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).

• How to Prepare Your Community for a Major Change « The Community Manager – "Change: it’s the one constant in life. Whether you’re introducing a change in ownership, new staff, policy change, technical update, or something else, community members sometimes resist change. Usually, they’re afraid of repercussions that could affect the community they care so much about—so, it comes from a “good place.” That being said, their fears and frustrations can create chaos, and part of your job as community manager is to make transitions as smooth and drama-free as possible. Follow these steps to turn your announcement from a sign of the apocalypse into a community-building win they thank you for."
• Interactive: How America Gives – How America Gives – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – The Chronicle of Philanthropy has launched a great new tool: an interactive map of giving data in the US. You can look at total contributions, contributions by household, discretionary income by household, and percentage of income given by household at the national, state, county, and local level.
• Survey says: Most noprofiteers blend their personal/professional brands | Big Duck – "Last week I had the joy of presenting a workshop with the fabulous Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Federation at the 7th Annual Bridge to Integrated Marketing & Fundraising Conference in Washington, DC. To gear up for our session on "Mixing Business and Pleasure: Managing Your Personal Brand in Social Media," we asked nonprofiteers (readers like you!) to respond to a quick survey about their own behaviors. We heard from 209 nonprofit staff, consultants, and the people who love us–and some of the results suprised us. While not scientific, the survey offers some interesting insights and we highlighted the key findings in our presentation (included in the slides below and online here). Here are some of those insights…"
• e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics » How a Twitter Rapid Response Campaign Helped Susan Sarandon ‘Get’ Paid Sick Days – "A coalition of diverse organizations in New York City has banded together to escalate the conversation regarding paid sick days for workers, with an emphasis on getting the NY City Council to pass legislation mandating paid sick days. So far, Council Speaker Christine Quinn has not called for a vote on this issue. But now, it just may happen — after the coaltion (with a little help from their friends) gave us an impromptu course in how to run online rapid response."
• Direct Energy | Direct Energy Contest | Reduce Your Use for GoodReduce Your Use – "Nonprofits, you know it: small changes can make a big difference. At Direct Energy, we’re committed to using our energy expertise to make a difference in people’s lives — so we’re donating up to $100,000 to nonprofits like you to help reduce energy use. Just make a short video of two minutes or less showing us the good work you do in your community. Acceptable submission formats include Windows Media, Quick Time and MPEG (files ending in .wmv, .avi, .mov, .mpg or .mp4). Be passionate. Be creative. Be concise. Tell us about your organization and its vision, how the small things you do make a big difference and why it’s so important that you continue your mission."

Description:

Sustainability requires doing more with less, constantly learning how to get more out of every pound of material and watt of energy. The creation and communication of this knowledge occurs in social networks of relationships, empowered by social media. Join us for a discussion and exploration of how social media are being used to accelerate our transition to a global sustainable culture.

Presenters:

• Emily Gertz – Change.org
• Jon Lebkowsky – Social Web Strategies
• John McElhenney – Clear Green Technologies
• Rob Reed – Max Gladwell

What is sustainability? – Jon Lebkowsky

The ability to maintain a certain process or state.  We’re really talking about using no more resources than we can replenish.

What is social media? – Jon Lebkowsky

Blogs, wikis, social network platforms, forums, chats: aka user generated content, conversations, communities.  Publishing plust interactivity, participatory.  Low barrier to entry.  Emergent, peer to peer conversations and sharing of knowledge.  Many channels, both personal and professional.

How are the two related? – Jon Lebkowsky

Tech has radically altered production and transmission of knowlege and information.  Sustainability depends on knowledge; social media facilitate knowledge production, processing and distribution.  Human sustainability is a social construction and social media the havey equipment that supports that  consturction.  Examples:

• WorldChanging: knowledge prodution and sharing
• 350: robust advocacy
• BrightGreenLiving wiki: crowdsourced knowledge
• MyHerefordshire.com: communities of efficiency
• World Data Center for Climate: shared computational cycles
• Sustainable South Bronx: guerrilla R & D

You can mount challenges that are effective in spreading the word and making our message accessible to more people who can make their own decisions.

Who is Max Gladwell? – Rob Reed

A heroic ideal: our social and environmental problems are solvable; social entrepreneurship; information technology.  Started with mega trends of social media and green living.  The nexus of social media and green living: brands that combine the two, like good2gether, knowmore, givingpal, justmeans, causecast, kiba, ecoflip, blog action day, donorschoose, changents, wikigreen, greenhome.  Both are trying to decentralize information and resources so that they can be distributed across the world.

Green or Sustainability? – John McElhenney

Reduced operating costs, increased productivity, use less energy and water; improved health due to improved air quality; reduced environmental impact.  “Social media is just PR with new tools. One of the tools are social networks.  Within a social network, you socially network :)”

The Social Media Formula – John McElhenney

P x P / (I – M) = T

People multiplied by platform divided by an indivudal’s ability to express themselves minus misses or clash of style that degrade the community equlas trust.

How do we connect? – John McElhenney

Communities; twitter, rss, threads; in person; by affinities; passions.

Social Media Influencers: as an individual you can join forces, share ideas, communicate.
Social Media Communities: as a community of thousands we can demand accountability, ask questions, etc.

Sometimes we forget to think small enough – Emily Gertz

Not everyone has the means, opportunity, etc. to change the energy system.  They want to know what to do at home.  There are only a number of ways we could be directing people’s efforts into local efforts and promoting clean energy at home.  Big groups think too big and small groups think too small.

Examples:

• National Phrenology Network: asking people to report blooming data in their area
• The Great Sunflower Project: sign up, they send you seeds and you send in data about those feeding off the flowers
• Tweetawatt: will send out information via twitter about energy usage, on Makezine.com
• ClimatePrediction.net: allow your computer, when not in use, to be used to help scientists run predictive tests for climate change

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Follow #smfs on search.twitter.com for the real conversation from this session!