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).

• CTK Foundation Grant Award: Social Media, Technology, and Poetry for the Soul | Community Organizer 2.0 – "I was contacted by my colleague John Haydon last week to write about an interesting foundation grant challenge by the CTK Foundation. John was reaching out to bloggers, asking us if we would write about the launch of the fourth annual CTK Foundation Heart and Soul Grant Award to nonprofit organizations. I agreed to write about the award because of several interesting aspects: the award will help nonprofits support their mission through technology, applicants must create an original poem to submit, the Foundation’s use of bloggers to create awareness, and the opportunity for nonprofits engage stakeholders during the application process by using social media."
• Pew: Open government is tied to higher levels of community satisfaction | Gov 2.0: The Power of Platforms – "The results from a new study from Pew Internet and Life Project found that when citizens believe their governments are sharing more information, they are more likely to feel satisfied with civic life. The study will offer support for elected officials who run on open government platforms or who work for more transparency. Broadband users are more critical of their communities and local institutions."
• It’s About Impact NOT Influence  – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – "Do you think your organization has clout or Klout? Is your organization considered a content curator? Are you a leader or a follower? Or are social media ranking tools an example of more kool-aid mix being added to the overflowing punch bowl? As more nonprofits get aggressive with their social media outreach, they are starting to take cues from the business sector about their own influence and finding “those influentials” that they think are going to produce magical results. “Is it even possible to measure online influence, divorced from offline influence?” asks Tom Webster over at BrandSavant. Nope, it’s not possible."
• From #gettngslizzerd to Getting Donations: Red Cross Capitalizes on Twitter Gaffe – Social Philanthropy – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – "Shortly after 11 p.m. on Tuesday, someone named Ryan found two four-bottle packs of Dogfish Head Brewery beer. The more than 260,000 people who follow the American Red Cross’s Twitter account were promptly informed of the discovery. Accidentally, of course. Gloria Huang, a Red Cross employee, mistakenly posted the comment to the wrong account through the online application HootSuite, which can support more than one Twitter account at the same time. What the Red Cross did next is an example to other nonprofit organizations that make a similar gaffe."
• The Power of Facebook plugins, and other social sharing tools | Community Organizer 2.0 – Here's a great post from Debra Askanase with notes and slides from her recent webinar on Facebook: "I had a fabulous time presenting a webinar yesterday for Nonprofit Webinars about “The Power of Like and other social sharing tools.” I put together the presentation to answer these four questions: which Facebook tools (plugins) should I use on my website, why should I add share buttons to my website or blog, what is the ROI of Facebook Like and social sharing, and how does Facebook decide where to place a shared item within someone’s news feed?"

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).

• Building and Sustaining Strong, Engaged Programs – Part 1 – "What does it take to build real sustainability for the work being done by Community Benefit Organizations? If we were talking about building and sustaining a house instead of an organization, we would instantly know the answer. To sustain for the long term, the house would need strong infrastructure – a strong foundation, roof and bearing walls. However, no matter how strong that infrastructure might be, if the house is to remain strong over time, it will also need people to take care of it. The same holds true for building and sustaining strong, engaged programs."
• Does Nonprofit Consulting = Nonprofit Leadership? | Rosetta Thurman – "Ever since I became a full-time nonprofit consultant, I’ve had a hard time putting myself in that category. And it’s not hard to see why. The title “consultant” can definitely have its negative connotations, especially in Washington, DC where everybody and their mama is a consultant. It doesn’t mean anything without context, but even with explanation behind it, people can look at you sideways at networking events. At conferences, I even notice the body language shift that sometimes happens when an executive director encounters one of us “consultants,” as if our aim is to pick their pockets. Oh my, would you look at the time… Instead, I still think of myself as a nonprofit leader."
• Heye-Tech: Social Media Comments Gone Wild! What to do? – "So in addition to the Air Force Blog Assessment we decided to create a comment escalation flow chart. This is intended to help our social media authors decide what action to take in addition to the reply. We wanted to have a documented process for our employees to use and to find a way to keep our Communications & Risk Management departments in the loop."
• The secret steps to commenting like a rockstar | Heroic Destiny – For all those organizations looking to increase readership and visits to your blog, this is a great read! I always recommend that organizations should spend just as much effort commenting on other blogs as writing on their own. The conversations aren't ONLY on your site, and that's okay! "Read much about blog promotion and you’ll eventually encounter commenting as a strategy to increase your readership. The premise is that people will find your comment valuable and click on your link to visit your site. However, I’ve been using a modified version with great success. Today I’m going to tell you my secret strategy that has brought the majority of my readers to my site."
• 24 tools for fundraising with social media | Socialbrite – Here's a great list of 24 tools for fundraising online – any others that you use that aren't mentioned?
• PEP-NET » Blog Archive » Best methods for undemocratic participation – "We must ensure that the addition or integration of new digital channels does not make existing power structures less socially representative, and if possible, should improve democratic systems, for example by providing voices to people who previously would have struggled to be heard. Mastery of new technologies and ownership of expensive equipment must not become pre-requisites for engagement in e-participation."

In Richard’s words:

“I am a lucky man, and basically because I do not dare make mistakes, so correct. Even drafting of this writing, is manipulated to criticism and change. Perhaps one of the things that is m’incomoda not suffer the discomfort of change. The experimentalist spirit and desire to meet new experiences and new friends I can always enjoy. The only problem is the inability to catch everything.

Now I’m a councilman in Copons, where I live for seven years, a very pretty village of Alta Anoia. Councilman and Economic Development of New Technologies and Communication. I also vice president of the Consortium for the Economic Development of the Alta Anoia, we are working on the issue of new technologies, especially GPS routes.

I have a study of communication & web design, called Redall. With two friends Gemma Urgell and Jordi Mas.”

What are the various projects you’re working on now?

Copons 2.0: When I became a councillor I put into motion a project of digital inclusion and citizen participation using free web tools: Copons 2.0. It was one year before we could see benefits, problems, results… We’ve progressed by trial & error and now we are engaged in more projects like ours in villages near Copons. copòns.net

La Teva Alta Anoia: The main objective is to create a new web portal of Alta Anoia, through which an innovative way to serve as a benchmark for tourism promotion as a tool of identity and cohesion of a country and a brand: Alta Anoia.

How did your work getting the local council online get started?  What’s been the reaction of your community?

Copons 2.0: approach to consensus decision making
What’s the idea?

Really, it’s easy. We proposed a new path to take decisions. Until now, when a citizen had a problem they went to the Council to explain it or filled out a form. Only sometimes the citizen received an answer and a lot of times it was difficult to solve the problem. Now when somebody wants to solve a problem, they have a new way: publish their problem on Facebook. More citizens can get involved to give their opinion, and of course, the council too.

What are benefits?

Not just seven people at the council give solutions. Everybody can participate in solving a problem. Sometimes, citizens who have had the same problem in the past give their opinion and this is fantastic! Another benefit for the councilis to have a space to propose projects for the future, and see the opinion of the citizens.

The premises of the project:

– Everybody can participate with their digital profile -anonymity is not allowed – Everybody can start a discousion to solve a problem – The Council must alwaysgive an answer – Work to involve maximum of citizens in a digital space – Offer training sessions to avoid the digital divide – Share the project with other villages to increase open government

Results & lessons learned

– More digital profiles in the vilage – More ICT in the village – More dialog – More knowledge about the limits of local administration – More who is who wants to help and who is who wants to put obstacles – More analogic dabate – More knowledge about the real problems of citizens – More long tail of problems – More people involved in a specific search for solving problems – More accountability – More transparency – More proximity – More co-creative (administration-citizens) solutions – More feedback & demands.

Who or what topics have been more interesting in the TalkingAbout series?

A mosaic of experiences, stories and projects with Web 2.0 as a backdrop.

People follow people on Twitter, we have dozens of friends in Facebook, read many blogs, we take an idea about the people we admire, that surprises us, which enriches knowledge. Why not go one step further and stay with them? Why not talk face to face with people who pass through the network to be part of our day without having shared a conversation out loud.

This is why Gemma Urgell and I started talkingabout. Now, after a year interviewing different people and creating the platform, you can share your talkingabout topic and create, together, a mosaic of experiences, stories and projects with Web 2.0 as a backdrop.

Culture, politics, education, business, economy, cooperation, youth, journalism, the new values on different facets of Web 2.0 (share, distribute, create value, co-create, disseminate) are present thanks to people that extend and amplify this new way of understanding life and the relationships between people. You also have much to tell us about this paradigm shift and how to apply it in your day, and obviously also like to know or know someone who read a blog, or following on Twitter … therefore propose to you a # talkingabout here and share it with us. Passes from 2.0 to-face conversation and, through a short video that summarizes the meeting and share.

To learn more about Ricard’s work with government transparency and community building, connect with him directly at:

• Twitter: @ricardespelt
• Web: http://www.theplateishot.com/

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).

• 2009 Year-End Fundraising Guide – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – “Is your nonprofit sending out 8-10 online fundraising appeals this holiday season? According to Mark Rovner and Alia McKee of Sea Change Strategies who led the recent webinar Procrastinator’s Guide to Year-End Fundraising with Kathryn Powers of Conservation International and moderated by Eric Rardin of Care2 and Rebecca Higman of Network of Good, this tactic has been helping organizations raise a lot of money. Nonprofits can expect 60% of their donations to come in between Christmas and New Year’s.”
• Public ‘want to know how money is spent’ – Third Sector – “More than half of the general public would donate more money to charity if they knew exactly how it was spent, a new survey of 2,000 people indicates. The research was carried out for donation website See the Difference, which will be launched next year. The data shows that 51 per cent of people would give more if they knew how their money was spent and 40 per cent would do so if they could actually see the difference their money was making.”
• Facebook Will Be Google-able (If Your Profile is Set to Public) – “At Google’s event today announcing a number of fantastic new features, including real-time search, a new partnership was announced: real-time search of public Facebook status updates. A Google/Twitter partnership was announced months ago but we assumed that Facebook wouldn’t be allowing Google to index many details of its site because the two are fast becoming big rivals. Thus today’s announcement is a very big surprise.”
• Does Directgov Deliver? – “Directgov (www.direct.gov.uk) is the Government’s official website for the general public. This discussion paper analyses how well Directgov delivers on its promise to consumers to ‘provide information and online services for the public all in one place’. The analysis is approached from a user’s perspective, and highlights the types of problems consumers frequently encounter with the service. It is intended to promote a debate, and at the end of each chapter, suggestions are made for rethinking key areas so that they can deliver more effective online public services. We want to hear your thoughts and ideas on this discussion paper so please add your comments in the ‘Your feedback’ section that appears on each page. The paper will be open to comment til the end of January 2010.”
• 20 Questions To Start a Social Media Discussion | Brand Elevation Through Social Media and Social Business | Altitude Branding – “Let’s make something clear: you can be the person that starts asking the questions and initiating the conversations that move social media forward. You. Sitting right there. Yes, you. I don’t care if you’re the marketing assistant, the PR coordinator, the customer service manager, the HR director, or the mailroom clerk. What it takes is the intent to be part of the progress, the bravery to start an open conversation, the maturity and patience to not make it personal, and the investment in the outcomes to take it a step further.”