Posts Tagged 'nonprofit'

Changing the World Through Careers in ICT

Published December 4, 2009 non profit 2 Comments
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It’s only (!) taken me a little over 2 years to finally figure out what my blog is about, so I have updated my About Me page to include some more details about this blog  and the things I enjoy.

“Perhaps you want to change the world through your community group,  non profit, aid organisation or government agency, or maybe you help people to collaborate  in your workplace. Wherever you work or volunteer, I  hope Wonderwebby can be a place where you can find inspiration, ideas and tips so that you can make a difference  through the use of creative social media.”

As always I’m happy to hear your feedback, as I find About Me pages and bios to be quite difficult to get “just right”! Don’t you?

In a way, writing this blog also helps me to focus my time and energy on the things that I am passionate about. I was asked to speak about some of these passions at the VITTA Careers and ICT Expo earlier this year in Melbourne and I have finally uploaded it to Slideshare. Once again I used the alphabet technique. Truth be told, I knew I had an hour and the letters prompted me to keep my ramblings to a point per minute! Plus it made it enjoyable to present to the teachers who came along. Enjoy!

When We Collaborate Lives Change

Published September 15, 2009 non profit Leave a Comment
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If you follow my blog at all, you’ll remember me asking for donations to help a bunch of women out of poverty. People around the world responded by blogging, tweeting and most importantly donating $7,000 to a 2 year microfinance project! And more great news is that I just got the first report from Opportunity International Australia. I am thrilled to introduce you to the 12 women who are now starting or building their small businesses to get out of poverty, and save for their children to go to university.

Furao Trust Group
The Furao Trust Group is composed of 12 female members. Furao is a small village on the outskirts of the nearest town, however the closest market from the village is still 7km away. Furao Trust Group members have to travel 10km to buy stock for their businesses at the large public market in Roxas. In Furao most homes have two rooms, so families often sleep in their living room. Water is accessed from a communal well.

Furao Trust Group members are engaged in various small businesses including tricycle driving, piggeries, vegetable gardening and barbeque vending. With the loans received, members can invest in larger quantities of their product or can expand their range of stock.  Members meet with a loan officer every Thursday to make their loan repayments and receive business training and mentoring. Members also enjoy the strong friendships created within the Trust Group.

Client Profile

Norma Diampoc runs her own sari-sari store business. She is married to Augustus, a farmer. Together they have three children: Cristine, 24 years old, Alma, 22, and Elgie, 18.

Out of the hardships she endured as a child, Norma has become a strong business woman. Being part of a family who did not have enough resources to provide for their needs, she was forced to leave high school early.Norma usually opens her store at 8am and closes it at 9pm. She chose to open a sari-sari store because she is able to earn a living and still fulfill her responsibilities as a wife and mother… (read more from the report)

Usually these women have no access to capital, therefore are unable to obtain business loans. However with microfinance in a Trust Group, they are able to co-guarantee each other’s loans.

Thanks again for collaborating with me online to show your care and generosity. Your tweets, blog posts, encouragement and donations have made a huge difference to these women, and to the future of thier children.

Vote for a Love Story

Published June 16, 2009 non profit 1 Comment
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How easy is it to tell a story? Easy – so I thought.  I’ve been trying to think up a story for a Slideshare competition for a few days and had grand plans of creating something unique with hand drawn charcoal images. But first you need a story, right? I felt just like my six year old who freezes up when his teacher asks him to write about his weekend – overwhelmed by the sheer number of possibilities. I did manage to come up with a starting point for a story, but then the weekend swallowed up my idea.

Eventually I was left with a couple of hours last night. I was going through some files on my computer when I saw some photos from the Shout Out Social exhibition, and thought to myself ‘I really ought to do something with those’. Voila! Instant story.

Please vote for these slides in the Fuze Tell a Story Contest, because if I win the prize money will be donated to women in poverty through Opportunity International (Grand Prize is $5,000.) I hope you like this short story ‘about love, beginning with you’. It might not be the story I had hoped to write, but I think you’ll enjoy it nonetheless.

A drink for Wonderwebby

Published June 8, 2009 non profit 3 Comments
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This month I’m wrapping up my fundraising activities for Opportunity International and need to raise another USD$4,000 for a 2 year program providing small business loans and training for Filipino women  currently living in poverty.

So I thought I would ask 1000 people to donate USD$4 - the price of a drink – to raise the total funds for this project. A coffee costs $4 at some places these days – I would be really grateful if you could shout me one :)

Many thanks to people who have chipped in so far already raising 50% of funds for this AUD$10,000 program including:

@sachac @socialtopher @sminkworks @badkoala @kt29 @gypsychk @joannayoung @digitalfilipino @joannestanton @gusposkus @juliancole @ethmanmcc @mspecht @bettinac @janelle_amet @onlinedialogues @blm849 @iggypintado @andypiper @nancywhite @verbaw @marigo @elsua @aqualung @SonjaBarfoed and @deswalsh

You can read more and donate at http://wonderwebby.chipin.com

Update – thanks for your donations so far including drinks and rounds from @kdelarue @deswalsh and @innotecture – only 981 drinks to go!

Aussie bloggers uniting to raise funds

Published March 29, 2009 non profit , social media 5 Comments
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A couple of days ago I launched a  blogging initiative asking ten Australian bloggers to write a special  post as a tribute to the entrepreneurial poor.  In return, Incentive House will be making a donation of $100 per post towards an Opportunity International  microfinance program in the Philippines, to help women out of poverty.

So far three amazing people have joined in the challenge by writing ‘Tribute” posts – that’s $300 raised by these bloggers  in 3 days for women in poverty! Wonderful.

Matthew Johnson wrote about steps for  success, Gavin Heaton shared his experience as a microfinance ‘micro-investor’ and Des Walsh wrote a tribute to people with entrepreneurial spirit. Thank you!

Incentive House are willing to donate $700 more dollars but I’m looking for seven more Aussie bloggers to unite for women living in poverty over the next two days – simply  write a post before midnight Tuesday (31st March) and Incentive House will donate $100 towards this special project.  Will you join in?

(oh and meanwhile, my laptop appears to be no more, so expect me to be quiet on the interwebs  for a little bit….I will be watching you from afar, probably on my iPod somehow, somewhere!!)

Update 31 March: You did it! Together we raised $1300 in funds towards this project. And another US$200 was donated in the last 24 hours on my Chipin. You are amazing people!!

You can also listen to a podcast of me mumbling late at night, trying to explain the purpose of Women’s Opportunity – courtesy of Des Walsh on the Social Media Show :)

Women changing their world

Published March 25, 2009 inspiration , non profit , purpose 7 Comments
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Last year when I was asked to speak at Go Girl Go for IT, an event held for teenage girls to discover pathways for women in IT, I had to think hard about the topic for my talk. You see there were some wonderful women talking about their different experiences, from a career in media with the Vic Police, to IT contracts with Vogue in Paris and all kinds of careers that seemed to highlight that working in IT doesn’t just mean sitting in an office in a room full of nerds (yep – teenage girls still think IT is nerdy.)

One of the things I chose to share was the ability for a woman to make a difference in her world through the use of technology. So today my tribute for Ada Lovelace day goes to a woman changing her world. (Ada Lovelace Day is the 24th of March…yesterday in Australia, but still today in the Northern Hemisphere ok!)

Beth Kanter

Beth Kanter by Kino Eye

One of the things that really stands out about Beth is her absolute dedication to arts and community based organisations. She is a trainer, coach, blogger and social media strategy consultant to nonprofits. She shares information on her blog about effective ways of using social media with others. She finds ways to involve her kids in making a difference. Beth even takes time out of her incredibly busy schedule to help out with other nonprofit projects on the other side of the world, like my Women’s Investment project for Opportunity International :)

So Beth, I just want to say thank you for your contribution to the world and for inspiring other women to see the benefits of technology for social good!

What if you also want to change your world but you’re not sure where to start?  A bunch of amazing women summed it up for me at the recent Global  Dialogue Center event celebrating International Women’s Day: It’s a New Day! Renewing Ourselves, Changing Our World. The all seemed to share the same experience and advice:

Have a big dream.

Be fearless.

Then take small steps.

I would love to hear about other women who change their world with creative ideas and technology. Who can you think of? (Perhaps you even like to make a difference yourself…I’d love to see your blog or website!) How did you get started?

Creative fundraising using social media

Published February 25, 2009 non profit , social media , web 2.0 Leave a Comment
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Over the last few months I have been exploring some creative webby ways to raise funds for a special project enabling the poor to work their way out of poverty. So what kind of circumstances, tools and people help to make that happen?

Honestly, if I had never started blogging, using Twitter, or building up some great online friendships I wonder if this would have happened. There are some wonderful people out there! Still I have a long way to go,  raising some funds. Here are some examples of social media I’m trying out to do this.

1.A place to raise funds – Chipin. This website has been helpful in creating a page where people can make payments, with the added benefit of a visible widget updating the fundraising status.  People have donated over AU$1200 so far this way and left some lovely comments of support. On problem is I’d like more flexibility to display Australian dollars and I can’t embed it in this blog or Facebook (I think). Also the ‘page’/blogging functionality is pretty crude so I ended up creating a blog.

2.A place to call home - a Blog. Yeah, yeah I created another blog. I used Blogger so that I could easily embed the Chipin Widget. In retrospect, I’m not sure if a blog was the best way to go, but it’s there now. I also created a page about the project on this blog.

3. Another place to promote – Facebook. I have used the Facebook Fanpage for my next creative project and exhibition.  Not wildly successful yet but I guess it’s all a case of ‘wait and see’.

4. A place to mention it – Twitter. No, I didn’t create a second Twitter account for my ambassadorship. I could, but I think it’s important to know your own limits. When you have part time work, a great husband, three young boys under the age of six, and your fingers in other creative pies – another Twitter account just didn’t seem to be priority! I’m trying not to bombard people on Twitter with requests to participate or donate, but I’m thinking of a Twitter challenge on International Women’s Day.

5. A place to stitch images together - Slideshare. I was fortunate enough to get a couple of slides featured on the homepage, but I’m not sure it helped to raise any funds. At least Slideshare has been a central place to share some of the creative work.

6. A place for people to get something in return – RedBubble. Yesterday I uploaded some of my photography to RedBubble. So you can now buy cards or prints with all proceeds going straight into the Paypal account I set up for this fundraising project.

rb_buy

I have also played around with Tumblr and Youtube (using Animoto) and I’m helping Opportunity International Australia get more of their content online for use in social media. I’m even giving Flickr a go for the current creative challenge.

I’ll give an update in June once I have raised some more money. The funds will establish a group of 15 to 30 of these entrepreneurial poor. The project is similar to the good work of Kiva, except this Opportunity International project additionally focuses on equipping individuals to develop small businesses AND impact their community.As soon as I raise the AU$10,000 the group will be sponsored and I can share their encouraging stories with you.

What about you? Have you used any social media for nonprofit fundraising? I’d love for you to share your story.

If you would like to make a difference and donate (tax deductible) to this project against poverty,  you can do so over at Chipin

Inspiring Words for Women’s Opportunity

Published November 1, 2008 non profit , virtual worlds , web 2.0 13 Comments
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Last month 26 women from around the world took a moment to write an inspiring sentence. Each woman has shared something unique – please take the time to read the message on each slide.
Here they are!

THANK YOU to these amazing women for their contributions!
Alison Spencer, IBM Australia
Amy Palko, Less Ordinary, Scotland
Anita Pahor, Women’s Opportunity Director, Australia
Beth Kanter Social Media for NonProfits
Bonnie McEwan Owner, Make Waves: Impact Marketing for Nonprofits USA
Cindy Lenferna de la Motte, Director at Fashion Collaborative, Australia
Danielle Johnston, Business Director, Committee for Melbourne, Australia
Debbe Kennedy, Founder, President, and CEO Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies, USA http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com http://www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com
Janette Toral, digitalfilipino.com Australia/Philippines
Joanna Young, Confident Writing, writing coach, Scotland
Kieran Cannistra, Innovation Editor IBM, USA
Linda Griffin Founder ClearWind LLC, USA
Lindy McKeown, eLearning Consultant, Australia
Lynne Wenig,  Scope President (2005 – 2007) Australia
Marigo Raftopoloulos
Michelle Zamora, AP SOA Marketing Leader, IBM, Australia
Nina Simosko, Global Chief Operating Officer, SAP Education USA
Penni Russon, Author, Australia www.pennirusson.com
Phaedra Boinidiris, CEO, WomenGamers.Com USA
Renee Wolforth, Attorney, Washington, USA
Dr Robyn McMaster Sr VP MITA International Brain Based Cente
Sacha Chua, Canada/Philippines
Shai Coggins,Co-Founder & Community Strategist, b5media.com
Silvia Guccione, Director, Pomodoro Italian Cooking School, Australia
Suzanne Male, Publisher, Smink Works Books, Australia
Sacha Chua, Philippines and Canada

If these slides impact you, please consider making a donation of $10 to invest in a group of women in the Philippines.

And share these inspiring slides on your blog or Facebook etc… thank you!

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About Wonderwebby - by Jasmin Tragas - creative and digital media allsorts - mother - imagining new ways to make a difference
Twitter: wonderwebby
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