation. It will link to content from websites and blogs, as well as relevant conversations from a range of mailing lists and discussion forums. The mashup will serve as scaffolding to tie together the amazing but disparate resources located at various points across the net.

The platform will provide more than aggregated information, however. It will allow individuals and organizations to create their own “channels” which map the best resources in a particular area. A nonprofit organization focused on GIS tools might use the platform to link to the best available articles, case studies, best practices, software tools, and consultants that will help a nonprofit get started in the area.

The ability to easily find the answers to software questions will help close the organizational digital divide experienced by so many nonprofit organizations, and will bolster the ability of small and medium sized organizations to use software effectively while focusing more time on mission and impact.

Imagine getting your news from people from around the world, instead of the mainstream media. Imagine getting different perspectives on global issues. Imagine being able to share your own viewpoints and get involved with issues you care about. Imagine OneWorld Connect, where people are better informed about global issues, can easily share their perspectives on what's happening in the world and connect with other people and organizations trying to make a difference. They will be able to create a customizable My OneWorld page to easily and quickly access and share information relevant to the countries and issues they care about the most.