Yesterday we highlighted N2Y2 project nominations from the Northeastern United States. Today we're shining a light on projects out of the Midwest.

If you have hands-on expertise, products and services that you would like to donate to a project near you, contact Billy Bicket at bbicket@compumentor.org.

NOMINATED PROJECTS IN THE MIDWESTERN US
Illinois (4), Indiana, Iowa (1), Kansas (1), Michigan (2), Minnesota (2), Missouri (1), Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio (3), South Dakota, and Wisconsin (1).

Illinois

Fallout - Bootcamping Progressive Candidates and Serving Local Communities

Elevator Pitch: We fast track progressive political candidates and community activists through a well connected network of charitable organizations and non-profits, rapidly building up their political resumes and community exposure

FamilyFarmed.org (N2Y2 Featured Project)
Elevator Pitch: FamilyFarmed.org is a revolutionary system connecting consumers and trade buyers with a network of organic farmers and artisanal food producers. Consumers meet their farmers and re-establish connections with their food, community, and the land.

Hear Our Pain Action Network Elevator Pitch: People are fed up with quality/availability of communications services. Markets and policymakers fail to listen. We aggregate data/public pain across media/telecom services, and provide means for that pain to put weight on levers of power.

Info Island Brings the Renaissance Era to Its Second Life!
Project Vision Statement (partial): In April 2006, Alliance Library System, a regional library system in central Illinois, started a library in the 3-dimensional virtual world of Second Life to gain experiential knowledge about providing library services in a virtual world.

Iowa

Open Community Radio: KRUU-LP 100.1 FM
Elevator Pitch: KRUU is community radio attempting to go beyond simply airing content. It is a means for a diverse community to collaborate openly and build a better society through the vehicle of community radio.

Kansas

Addressing Africa’s Problems Through Social Networking Sites (N2Y2 Featured Project)
Elevator Pitch: African producers depend on middlemen to access outside markets and, as a result, earn very little from their labor. This project will roll out country-specific social networking sites to give African producers direct access to outside markets.

Michigan

Nonprofit 2020: Issues and Answers for the Next Generation
NP2020 will allow emerging leaders to raise their voice on the future of leadership in the nonprofit sector. Open space technology & online communities will help emerging leaders generate ideas & continue to create solutions after the conference.

Youreel Video and Web Project
Your vote gives young people an oportunity to learn professional media production, and provide thousands of ministries with quality digital media. If 200 churches with 400 members download a students video, 80,000 people will see it.

Minnesota

The Cedar Cultural Center - World Understanding Through Music
Elevator Pitch: The Cedar Cultural Center brings musicians from around the world to the Midwest to provide an exchange of cultures. We propose improving our theming, doing in-house online ticket sales, and adding an on-line member and donation tracking system.

Local Issues Forums - E-Democracy.Org's Online Townhalls in US, UK, and now NZ
Elevator Pitch: The online townhall made real where citizens have a say and make a difference locally.

Missouri

Nonprofit Organizations MySpace

Elevator Pitch: The Nonprofit Organizations MySpace is a powerful tool for grassroots mobilization that seeks to create an online global community of 100,000+ social change activists

Ohio

A Citizen Meeting for Justice with Local Faith Communities. R.S.V.P.
Elevator Pitch: Congregation-Based Community Organizations create public meetings to leverage social change. To win hard issues, grassroots leaders must engage more people to build larger events.

Ideas Unleashed Your Ideas... Our Support
Elevator Pitch: Ideas Unleashed provides an easy to use a web-based communication platform to serve the needs of a variety of communities of interest to achieve shared learning, collaborative activity with an eye toward developing public policy change and support.

SElearninggames
Elevator Pitch: Social entrepreneurs make an elearning game together. Our collective intelligence solves the mystery of nonprofit earned income venture profitability. Game goal: make more real-world money to support social missions.

Wisconsin

Uppity Wisconsin - Making Wisconsin Progressive Again
Elevator Pitch: Uppity Wisconsin is a collaborative news and blogging site for progressive politics in Wisconsin. Our proposal is to add action items, membership database, and to fund further collaboration with other progressive groups.

Photo: Are You Ready for the Country? by Chad Johnson.