For this post, we’re checking up again on Elijah van der Giessen, Vancouver’s NetSquared local organizer who runs the Net Tuesday meetups. He was featured as a Net2 Local Organizer in a spotlight interview in 2009.

The Vancouver Net Tuesday group has been busy since that interview connecting nonprofits with tech and communications resources for the last two years. They’ve covered topics like Event-based Fundraising, Online Video for Nonprofits, Applications of Location-Based Services and Culture and Diversity in Social Media. If you want to keep up to date on the group, be sure to check out their Facebook Page and follow their Twitter stream.

Net Tuesday has scheduled two upcoming sessions. In September learn How nonprofits win with word of mouth marketing. The presenter, Darren Barefoot, is famous all over the web and is the author, most recently, of Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook. October’s session is Redesigning Your Website? What You Need to Know - with Lauren Bacon. Lauren Bacon is a veteran web designer who co-founded Raised Eyebrow Web Studio. Raised Eyebrow also runs a series of free webinars for nonprofits. These are just some examples of the resources and connections that this Net2 Local group is bringing to the nonprofit field.

In addition to organizing Vancouver’s Net Tuesday meetups, he has been volunteering with OpenMedia.ca. OpenMedia.ca is an organization that works to further a media communications system in Canada that adheres to the principles of access, choice, diversity, innovation and openness. He recently assisted the Vancouver Association of Fundraising Professionals chapter by facilitating a session to focus their social media strategy.

As a Net2 Local organizer concerned with the intersection of the social web and social change, Eli’s active on the local social tech scene that includes:

• Web of Change, a community that brings together the “foremost thinkers and do-ers in social media, technology and social change” for a series of conferences.
• Van ChangeCamp, Vancouver’s version of a ChangeCamp, creative face-to-face gatherings that are citizen-led, non-partisan and social web enabled.
• Third Tuesday, the meetup for social media and online community building.
• Mental Health Camp, a conference about mental health and social media. It will unfortunately not be held in 2011, but the organizers hope to bring it back for 2012.

On his blog you can see that Elijah still works for the David Suzuki Foundation, a leading environmental protection and advocacy group. (They’re hiring if you’re interested) Elijah is also involved in a number of other nonprofit projects and events. He’s consulting for Constructive Public Engagement, who’ve been involved with the Greenest City Camp and the Design Thinking unconference.

Eli has shared his expertise at the Social Media Marketing Unplugged meeting in Vancouver and Calgary as well as guest lecturing for BCIT’s Essentials of Fundraising course. This September he’ll be leading a workshop on word-of-mouth marketing using social media at the IMPACT! Youth Conference for Sustainability Leadership in Guelph, Ontario.

If you want to get in touch with Eli, check out his entry on the Net2 Local Organizers page.