Faith in Practice won an Honorable Mention in the Digital Storytelling Online Challenge for their Flickr story submission. I got a chance to connect with Ashley Messick, a winning lady behind the winning organization, to find out more about her work.

What organization do you work for and where are you located?

I work full-time with Faith In Practice (FIP), a nonprofit organization out of Houston, Texas that does medical mission work in Guatemala. I also work part-time, remotely doing social media for Blood Centers of the Pacific (BCP), the community blood center in the San Francisco/Bay Area.

Tell us briefly about the mission of your organization and your work.

The mission of FIP is to improve the physical, spiritual, and economic conditions of the poor in Guatemala through short-term surgical, medical, and dental mission trips and health-related educational programs. I work to coordinate and organize all the aspects of our volunteers' trips down to Guatemala so that they are prepared before leaving and have everything they need while in-country, including customs documents, supplies, hotel, transportation, and more.

BCP seeks to provide an adequate and affordable blood supply which meets the health and safety needs of the public; and to conduct medical and scientific research and education that improves the safety and efficacy of blood transfusions. I began with BCP in the Communications Department doing social media, briefly worked in Donor Recruitment, and now am back in the Communications Department working remotely to continue building our social media presence.

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We had Digital Storytelling Challenge winners from around the globe! I had a chance to connect with our third place winner, Christopher Worman, Executive Director of the Odorheiu Secuiesc Community Foundation, to learn more about this TechSoup Global organization.

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Remember that guy who walked around the streets of San Francisco with a webcam attached to his head, filming his life as he went through his day? Justin Kan pioneered the concept of "lifestreaming" and the Justin.tv platform has since opened up to any users wanting to lifestream. Justin will be joining TechSoup at the July SF Online Community Report MeetUp to speak about lifestreaming, online video, and the online and offline community implications that video streaming presents. Justin's talk will lead us into a discussion of the role of video in online communities and strategies for using video to effectively engage users.

The fourth Wednesday of the month is the free gathering of online community managers, enthusiasts, and innovators to meet and discuss tools and strategies for building and managing effective communities.

Hope to see you there!

When: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. Pacific time

The Online Community Report MeetUp is back this month, fresh from the Online Community Unconference and ready to discuss online community tools and techniques. This month our guest speaker is Brad Selby from Flixster, an online community for movie lovers.

Brad's talk will kick off an informal discussion on online community strategies, so bring your ideas, questions, and topics of interest. We'll have time for informal networking before and after so you have a chance to chat more with fellow online community enthusiasts.

The fourth Wednesday of the month is the free monthly gathering of online community managers, enthusiasts, and innovators to meet and discuss tools and strategies for building and managing effective communities.

Event Details:

When: Wednesday, June 24 at 7:00 p.m. Pacific

TechSoup's own Susan Tenby, also known as Glitteractica Cookie in Second Life, wrote up a blog post about the Mixed Reality Health Panel Expo event that is featured on the Huffington Post. Part of TechSoup's NetSquared Conference (N2Y4), the mixed reality event highlighted nonprofits doing work in the virtual world of Second Life and included health expert panelists from organizations including Community Voicemail, Boomer Esiason Foundation, and Virtual Ability.

But that's not all! The NetSquared Conference has gotten a number of recent press coverage too. Huffington Post also featured an post from by longtime NetSquared supporter Allen Gunn: NetSquared 2009: Making the Virtual Proximal. Lessons on Innovation from Nonprofits by columnist Chris O'Brien, recently appeared in the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times. And we were proud to see that The Economist's Technology Quarterly, showcased five of NetSquared's previous featured projects for their application of mapping tools for social benefit work

We are thrilled to see these fantastic individuals and social benefit organization getting press about their important work. If you'd like to see more you can check out wrap-up detailed coverage of the NetSquared conference and find the text archive, pictures, and live-blogging of the Health Panel Expo event on the Nonprofit Commons blog.

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Discuss This in Our Forums

Have you used Second Life to promote your work or organize supporters? Want to tell us which NetSquared project impressed you most? Share with others in this TechSoup Town Hall forum discussion.

Next week, I'll be attending
The Online Community Unconference (OCU), along with my TechSoup community colleague, Susan Tenby. The OCU is a gathering of online community practitioners — managers, developers, business people, tool providers, investors — to discuss experiences and strategies in the development and growth of online communities.

Those involved in online community development for-profits and nonprofits alike share many common challenges: community management, tools, marketing, business models, legal issues, and more. And often the best source of information on all of these challenges is other knowledgeable practitioners, which is what makes the OCU a rewarding event.

"What's an unconference?" you say? Well there's a good description of it here and a detailed FAQ here. Suffice to say, you won't be seeing the usual PowerPoint or formal presentations, but instead the sessions and topics are proposed and chosen by the users.

The Health Panel Expo planning is coming together and the event is right around the corner! Here are the details!

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO—May 26, 2009—The Nonprofit Commons, a project of TechSoup Global (TSG), today announced an all-day, innovative online event in Second Life to showcase recent developments in health care research, and to connect efforts in fighting disease and creating a cooperative and supportive environment for patients and their providers. The Health Panel Expo, an international online conference sponsored by FasterCures.org, will be held on Wednesday, May 27, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST (also called Second Life Time, SLT) in the virtual world of Second Life and simultaneously in the real world, being broadcast live at the fourth annual NetSquared Conference at Cisco in San Jose, CA.,The Second Life online event is free to attend and open to all interested participants. It will be accessible through Second Life, and all information will be available online

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Last Monday I attended my colleague, Susan Tenby's panel presentation, Building and Sustaining Vibrant Online Communities at the Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC). I had some connectivity issues so I wasn't able to live blog this as I'd hoped, but here is my not-so-live recap of this informative panel. I've bulleted key points from the speakers below. Slides and resources from the panel can be found here.

Speakers:
Scott Moore, Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation
Peggy Duvette, WiserEarth

Interested in online community, but also enjoy meeting your online peeps in person? Whether you're an online community maven or just started venturing into online community, the San Francisco Online Community Report MeetUp group is for you! Every fourth Wednesday of the month this free monthly gathering brings together online community managers, enthusiasts, and innovators to meet and discuss tools and strategies for building and managing effective communities.

For our April MeetUp, we're pleased to have Nish Nadaraja and Michelle Broderick from Yelp sharing their experience growing and managing community, both online and with many in-person events. Yelp joined us back at our September 2007 MeetUp, and since then, Yelp has continued to grow and expand internationally. We'll discuss the challenges of managing a growing community while still retaining its core members and culture and open it up to questions and topics around community management strategies.

It's time to whip out those planners because TechSoup is hosting another free online forums event and webinar on Thursday, March 26: Mobile Technology for Advocacy and Activism.

Explore how to use mobile technology — voice, SMS, applications, and the mobile Web — for activism and engagement. Learn about avant-garde mobile campaigns and the applications and vendors that might be of interest to your organization.

Take part in the live webinar, from 9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m. Pacific. This free webinar will fill up, so register today.

Following the webinar, TechSoup will host a free, day-long online event, where you can post additional questions to the mobile activism experts in the TechSoup Community forums. The forums event is asynchronous (not live) and no registration is required, just show up and post!