Photo from Audience Works
Hands Across North Quabbin Network (HANDS) serves the nine-town North Quabbin region of north central Massachusetts and is a deliberative democracy project that seeks to bring members of the nine town North Quabbin community together to form a solution to community problems. Many local communities often can't get to solutions because of attack politics that divide people,wastes energy,keeps many people from running for elected office, builds cynicism and allows pressing problems to go unsolved. To reduce polarization and strengthen local democracy, HANDS is experimenting with methods to help residents with competing ideas find common ground over how to address the tough problems they care most about, like education, jobs, housing, crime, health care, land-use and taxes.
The Hands project is a top 20 finalist for the Make It Your Own Awards, a grants program that forgoes the traditional grant application model to embrace a more grassroots, "citizen-centered" approach to seeking funding. After selecting the top 20 ideas from an initial 100 announced this past October, the Case Foundation is now inviting America to get online and vote for the Final Four, each of whom will be awarded an additional $25,000 in grant dollars to help realize their dreams.
Voting is happening online at www.miyo.casefoundation.org/vote.
Here's but one example of how this process works. On Saturday May 3, from 10:00 to 4:00 at Mahar High School in Orange MA, HANDS will hold an "Action Forum" where participants will first identify a priority community problem, then spend the rest of the day developing the rough outlines of an action plan for addressing the underlying causes of that problem. Everyone living in the North Quabbin or affiliated with organizations serving the North Quabbin is welcome to attend.
HANDS is sponsored by six North Quabbin organizations: The Ralph C. Mahar Regional School District; Athol-Royalston Regional School District; the Athol Area Interfaith Clergy Association; Orange Ministerial Association; Athol Lions Club; and the Institute for Community Building. HANDS was founded by representatives of these organizations who saw a crying need to revitalize the North Quabbin region's democracy so that it has a stronger capacity to meet the increasingly complex challenges our area is facing and is likely to face in the future.
The Case Foundation selected HANDS' Deliberative Democracy Project from a nationwide pool of nearly 5,000 applications evaluated not only on subject matter, but on their strength as examples of "citizen-centered" change. All top 20 finalists have already received $10,100 and one year's worth of counsel from a Case Foundation Social Investment Manager.
"The Make It Your Own Awards" said HANDS Network Coordinator Mark Shoul, "has really helped make possible the HANDS founder's idea of revitalizing our region's democracy. Not only will our project improve the community, but it will provide a chance for citizens to come together to make a difference as a group. We truly appreciate the Case Foundation's help with this project and their belief in our ability to make it happen. We're excited to keep building on the lessons we've learned about gaining community support for our efforts."
Do you have something similar in your community? How does it work? What are the secrets to success to finding a solution that works for all?
8. Want to know buzz? Use tools like Technorati, Bloglines, and Forum Tracker to monitor what people are
saying about your organization as well as to find new marketing leads to contact with your messages and stories of hope. (Jonathon Coleman)
9. Want inspiration? Search YouTube and Flickr for descriptive keywords that are part of your mission statement to see what your target audiences might find compelling and inspirational. (Jonathon Coleman)
10. Want to learn from the best of the best? Visit SlideShare and read through great presentations on just about any topic. (Jonathon Coleman)
Bonus Tip
11. Use new media before pitching new media sources (CarrieBethH)Okay folks, can we run this up to 100 tips that you can do in ten minutes using Web 2.0 to be a better nonprofit professional? Here's how you can help:
-If you blog, ask your readers to contribute
-Leave a tip in the comments
-Twitter it at @kanter
The NpTech Tag started as an experimental community tagging project in 2005. A loosely coupled group of nonprofit techies and social change activists decided to use the tag "NpTech" to identify web resources that would create an ongoing stream of information to promote and educate those working in nonprofit technology. Through TechSoup's Netsquared project, blogger Beth Kanter, was commissioned to write a weekly summary.
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