Building community in your area? Check out the newly-launched Community Organizers Handbook! Everything you need to start and grow a NetSquared Local group or any other community-powered program.
The folks at PledgeBank believe that you can be an organizer in your community and hope that PledgeBank's tools will make your work a little easier. Heather Cronk, the US Outreach Officer for Pledgebank talks about how PledgeBank works, how you can use it, and other bells and whistles in this transcript of an interview from the NetSquared Podcast.
During MashupCamp, Yoz Grahame, of MySociety.org and Ning, demos a few projects he's helped build including WriteToThem and PledgeBank. WriteToThem empowers citizens in the UK to hold their elected officials accountable while PledgeBank is a resource for creating and pledging support for any idea, if enough people also support that idea. Yoz explains while giving a demo.
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Today I was asked by the Committee to Protect Bloggers (where I'm a technical adviser) if I knew anyone who was a good source of fundraising support. The Committee raises awareness and support for people around the world facing government repression because of the contents of their blogs. (See their profile in the case studies section.) The group just secured its 501c3 status and currently has an operating budget close to zero. That makes it hard to sustain the kind of support work that the bloggers in danger world wide deserve.
This is a tool for citizens and organizers who are willing to take action to make a difference if a certain number of others will also agree to take action. PledgeBank holds these commitments in a sort of moral (but not legally binding) escrow until the necessary number of pledges have been collected online, and then notifies the organizer and the pledgers of the outcome. Examples of commitments range from donating money to start a new nonprofit organization to volunteering time to a community project to purchasing a hybrid automobile. Pledgers can choose to become involved in both global and local initiatives.
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