Calling All Nonprofit Tagvocates!

One of the breakout sessions at The Netsquared Conference was on Tagging in the Nonprofit World at that session blogher Holly Ross of N-TEN asked a question ... "How can we use tagging to make social change, not just organize our own work."    

Holly Ross decided to organize one of the "Making It Happen" sessions on finding a way to address that goal.   We had a small group and an amazing discussion.  The folks around table included Nora Alogna, Erica Rios who writes a blog named "Thoughts of a Chicana Feminist",  Tim Bishop, Zac Montrux, Holly Ross and myself.   Other nonprofit taggers who have also contributed to tagging and nonprofits dialogue while at Netsquared (in person or virtually) include Alex Samuels, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Chris Heuer, Dorine Ruter, Deborah Finn, Emily from the nonprofit blog exchange, Allison  Hewlett, Joitske Hulsebosch, Celeste/ Studio 501c3 Blog,  Marnie Webb, Ruby Sinreich and others.

So, here's what we came up with call to all nonprofit Tagvocates:

We decided that we should come up with a few tags for the nonprofit sector and start getting them out there by recruiting "Tagvocates" who vow to:

1. Use the tags all over the place
2. Recruit other tagvocates for their tag(s)

The plan is to get a set of tags out there, the aggregate the content (maybe with Suprglu?), and then foster a discussion about how we can use the content that we're tagging for social change.  For example - can a legal services organization use a set of tags to help aggregate content about Seattle area housing for their clients and agreggate it on their site?  Can an enviro group use a tag to aggregate info about a
local developer to expose ant-environmental practices?

if you're interested in joining us, come on over to http://groups.nten.org and join the NP Tagvocates group!

Comments

[Michelle Murrain]

I am SO all over tagging as an incredibly useful tool, and certainly a way to help organizations locate and organize useful and important information quickly, and in new ways, leading to quicker and more focused actions. Some of your examples are quite wonderful.

However, I have to admit to some hesitance even thinking about a phrase like "Tagging to make social change." There is no question that technology in general has created sea changes in the ways in which organizations get and use information, reach donors and constituents, create campaigns, etc. But I think the jury is still out, at least from my perspective, on whether or not this sea change in communication has actually resulted in very much on-the-ground social change. Are there actually really any fewer homeless people? Did MoveOn actually manage to help elect someone more progressive? Is the environment any cleaner?

So to suggest that a tool like tagging can be used to affect social change is, well, a bit of hyperbole. Yes, let's be Tagvocates, let's do all we can to use, learn and teach about tagging, as yet another incredibly useful tool for nonprofits to use. But shouldn't we be a little more realistic about what this tool can really do?

[joitske]

I tried to sign up for international development, but there was a problem with filling out the state (since I'm not in the us I don't have a state :(, I'm stateless!! :)

[Penny Goldsmith]

Hi. I've met some of you; I'm the co-ordinator of an online resource for anti-poverty advocates called PovNet in Vancouver, British Columbia. We're just moving our website over to Drupal so are having long tagging discussions at the moment. But I'm with Michelle on this one; I don't think that technology creates social change and I think it can be tricky to talk about it that way. It's a real temptation for those of us who are activists working in a technological environment. We want change and we want to be a direct part of it. I describe PovNet as a very expensive pencil -- everyone should be able to use it, but that's all it is...PG

[cityzenjane]

Very cool!

I started using my i_like_to_watch tag to create a low maintenance video RSS feed - covering sustainability issues.

Grab it here. I load up every Friday.

http://del.icio.us/rss/cityzenjane/i_like_to_watch

[Lumpy]

Great Idea!

I have thought that all of this technology is often putting the cart before the horse. Km, taggin, RSS they all exists for a purpose of doing something.