I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of February 11th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.
To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).
- Social Citizens Blog | Immerse. Converse. Disperse. – "This interview is part of our "Social Citizen Sightings" series, in which we highlight how people are using their creativity, idealism, and digital fluency to support their causes every day. Milena Arciszewski is 26. She enjoys camping, reading, adventure travel, and clean socks… and I should mention is starting a nonprofit called Pando Projects. Pando Projects is a nonprofit that empowers people—in particular Millennials—to step up as leaders and develop new, local solutions to the problems in their communities. The initiative seeks to support ordinary people in accomplishing extraordinary things by helping them to tackle national and global challenges. By providing tools and support for people with ideas, the group hopes to empower Americans to change the world, one project at a time. The pilot phase launches this month and will support 15 New Yorkers with ideas for grassroots projects."
- What’s in a word: Abundance, capacity, resource, network and community » ext337 – I really like this post from Marnie Webb, sharing her internal conflict working on the difference between words, like network and community. It's something that I try to tackle by having a clear personal definition, for my own word choice. But that doesn't mean everyone else sees the world, and words, the way I do. What do you think? How do you define the words Marnie highlights (networks, community, abundance, resources)?
- Internet Fame and the True Impact of Influence — SocialFish – "You may be aware that there is a big debate going on in the social media blogosphere about “influence”. We’re all familiar with the mantra that we should be out there leveraging influencers in our communities in order to get the word out about our causes, brands or services… and that makes total sense from a generating-word-of-mouth point of view. But hold on. If you’re trying to do this, and you don’t actually know who your industry influencers are (perhaps because you’re not really immersed in your own open community, or because your community is too large or public-facing to be able to list your champions in an organic way), and you’re looking at some tools out there that purport to measure influence…. maybe you’re starting to think “this is not as easy as it sounds.” Maybe you’re starting to think that influence is not about how many followers someone has on Twitter. Maybe you’re starting to think that “influencer scores” are totally meaningless for your goals and objectives."
- How to connect with your community in 8 words or less | Case Foundation – "What’s the relationship between an organization’s tagline and its strategy? When we announced the winners of this year’s GettingAttention.org’s Nonprofit Tagline Awards (The Taggies), a bit of a debate unfolded about the connection between tagline and strategy. Fundraiser and blogger Chuck English asserted that a tagline is nothing but a tool, and that approaching it otherwise diverts organizations from the critical work of strategy. In response, Katya Andresen, COO at Network for Good, commented, “Taglines are a great test of your strategy. You can't have a clear tagline if you don't have a clear sense of 1) your mission; 2) what is special about your organization; and 3) what your audience cares about.” I couldn’t agree more with Katya. And I was glad to see Chuck raise the issue."
- PayPal and Oxfam offer 100% giving for February | UK Fundraising – "Throughout February PayPal will cover Oxfam's running costs for all donations to Oxfam via PayPal. The organisations describe the "100% giving" campaign as "a completely new form of charity giving in the UK". They claim that "it is the first time a charity has offered a donation scheme in which it is guaranteed that 100% of your donation will go directly to the cause because a corporate partner is paying the running costs"."
- Philanthro-teens delving into nonprofit world – Crain’s New York Business – "In the past year, 79% of girls in the United States have contributed food or clothing, 53% have given their own money, and 66% have asked family or friends to give or volunteer, according to research commissioned by the United Nations Foundation. Today's teens also plan to be generous when they get older. More than 75% say they will regularly give to charity, versus 63% in 1989, according to a nationwide survey by the Girl Scout Research Institute of 3,263 students in grades three through 12."