More than 1.6 million Americans have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As of August 1, 2007, 67,000 of them had been killed or wounded. In addition, more than 250,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans had been treated at Veterans Administrations hospitals since their return home from combat.

KPFA launched this website in an effort to put a human face on the conflict. Only by truly listening to the stories of soldiers who've come home, can we appreciate the realities of war and what we can do to help.

If you're building a social network, mailing list, or other social tool, how do you break through a crowded market? With MySpace, Facebook, and a host of new niche social sites popping up, how can you beat the competition?

Simple- you don't. You work with them to go places you never could before.

Cauzoo.com had a problem that most new sites had- gaining traction in a crowded field. For us, the challenge is making clear that we don't want to supplant MySpace or Facebook, but supplement the social experience by adding a new angle. Undoubtedly, most of your non-profit sites are the same. You aren't asking for all a person's time, just a bit of their attention. But how can you do this without scaring them away? In addition, how can you make a better site from it?

Our answer was simple- instead of fighting the competition, we promoted it.

If you look at the bottom left corner of a sample profile page, you can see "Social Me", an exciting example of our tool. We know that people have countless different social identities- so why not use them? It helps our users recognize that Cauzoo is a place to show part of yourself, not all of yourself. That lowers the barrier to entry and clarifies our concept. Secondly, it simply makes for a better site. Our pages have more utility if users know more places where they can reach their friends.

The great thing about "Social Me" is that it's not our idea- we used code from the Open Source site here- http://dbachrach.com/showyourself/. It wouldn't be tough to figure out anyway, but this is a good reference point for some of the social networks out there that your users might have. Naturally, we're not sure how many sites/non-profits this will help, but we'd love to definitely take a step to say one thing: you are on Social Networks for a reason- promoting them!

The Cedar Cultural Center is a nonprofit music venue in Minneapolis, MN. August 23, 2006 The Cedar launched a new web site. The site was built in collaboration with Cruiskeen Consulting LLC

The new site has many features. It is very rich in audio and video material, and features information about upcoming performances.

One of the most exciting upcoming events at The Cedar is the annual Nordic Roots Festival, which features music from the Nordic countries. 

More information about The Cedar: 

The Cedar (also known as the Cedar Cultural Center) is a highly eclectic music venue located in the vibrant West Bank district of Minneapolis. Renowned for hosting some of the best acts in folk, blues, jazz, indie rock and world music in an intimate space, the Cedar is a 501(c)3 non-profit, largely volunteer-driven organization and welcomes your support!

Mission

The Cedar's mission is to promote inter-cultural appreciation and understanding through the presentation of global music and dance. The Cedar is committed to artistic excellence and integrity, diversity of programming, support for emerging artists, and community outreach.

History

The Cedar is located in the historic Cedar Theater building, which opened in 1948 and operated as a movie theater until the 1970’s before falling into disuse. The Cedar Cultural Center was established in 1989 when local real estate magnate Keith Heller donated the theater to a non-profit started by Deb Martin and Mary Ann Dotsen, Minnesota STAR (Society for Traditional Arts and Resources). Their mission was “to support the preservation of cultural diversity by promoting and presenting traditional music and dance of many cultures.” Bill Kubeczko has been the artistic and executive director since 1993, and with the help of a small, dedicated staff and a legion of energetic volunteers, the Cedar has been presenting 150 or more high-quality shows every year since.

Uppity Wisconsin is an attempt at building a collaborative on-line web presence to promote progressive ideas in Wisconsin Politics. This is a new site (based on the Drupal CMS). It uses a combination of incoming and outgoing RSS, Blogs, Video, and email for communications.

Uppity Wisconsin is currently looking for authors and contributors of all kinds. The current challenge is to find enough contributors to build a vibrant community.

MobileActive is a global network of organizations, technologists, organizers, and activists who are using mobile phones in their social change work.

Mobile phones have emerged as a campaign organizing tool across traditional socio-economic and cultural boundaries. Mobile phone campaigns have swung elections through innovative get-out-the-vote activities, have been used to ensure impartial elections through monitoring, have resulted in massive collective action to free political prisoners, and are being used in public health strategies.

Yet, while there is significant innovation all over the world, there is little aggregation of lessons learned from these campaigns and activities that is being collected and aggregated by civil society practitioners for their peers.

MobileActive seeks to better understand the strengths and limits of the medium, available technologies for campaigners, share lessons learned, feature campaign examples and tech tools so to increase activists’ ability to organize our constituencies with this new technology.

MobileActive 2005 convened in Toronto to bring together, for the first time, activists from around the world to explore the use of mobile phones in civic action campaigns. The MobileActive community and web site is an aggregation of the learnings from this convergence, stories from participants and their projects, and resources for activists interested in using mobiles in their campaigns.

MobileActive is now growing the network of mobile activists, to share knowledge and skills, and to provide a peer network, training, and resources to those interested in exploring mobile phones in their civic engagagement, mobilization, and civic action campaigns.

If you used mobiles in your campaign, please share your story at http://www.mobileactive.org! If you need resources, let us know! And if you want to join this growing network of activists from around the globe, profile yourself: http://www.mobileactive.org/profile

Welcome to MobileActive - http://www.mobileactive.org

The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an international 501(c)3 not-for-profit consortium of nearly 200 leading colleges, universities, museums, corporations, and other learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. NMC member institutions are found in almost every state in the US, across Canada, and in Europe, Latin America, and Japan. Among the membership are an elite list of the most highly regarded colleges and universities in the world, as well as a growing list of innovative museums, research centers, foundations, and forward-thinking companies.

The consortium serves as a catalyst for the development of new applications of technology to support learning and creative expression, and sponsors programs and activities designed to stimulate innovation, encourage collaboration, and recognize excellence among its member institutions. Through its many projects, its comprehensive web site, and its series of international conferences, the NMC stimulates dialog and understanding through the exploration of promising ideas, technologies, and applications.

Arts Engine, Inc. supports, produces, and distributes independent media of consequence and promotes the use of independent media by advocates, educators and the general public. By fostering the production and use of independent film, video and new media, Arts Engine connects media makers and active audiences in order to spur critical consideration of pressing social issues.

Our projects include:

Big Mouth Films
Big Mouth Films produces feature-length, social issue documentaries independently and in collaboration with numerous companies and organizations. Big Mouth is best known for the Emmy-nominated film Deadline, a compelling exploration of the events surrounding governor George Ryan's commutation of 167 death sentences in Illinois.
www.artsengine.net/projects

MediaRights.org
MediaRights helps media makers, educators, librarians, nonprofits, and activists use documentaries and shorts to encourage action and inspire dialogue on contemporary social issues.
www.mediarights.org

Media That Matters Film Festival
The Media That Matters Film Festival brings high-impact shorts and Take Action tools to audiences around the country all year long through distribution of a DVD with all sixteen films, Web streaming, broadcasts and community screenings.
www.mediathatmattersfest.org

YMDi
The Youth Media Distribution Initiative (YMDi.org) is a comprehensive series of online and offline programs that boost the distribution and impact of youth-made films.
www.YMDi.org

"Gorilla Foundation/Koko.org promotes the protection, preservation and propagation of gorillas. Project Koko, a primary focus of TGF/Koko.org, involves teaching a modified form of American  Sign Language to two lowland gorillas, Koko and Michael. In addition, TGF/Koko.org is developing a unique preserve for gorillas on the island of Maui, Hawaii."

Stateline.org is a resource for newsmen and newswomen who cover state government.  New content is added to the website daily. RSS feeds allow readers to keep updated with the content without visiting the website.

Voices on Genocide Prevention is a free podcast service from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Through this podcast series, you can stay up-to-date on the crisis in Darfur as well as the continuing challenge of preventing and responding to genocide and related crimes against humanity around the world.  Voices include human rights defenders, experts, advocates, and government officials.