SXSW Crowdsourcing Re-Cap

Hey All,

I had an amazing time on a panel yesterday with Kari, Amy Sample, Beth and Holly. This is just a quick post to talk about my top three takeaways from the brilliant crowd that showed up yesterday (we packed the house BTW..yay NPO’s at SXSW!).

1) Start small. Start by crowdsourcing a T-Shirt contest. Use voting for the best shirt and the hybrid model to pick the winner. The next year actually give them your logo and have them design the shirt.

2) Give great value to the community. Yes you are a non profit and you do give back, but make sure you are not just asking for free spec work from folks. Make sure that the prizes are good and people feel appreciated when they enter.

3) Be carefull of crowdfunding vs crowdsourcing. It’s one thing to let the “hive mind” create amazing content for you and colloborate. It’s another to lose focus on your mission because you are chasing an impossible $$ prize with all your resources.

For more check out our hashtag on twitter here: http://hashtags.org/crowdx

Have you EXPERIENCED Austin?

Not until you have taken this class! I was very proud to be in the EXPERIENCE class from one of my new favorite non profits here in Austin: “Leadership Austin” last year. It was an amazing behind the scenes way our city works and lives. From how Barton Springs works to how the Mueller Center got funded and built. If you are interested here is a description of the class:

“Experience Austin is an informative, interactive orientation to the city that introduces participants to Austin´s issues, icons and institutions, and the people actively involved in creating solutions.  The program is presented as a five session survey of Austin, including behind the scenes tours and introductions to leaders in the local government, economic, education, healthcare, and arts and entertainment communities.  The program is ideal for those who are new to town or want to become more deeply engaged with all Austin has to offer.”

Register here.

Non Profit Second Life Case Studies – Part I

Big ups to the folks over at Tech Soup for these Second Life Case studies. I still think it’s dying off IMHO but the results are still there. What do you think? Leave us a comment.

Counseling and Support Services: Through Second Life people dealing with sensitive issues like addiction, HIV, sexual and physical abuse, can connect with one another in an environment where their anonymity can be guaranteed.

o One of the original Nonprofit Commons (NOC) tenants, Preferred Family Healthcare, seeks to provide information about substance abuse, addiction, and mental health issues. During September 2009, Preferred Family Healthcare sponsored activities to promote National Substance Abuse Recovery Month to promote awareness of recovery from substance abuse and support those who have made the choice to become sober. Another goal of their Second Life work is to promote awareness of self-help groups, such as Twelve Steps, Alcoholics Anonymous, etc. for use to aid the recovery process. Preferred Family Healthcare has donated a portion of their sim for use by groups for meetings, gathering, and social interaction for the self-help groups and community within Second Life. Individuals also have the ability to contact Preferred Family Healthcare in-world if they are looking for assistance in their real life communities, and be provided with resources in or near their home community to access real life services.

o Preferred Family Healthcare currently is working with the Missouri Foundation of Health through a grant to provide substance abuse treatment services to adolescents who are coming out of residential substance abuse treatment. This project is being provided through the Open Life Grid currently to provide the confidentiality of the clients being served. This provides a unique opportunity to use the technology of virtual worlds to aid in their treatment process.

o The Transgender Resource Center is another support services nonprofit that effectively uses the relative anonymity of avatars in Second Life to allow folks to explore identity issues and receive support in a safe space, and locate support resources in their real life area. A touching testimony of the importance of Second Life in dealing with transgender issues can be found here: http://bit.ly/2cWPIh

· Collaboration and Networking: All nonprofits who find networking to be beneficial were seeking to find, bring in, and collaborate with others focused on their same cause. Through in-world meetings, people from disparate parts of the globe can chat (by text and voice), share documents and information, work together on virtual projects, build communities around their causes, and counsel and support members and users.

o Transitions: A Place for Dreams: Several representatives of nonprofits with similar missions (Community Voicemail, Floaters, and Bridges for Woman) and nonprofit technologists, who all met in Second Life, are working together with on a virtual project that exists only in the Second Life. Together they are working on creating a set of individualized learning experiences and avenues for assistance for homeless or anyone else wanting to create a new life for themselves. Forthcoming is the publication of their academic paper “Transitions: A Place for Dreams — Second Chances in Second Life”, which describes the outcomes of participation in the curriculum for one student. In addition, Sandra Andrews of Floaters is the co-author of a book chapter coming out that describes the progress of a student through the Transitions curriculum in terms of art in Second Life.

o Other nonprofits, such as Sustainable Harvest International (SHI), providing farmers and communities in the tropics with long-term assistance implementing environmentally and economically sustainable technologies, were interested in collaborating via communities such as NPC to promote their cause, learn, and leverage resources and capabilities. SHI noted that “Being involved in NPC has been great to see how other nonprofits make use of the virtual world.”

Second Life and Non Profits?

Check out this video about Non Profits in Second Life. It’s all about TechSoup’s Nonprofits In Second Life/Nonprofit Commons project. Learn more about how nonprofits are making a real-world difference through virtual world work.Of course this is a major part of the work I did while at the American Cancer Society in Second Life with our volunteers.