The LearnPhilanthropy Symposium brought together invited leaders from across the country who represent the stakeholder organizations in grantmaker education and learning, ranging from the learners themselves to those who develop, provide, present, or invest in grantmaker education.

We were excited to be part of the amazing team that planned and facilitated the event.

The LearnPhilanthropy Initiative is bringing people together to create a stronger, more rational, and less fragmented system for grantmaker learning than exists today — one that builds a new culture of professional development in the field, works better for the individual learners involved in philanthropy, and better for the many groups and organizations that provide learning programs and resources. Aspiration is providing technology leadership as the project continues into its second phase.

Aspiration Executive Director Allen Gunn was delighted to speak at the 2010 Annual Conference of the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, on one of his favorite topics, Effective Social Media Workflow.

We journeyed to the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC to design and drive the agenda for the 2010 Crisis Congress. Aspiration’s travel and participation supported by the generosity of Mozilla as a part of their Drumbeat initiative.

The first-ever face-to-face meeting of all the city leads in the Crisis Commons community was a high-energy opportunity for an international network of crisis response practitioners to convene in person for the first time. Topics ranged from assessing the responses to the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, to discussing collaborative technology development, open standards, volunteer engagement and project sustainability. Participant travel to The Congress was supported by the generosity of the The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Aspiration also designed and facilitated three focus groups on the day before the Congress at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, engaging peer NGOs, representatives from the private sector, and academia to discuss both how better to employ these stakeholders in crisis response, as well as how Crisis Commons could better support the efforts of those networks.

Event proceedings were streamed live, and notes were captured on the Crisis Commons wiki. Thanks to Mozilla and Crisis Commons for a great time in DC!

Building on the event model developed at Drumbeat Berlin and Drumbeat Toronto, we headed south to Sao Paulo, epicenter to a rising and internationalist digital culture full of optimism and energy, to partake of the building Mozilla Drumbeat momentum in Brazil.

Partnering with Casa da Cultura Digital, we co-designed and delivered a full-day training for 30 Drumbeat Local organizers in Brazil, followed the next day by Drumbeat Sao Paulo. Both events were facilitated in Portuguese, with translation handled masterfully by our local partners.

Many thanks to our local hosts for incredible hospitality and collaborative fun!

Calling Everyone Who Loves the Open Web to Drumbeat Berlin!

Drumbeat is Mozilla’s initiative to keep the web open for the next 100 years and beyond. Aspiration is partnering with Mozilla to lead the Drumbeat Local Event strategy.

Drumbeat Berlin was an invitation to get involved for teachers, artists, lawyers, filmmakers and other everyday internet users who can do things that will make the web better, and keep it open for the long haul.

Online, Drumbeat is catalyzing new open web projects that address critical needs and make the Web healthier. Check out current projects or initiate your own at www.drumbeat.org/projects.

Come to Drumbeat Berlin to learn about, work on, or even propose a new Drumbeat project!

Like all Aspiration-led events, Drumbeat Berlin will be:

• Active and participatory: we’re going to be making and building the Open Web. Less talk, more action!
• Inviting to people who love the Web, but may not be geeks. As part of Drumbeat, people can make more than software. Videos, universal subtitling, design projects, training courses, books, and more!
• Opportunities to weave together local networks of creative, Web-loving people and share their exciting local work with the global community.

Come prepared to share your vision for the future of the Web, the challenges you have with the Web in your work, ideas you have for new projects to address those challenges. Most importantly, come prepared to collaborate and build the Open Web!

Aspiration was delighted to kick off our Drumbeat Local Event partnership with Mozilla at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. Drumbeat is Mozilla’s initiative to keep the web open for the next 100 years and beyond, and local events around the world are a core component of the strategy.

Check out the excellent video and pictures from the event.

Drumbeat Toronto was an open invitation to get involved targeted at teachers, artists, lawyers, filmmakers and other everyday internet users who can do things that will make the web better, and keep it open for the long haul.

Online, Drumbeat is catalyzing new open web projects that address critical needs and make the Web healthier. Check out current projects or initiate your own at www.drumbeat.org/projects.

Like all Aspiration-led events, Drumbeat Toronto was active and participatory, with a focus on exploring things participants can actually do today to keep the web open. It was also an opportunity to weave together local networks of creative, web-loving people and to share their exciting local work with the global Drumbeat community.