NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.

congress

Change the Web with the District-by-District Organizing Tool

The District-by-District Organizing Tool is officially in the running for the Change the Web competition. I'm cutting it a bit close since I'm knee-deep in bioinformatics studying for finals coming up in a week.

Looking forward to seeing what other entries are submitted in the next 24 hours. 

Apps for America: Can you change Congress?

apps for america challengeSunlight Labs has announced its newest challenge: Apps for America!  Prizes go to developers who can use data from Sunlight and our partners that makes Congress more accountable, interactive and transparent.  Learn more and submit your idea.

Ms. Tenby Goes to DC to Testify About Nonprofits in Second Life

TechSoup's Senior Manager of Online Community Development, Susan Tenby, testified today before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. The hearing's topic was, “Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium." Tenby is the Founder of TechSoup's Nonprofit Commons, a virtual community for nonprofits in Second Life.

A Light on Money and Politics: MAPLight.org

Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch): 

MAPLight.org illuminates the connection between money and politics. We connect campaign contributions and votes for U.S. Congress, providing groundbreaking transparency so that bloggers, journalists, and citizens can hold legislators accountable.

Type of expertise needed: 
Technical Expertise
Need: Programmers to write scripts to scrape state government web sites and translate bills and votes data into XML; and programming to automate searches for legislation in U.S. Congress, using Google and news databases.
Type of expertise needed: 
Technical Expertise
Need: Robust hosting services and additional servers.
Type of expertise needed: 
Management Expertise
Need: An experienced development/fundraising consultant to improve our fundraising plans, and to consult with occasionally going forward.
Technology Vision: 

Our site is built on the Drupal open-source content management system, with extensive custom coding. However, the programming to scrape state websites (mentioned in Needs section above) does not have to use Drupal.

We need to worry about Congress

The intersection of technology and capitalism is the primary reason that we will continue have to work uphill to protect open access and free speech no matter what technology we are talking about. Indeed, we must remain vigilant. It is not the companies who created a new set of policies (1996 Telecom Act) that threatens access and open source -- it is CONGRESS. And we have to fight first against the undue influence telecomm companies have over Congress through CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS. What do we have in response? PEOPLE POWER. So sure, we need though leaders, but we need to MOBILIZE PEOPLE POWER in defense of our consitutional rights in the "information age".

The National Nonprofit Congress: An Interview with Rick Cohen

Rick Cohen is the Membership and Communications Associate for the National Council of Nonprofit Associations (NCNA) and is in charge of web strategy for the Nonprofit Congress. The Congress is an effort to build a grass-roots directed and unified front for the non profit sector to gain strength on the national scale. It is a new two year initiative of NCNA and the DC Central Kitchen.

Rick and I discussed the aims of the Nonprofit Congress, open source software and where the organizing cultures of both intersect.

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