Microblogs like Twitter are a great vehicle to help organize political demonstrations in countries run by corrupt governments (and an effective way to spread misinformation), but how can nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), libraries, government programs, and other mission-based organizations really use microblogs to promote their work, increase attendance at an event, get donations or mobilize or support volunteers?

I am Nathan Koeshall, Program Officer for the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of teh United States.  I am responsible for BTD's grantmaking in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia.  I am based in Belgrade, Serbia.

Thank you everyone who voted for Kabissa Connections on Netsquared to get us into the final 15 and thank you judges who selected us to be among the 5 winning organizations to receive a $5,000 cash prize. I also would like to congratulate the other 4 winners, in particular Agricultural Marketing Information Services in Cameroon and Integrated Electonic Peace Building Project in Kenya which are both very innovative and powerful projects deserving of recognition and support. 

In a nutshell, Kabissa Connections will address trust concerns by providing a platform revealing the connections that organizations have with networks, international organizations, supporters and service providers. We will do this for organizations working in Africa while collaborating with others on open source tools, standards and approaches that can be replicated in other regions.

I am very excited to receive this recognition for an idea that has been brewing for years and which it appears we will now have the opportunity to implement. We will have more news soon over at kabissa.org on next steps and opportunities to get involved, so please be sure to join Kabissa and subscribe to our monthly member newsletter.

In the meantime, please help make it happen by making a donation to Kabissa. Thanks!  

Crossposted from http://kabissa.org/news/kabissa-wins-netsquared-fact-social-justice-challenge

I have been following the FACT Social Justice Challenge and have been honored by the outpouring of support for the KABISSA CONNECTIONS project in the comments (see below) and number of fans. It appears the other African projects we support are also doing well which I find tremendously gratifying.

If you have not yet decided on all 5 projects you want to vote for and share our vision for empowering African organizations at the grassroots, please consider adding KABISSA CONNECTIONS to your ballot. Our project will help build their repuation online by revealing the many positive relationships they have with each other and with international organizations, foundations and online networks.  

Since there is no open leaderboard, please also tick the star or "add to my bookmarks" link on the Kabissa project page to help us see how we are doing. Add a comment too if you have suggestions or ideas for how you might use the platform. 

A selection of comments follows. 

How would you describe a perfect citizen? Where is the line between being kind and being socially engaged? What can we can philanthropy?

I'm here in Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania, for The Local Philanthropy Workshop run by the OdorheiuSecuiesc Community Foundation and TechSoup Romania. This three-and-a-half day event will really kick off tomorrow morning and lead well into the weekend, bringing together NGO and IT participants to work together, share needs and expertise, and build capacity to move Romania and our communities further towards the civil society and engaged philanthropy environment we all want. There will be plenty of conversations, workshops, and learning opportunities here at the conference facility, but our goal is to share out throughout the event so you can join the conversation!

Call for articles for a special issue of the Journal of Information Technology and Politics (JITP) on "Understanding eParticipation" -- efforts to broaden and deepen participation in societal decision making processes by enabling citizens to connect with one another, with public officials and with their elected representatives using information and communication technologies. Processes involved include both directly political ones such as petitioning and consultations and indirectly political ones such as city planning processes. (I checked with the guest editors: their definition of eParticipation includes online volunteers for advocacy groups/efforts and for nonprofits who are engaged in a politically-related activity).Topics include but are not limited to:

• Current and emergent eParticipation technological infrastructures;
  
• Current and emergent eParticipation methods;
  
• Criteria and methods for evaluation of eParticipation initiatives to be undertaken in a systematic and standardised way;
  
• The business case of eParticipation: Drivers and barriers;
  
• Theories and contextual analysis of eParticipation.

Manuscripts should have significant theoretical and empirical roots, preferably in both social/political science and IT, but should at least contain significant content in both areas.