NetSquared recently followed up with the N2Y3 Featured Projects to develop these short case studies, with the goal to expand the knowledgebase of best practices for applying social media in the nonprofit context. We interviewed participants from the N2Y3 Featured Project teams to gain a better understanding of the way they used social media to increase their reach and carry out their missions. We are very happy to bring you their stories!

Today's spotlight: MAPLight!

This post is based on a proposal I created for MAPLight.org in early April '08. The mockups are also dated to that time.

Firefox extensions have a huge, largely untapped potential for social change. By changing the way we interact with the web, a browser extension can highlight issues, expose relationships, and raise awareness as people browse the web. More specifically, a Firefox extension could help illuminate the connection between money and politics when and where that connection is often most needed -- when people search for and visit legislators' websites.

Here's a wrap up of a session from yesterday, with an overview of three N2Y3 featured projects. Each were incredibly interesting for me to listen to, and I hope the notes I took are helpful for all of you out there. If you need some clarification (the notes are a bit rough), feel free to contact me at director at knowledgeaspower dot org.

Interview with Dan Newman of MAPLight.org
produced for net2 by ross. yes, i'm a vlogger.
trouble with this video? click through

The first place winner of the NetSquared Innovation Award, MAPLight.org, is looking for a Social Networking Intern. Here's the blurb from Idealist.org:

Congratulations to N2Y2 Featured Project, MAPLight.org for being chosen as one of the five World Summit Award winners in the category of E-Government. The other four winners were:

ATM EXPRESS GOVERNMENT - Mexico
citizensinformation.ie - Ireland
citizen.dk - Denmark
Lower House of German Parliament - Germany

Did you know that as of this writing, Hilary Clinton has raised $63,075,926, Barack Obama has raised $58,913,134 and Mitt Romney has raised $44,432,349? Mike Gravel, on the other hand, has raised $238,744.

You can see and share these astounding figures with MAPLight.org's Presidential Fundraising Widget, which can be placed on your blog or web site.

It has been two months since the 2nd NetSquared Conference (N2Y2), and we've been checking in with the 21 projects who attended to hear about how their work is going, and what kind of support they can use from the NetSquared community to accelerate their work.

Today's interview is with Dan Newman, the Executive Director and Co-founder of MAPLight.org, a non-partisan non-profit that illuminates the connection between money and politics. At the end of the Conference, each attendee voted for the project(s) that they thought would have the most impact. MAPLight was the first place winner.

You can listen to the original interview, and a live recording of MAPLight's 5-minute pitch at the NetSquared Conference, on the NetSquared Podcast.

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Dan Newman: I'm Dan Newman, the co-founder and Executive Director of MAPLight.org. MAPLight.org is a website that brings together all the money given to politicians with how every politician votes on every bill. So, you can see patterns of money and politics that you could never see before our website.

Britt Bravo: Where did the idea for MAPLight come from?

Last week the Sunlight Foundation announced the three recipients of its 3rd round of "transparency grants" in 2007. The grants were given to projects that, "use the Internet to connect the public to information about the workings of Congress."

A $200,000 grant went to MAPLight.org to support its federal search engine that reveals the connections between money and votes within Congress.

In this videoblog, Tanner describes how the Maplight.org site will empower voters and put the heat on politicians.