Christian McNeil has been working as Communications Director at GrowSmart Maine since early last year. GrowSmart is a self-described "action tank" (a hybrid of a ‘think tank’ and an action organization), and they're one of Maine's biggest grassroots advocacy organizations.

Stephanie Strom published an article in the New York Times today about the loss of private data in the NPO world due to an assualt on the Convio site: Hackers Cracked Charities’ Addresses and Passwords. The article describes the scale and scope of the losses. Both Beth Kanter and Allan Benamer contributed to the text of this article.

Squidoo, GetActive and NetSquared have partnered to present a list of the 59 Smartest Nonprofit Organizations Online.  Here's how they were chosen:

These charities were chosen for their excellence in online storytelling and collaboration with their donors. We didn't play favorites to one cause over another, nor did we look at their fundraising goals or number of members. Instead, these organizations are winners because of their web 2.0 smarts and a willingness to engage their constituents far beyond asking them to dig into their pockets.

Check out the list and vote for your favorites.  You can also get the RSS feed to watch the Plexo list on your news reader, create a list widget to put on your blog or web site, and put it on your Squidoo lense.