If you are interested in being more effective with your use of social media in 2010, attending one of these two events will be a great way to build some momentum.

Each seminar is entitled “Building Your Own Social Media Dashboard”, and will be held at two times:

• Wednesday, February 3rd from 2pm to 4pm
• Thursday, February 4th from 2pm to 4pm

The goal of the workshops is to help nonprofit staff learn both about social media as well as how they can track the impact and reach of their messaging.

These hands-on, learner-driven events will allow participants to set up their own “listening dashboard” where they can track the impact of their online communication efforts (web, Facebook, Twitter, and more), while also tracking issues pertinent to their organization, all with a single free online tool. Participants will use the NetVibes platform to create their dashboards.

The workshops are designed for those starting out in social media as well as those who have established a social media presence but don’t know how to start assessing the reach of their messages and the online activity around their programmatic issue areas.

Because the workshops will be participant-driven, we’ll encourage discussion amongst the group, so bring your stories, questions and frustrations and we’ll see if we can sift out some answers and solutions.

The seminars will take place at the

San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center
1370 Mission St, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
See Map

This is a free and open event, but space is limited, so please RSVP to seminars@aspirationtech.org, and make sure to specify which day you’ll be attending.

Slides from the presentation can be found here: http://www.aspirationtech.org/files/BuildingYourOwnSMDashboard.pdf

If you are interested in being more effective with your use of social media in 2010, this event is a great way to start off the year with momentum.

The seminar is entitled “Building Your Own Social Media Dashboard”, and will be held on

Friday, January 8th from 2pm to 3:30pm

The goal of the workshop is to help nonprofit staff learn both about social media as well as how they can track the impact and reach of their messaging.

This hands-on, learner-driven event will allow participants to set up their own “listening dashboard” where they can track the impact of their online communication efforts (web, Facebook, Twitter, and more), while also tracking issues pertinent to their organization, all with a single free online tool. Participants will use the NetVibes platform to create their dashboards.

The workshop is designed for those starting out in social media as well as those who have established a social media presence but don’t know how to start assessing the reach of their messages and the online activity around their programmatic issue areas.

Because the workshop will be participant-driven, we’ll encourage discussion amongst the group, so bring your stories, questions and frustrations and we’ll see if we can sift out some answers and solutions.

The seminar will take place at the

San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center
1370 Mission St, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
See Map

This is a free and open event, but space is limited, so please RSVP to seminars@aspirationtech.org.

Hot off the presses, our end-of-year newsletter is yours for the clicking. In this edition:

• Nonprofit Software Dev Summit Caps a Rich Year of Events
• eAdvocacy Mentoring and Capacity Building Enters 4th year
• Help Us Test the Answr Platform
• New Aspiration Book: Open Translation Tools
• Doing Our Part to Create Better Tools and Resources

And if you didn’t receive the newsletter by email, please consider joining our mailing list. It’s low-volume and targeted at people who care about improving the state of software for social change.

Aspiration was giddy happy to be invited to present the latest, greatest version of our “What Should A Web Site Cost” slideware on TechSoup’s December Webinar.

The online event was attended by over 200 great folks who posed excellent questions and comments. You can check out the audio from the webinar, as well as the resource list of great web site implementors and designers.

Thanks to Kami Griffiths at TechSoup for inviting us on over!

The 2009 Nonprofit Software Development Summit was the third annual convening of people and organizations developing software tools, web applications and other technology to support social justice causes. Bringing together a diverse range of users, developers, technologists, managers, eRiders, integrators and other practitioners who self-identify under the umbrella of “developing nonprofit software”, the 2009 DevSummit provided an opportunity both to gather as a community and to take stock of the field, while building connections and capacity.

You can check out the Agenda and session notes on the event wiki. Also, check out event pictures and tweets from the event.

The event targeted a range of audiences, including users who know what they still need developed, developers writing code to support nonprofit needs, integrators deploying tools for nonprofit and social justice organizations, and individuals who just care about seeing better technology developed to address the broad range of issues we face as a global community.

Feel free to join the Event Mailing List to participate in discussions about nonprofit software development.

Twitter hashtags: #devsummit, #aspirationtech

Goals of the Dev Summit

The Dev Summit had as its primary goals the following:

• To convene and strengthen connections between the networks of stakeholders in the nonprofit software ecosystem, providing a fun and creative environment for celebrating successes and leadership in the field.
• To share skills and knowledge in a highly collaborative, peer-to-peer fashion.
• To map and discuss what is available and what is missing across the nonprofit software landscape in specific software “verticals”, and to posit solutions for addressing the gaps.
• To offer a point of entry for software developers interested in offering their skills to nonprofit sector.

Participant-Driven Agenda!

The agenda took a concrete and hands-on approach to topics and challenges, focusing on transferring skills and process knowledge in interactive and fun ways. Panels and slideware were in short supply as with any Aspiration event, supplanted by participant-driven collaborations and small-group formats.

And as with all Aspiration events, the agenda was extremely participant-driven, developed in collaboration with participants and session facilitators in the time leading up to and during the Summit.

We thank everyone who helped to make this and past Nonprofit Software Development Summits a huge success, and we look forward to hosting the next!

Aspiration traveled to the Philippines to co-organize Asia Source 3 (AS3). The event was a six-day hands-on workshop aimed at building the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) technical skills of those working with NGOs in South and South East Asia. It took place at Silang, Cavite, Philippines from November 7th to 12th, 2009.

The event was co-organized in partnership with The International Open Source Network (IOSN) ASEAN+3, Centre for Internet and Society, and Tactical Technology Collective, with support from Mozilla Foundation, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, InWEnt Capacity Building International, ASEAN Foundation, and Open Society Institute Information Program.

AS3 was the third event of the Asia Source camp series. Asia Source I was held in Bangalore, India in 2005 and Asia Source II in Sukabumi, Indonesia in 2007. The 6-day collaborative event was held on the lush greens and in the quiet cool environs of the Yen Center, home to the Headquarters and Regional Center for Asia of the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), and located in Silang, a landlocked municipality south of Metro Manila, within the historic Province of Cavite.

In the tradition of previous camps, Asia Source 3 brought in participants from across Asia, who shared the common goal of pursuing FOSS advocacy and its promotion and use among non-profit organizations, small-to-medium enterprises and youth networks. The primary objective of the event was to act as a focal point in increasing the practical uptake of F/OSS desktop and tools amongst the voluntary sector in South and South East Asia.