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Network mapping software - This web link provides an overview of network mapping software options.
Vibrant Communities Storytelling Guide: Creating Memorable Messages – This resource reviews the ‘splashes and ripples’created by the documentation of VC initiatives, shares lessons and tools, and challenges readers to consider their own storytelling possibilities.
The Storyworks Review Writers’ Guidelines - This document outlines the guidelines for submitting an article to The Storyworks Review.
Get Ready for the Launch - is a “how-to” article for using positive deviance in a hospital setting.
Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change - This article summarizes insights from Adam Kahane’s latest book on social change.
I Gotta Feeling – This video clip of a flash mob of synchronized dancers connect in downtown Chicago offers a beautiful metaphor for the work of community organizing. Watch the video on YouTube here.
Social Marketing the Complex Issue of Poverty - Up and Out of Poverty: The Social Marketing Solution is a book that marries practical and tangible poverty reduction pathways to social marketing theory and approaches. It also contains interesting case studies about poverty reduction approaches from around the world. Learn more about the book here.
Build Communities, Change Lives through the Arts - “Lives are turned upside down through adversity,” says Judith Rosenberg, Founder and Director of Spark of Brilliance, an organization that began in Guelph, Ontario whose mission is to build strong communities and enrich lives through the expressive arts. Spark of Brilliance offers quality, community-based arts programming to people who would otherwise be isolated by offering them the opportunity to share in the joy of creativity; develop new skills; and, to experience socialization and acceptance in ways that support them in re-entering society in meaningful and constructive ways. It is a program that embodies the belief that within each of us lies a creative core that when manifested will brighten the darkness to bring new meaning to life. Visit the Spark of Brilliance website here.
Make Your Good Idea One That Sticks - Chip and Dan Heath, co-authors of Made to Stick, believe that great ideas are made, not born. Mark Twain’s observation that "a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on” was the “ah-ha” that inspired these brothers to begin an in-depth exploration of why some very important ideas struggle to thrive while urban legends and bogus health scares circulate the globe with virtually no real effort. Drawing from the work of psychologists, education researchers, and political scientists, this book identifies six traits that the Heaths have identified as common to all great ideas, from public policy to product designs. Download the framework here.
Rediscovering Social Innovation - Social entrepreneurship and social enterprise have become popular rallying points for those trying to improve the world. These two notions are positive ones, but neither is adequate when it comes to understanding and creating social change in all of its manifestations. In this Stanford Social Innovation Review article, the authors make the case that social innovation is a better vehicle for doing this. Read the article here. [Source: Stanford Social Innovation Review]
Collaboration Key to Success in Knowledge Economy - A study of Canada's biotech industry suggests that what makes a particular location a hive of cutting-edge invention are companies that actively collaborate, and have strong ties to universities, often by being university spin-off businesses. Download the full study here. [Source: HandsNet WebClipper]
A Social Finance Proposal - This presentation by Tim Draimin of Tides Canada Foundation and Ted Jackson of Carleton at the May 2007 national conference of the Social Investment Organization gives details on social finance in Canada and on a new project, Project Causeway, sponsored by the McConnell, Muttart and Tides foundations, as well as Carleton University and PLAN, to investigate “new pathways for financial investment in public benefit.” Learn more by downloading the presentation here. [Source: PFC Newsletter]
Boots on the School Ground — An innovative federal project turns retiring military personnel into teachers. Read the article here. [Source: Stanford Social Innovation Review]
A Global Vision - Each year, Bill Clinton brings together some of the world's movers and shakers to try to create change projects and help to solve our most pressing problems. Learn more about this process here. With more than 50,000 people following the Webcast of the last proceedings, the connection to ordinary citizens has been broadened by the launch of www.mycommitment.org to allow individuals to make their own commitments to action. Check it out here. [Source: Forbes.com]
Opportunities for Rural Canada - Since 1998 the New Rural Economy Project has been collaborating with a number of partners to identify the issues that are vital to rural communities. They have created a digital video series that explores different parts of the country and how many different citizens and organizations are taking advantage of the opportunities they have to build sustainable and viable communities. The videos are publicly available for viewing or downloading here. [Source: The New Rural Economy Project]
Dropping Knowledge - dropping knowledge is a global initiative to support the free and open sharing of knowledge among the people of the world. A freely accessible knowledge portal and dialogue forum, dropping knowledge’s web platform invites the global public to ask and answer questions, exchange viewpoints and ideas, and join in conversation around the most comprehensive database of social topics ever compiled. Drop in here. [Source: @philia]
Online Atlas of Millennium Development Goals - In September 2000, leaders from 189 countries met and agreed to a set of Millennium Development Goals aimed at reducing poverty, hunger and disease throughout the world. Although these targets are to be met by 2015, The World Bank has developed an innovative online multimedia atlas that tracks the progress of these nations in meeting their development goals. View the atlas here. [Source: CSRL Newsletter]
Low Income Women Speak Out - Public policies have a big impact on the lives and health of women living in poverty. Yet low-income women are rarely given a voice in shaping these policies. In the fall of 2005, Prairie Women's Health Centre of Excellence initiated photovoice projects with small groups of low-income women in Winnipeg and Saskatoon. Learn more here. [Source: CSRL-news]
Old Cellphones Feed the Hungry - A national charity is calling on Canadians to ring in the new year by recycling their old cellphones. Read the story here and visit the project's website here. [Source: CBC Online]
New Portal - The Development Gateway Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation launched a web initiative to connect people in developing countries with free, high-quality course materials from universities around the world. The Open Educational Resources portal will provide free course materials and other information from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Chinese Open Resources for Education and other institutions. Read more here or visit the web portal here. [Source: FNC Now]
Interactive film archive of Canada's homeless - Homelessnation.org is a way for street people to connect, share their stories, and raise awareness about the issue of homelessness. For more information, click here. [Source: Charity Village]
Time to unleash Canada's "miracle potential" - It's time to dream big about how we will shape the future of Canada, says Roy Romanow. "Canada is a nation with miracle potential. It is a nation that needs to be put back on track. We must get back to that Canadian balance between the individual and community, between nation and enterprise," said Romanow in a recent speech. A sense of a shared destiny has nurtured Canada's legacy of fairness for its people, diversity, civility, respect, and the pursuit of peace. But today this legacy seems in jeopardy as the gap between rich and poor grows, Canada's medicare system calls out for reform, and major challenges face us in terms of a cleaner environment and the improvement of life prospects for Aboriginal peoples. Read the full text of the speech here. [Source: The Atkinson Charitable Foundation]
Access to Learning Award - The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation named Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, a nongovernmental organization in Bangladesh, winner of its 2005 Access to Learning Award. The award, which comes with a $1 million cash prize, was given to the group in recognition of its use of traditional boats and river networks in bringing information technology to remote and impoverished communities. The boats, which anchor at remote villages, rely on generators or solar energy and mobile phones for Internet access. The award recognizes the innovative efforts of libraries, organizations and library agencies outside of the United States in providing no-cost, public access computing. The award is administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources. Read more here. [Source: Council on Foundations]
Is Goodness Contagious? - That's the question the most recent issue of Greater Good Magazine poses. Downloadable articles include a psychologist's view of why goodness thrills us, a discussion on the importance of mentors, and profiles of "good" initiatives including a profile of Roots of Empathy. Check it out here. [Source: Green Blanket (Roots of Empathy)]
In Silicon Valley, Doing Good Is the New Thing - They say the soul of Silicon Valley is reflected in the billboards scattered along the 45-mile stretch of Highway 101 that cuts through the region. During the dot-com era, the messages were mostly from start-ups like Excite.com, Homestead.com and eGain.com. The goal was to sell you something, anything. Read this article here. [Source: Washingtonpost.com]
Helping in a Selfish World - Billions of people tuned into recent Live 8 concerts. What makes some of us look out for each other, while others look out for themselves? Traditionally, scientists have explained co-operation using kin selection. Help to relatives makes sense if it means your relative will have more children who will carry your genes into the next generation. However, McMaster University researchers show that in certain situations the reverse is true: unrelated individuals help more. Read more here. [Source: HandsNet WebClipper]
Block by Block - During an economic downturn, Cemex, the world's second-largest cement maker, decided to try to sell more product to Mexico's poor. Almost by accident, the company discovered a global model for developing previously overlooked markets. Read the story by Ricardo Sandoval here. [Source: Stanford Social Innovation Review]
The Group of Six - Vibrant Communities is the foundation for a ‘Group of Six’ trying to develop a distinctive approach to community-based poverty reduction. The Group of Six initiatives within the overall project are known collectively as ‘Trail Builders.’ They are an essential component in a broad national effort seeking more effective ways to reduce poverty through a method of community building known as comprehensive community initiatives. The other key elements of the project consist of a pan-Canadian learning partnership composed of 14 communities across the country and a policy component that involves research papers and a policy dialogue with government. Download the paper, click here. [Source: The Caledon Institute of Social Policy]
Social Change Filmmaking - The Skoll Foundation and its founder, former eBay president Jeff Skoll, are undertaking initiatives to increase the impact and "cultural exchange" value of filmmaking, including both documentaries and big-budget features. The Skoll Foundation provided major funding for and is helping to promote The New Heroes documentary, which profiles social entrepreneurs around the world who are developing breakthrough solutions to "impossible" social problems. Meanwhile, the San Jose Mercury News reported in a June 22 article on Jeff Skoll's new Participant Productions, a for-profit organization working with major Hollywood studios to back films "promoting social change." Several of these films will be released this year. Visit the website here. [Source: Aspen Philanthropy Letter]
A social conscience, and skills in demand - Social entrepreneurs now care more about causes than cash. But they are also developing abilities that employers will covet. Read the Globe & Mail article here. [Source: NonprofitsCan.ca]
A Lever Long Enough to Move the World - Social visionary Bill Drayton is creating a network of incalculable problem-solving power. Read more here. [Source: News@Ashoka]
Public invited to donate idle computer time - IBM and representatives from leading science, education, and philanthropic organizations launched a new initiative that applies the unused computing power of individual and business computers to help address some of the world's most difficult health and societal problems. World Community Grid will harness the vast and unused computational power of the world's computers and direct it at research designed to help unlock genetic codes that underlie diseases like AIDS/HIV, Alzheimer's, and cancer, improve forecasting of natural disasters, and support studies that can protect the world's food and water supply. Visit the website here. [Source: Charity Village]
Tackling the Doctor Shortage - This discussion paper from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario provides a number of recommendations for increasing the number of physicians in Ontario and improving patient access to services. One recommendation is to increase the assessment and training opportunities for qualified internationally trained medical graduates. Read the discussion paper here.
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