I finally write about my visit to the first Socialcamp in Germany.  There were activists, campaigners, NGOs and many others who shared their work, experiences and visions with an open spirit. Particularly, the mixture of participants from the traditional German nonprofit sector (social welfare), newer NGOs and activists were quite inspiring. This kind of mingle, which makes it very creative, happens all over again after the Socialcamp in England. The hub in Berlin offered their location and both days were filled with sesssions.

Examples

I'm going to have an opportunity to go to Peru this fall (wahoo!) so I thought I'd do some research on how Peruvian related NGOs and nonprofits are using the social web.

Any search for international voices has to start with Global Voices Online so I read through the most recent posts from and about Peruvian bloggers and found an intriguing recipe for Tuna Causa (!) and a report that at the end of June, Creative Commons began offering licences in Peru.   Creative Commons Peru is hosted by Computers Professionals for Social Responsibility - Peru.

 economie, a London-based socially responsible investment firm has launched a social network at economie.sossoon.net to lead up to their eco6 conference in October.  According to their press release, the network has all kinds of bells and whistles:

Steven Buckley of Christian Aid, "an agency of the churches in the UK and Ireland," emailed me to let me know that they have launched a podcast.  I listened to part of a program, Haiti 6-I Say Vaudou, which was a little long, but still interesting. I had never thought about how important it would be to understand the ins and outs of vaudou (voodoo) in order to do HIV prevention work in Haiti.  Nancy White recently posted an interesting email that Steven sent to the the KM4Dev mailing list about how Christian Aid developed their podcast, which is worth a read.  According to the email, Christian Aid supporters now send emails asking if Christian Aid events will be recorded for the podcast.

On May 31, my favorite all-around blogger Jason Kottke wrote that "The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is exploring the use of satellite imagery to detect and prove human rights abuses."

Emily, creator of the Nonprofit Blog Exchange, asks why nonprofits don't blog. I think it's because blogging is too often touted as a radical, new end in itself, not as a tool in a larger strategy for building relationships with donors, volunteers, members, and clients.

Relatedly, we need to engage more nonprofit communicators and fundraising professionals in the conversation. No matter how well intended they may be, techies and Web gurus often promote blogs and the like without regard for sound principles of nonprofit fundraising and relationship building -- principles that apply online and off. 

Olga Berrios, writer of La Broma blog has translated, 10 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Blogs into Spanish!

Check it out:

10 formas de usar blogs desde las ONG

Traduzco a mi manera el artículo 10 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Blogs.