Kabissa Gong Gong April 2009

A monthly newsletter for members of the Kabissa African civil society network

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1. Dear Mimi: Internet Advice Column

This month, Mimi is pleased to cross-post Resource: Social Source Commons, written by Frederick Noronha and published on DigiActive. Social Source Commons is a very handy, user-friendly resource for "crowdsourcing" software and tools for non-profits. Mimi strongly recommends it for all Kabissa members!

Description: What tools are non-profit groups using out there in the field? What works? What tools would you recommend to others? To get answers to all these seemingly tough questions check out the Social Source Commons.

It describes itself as “a place to share lists of software tools that you already use, gain knowledge and support, and discover new tools. It’s a place to meet people with similar needs and interests and answer the question: what tools do they use?”

URL: http://socialsourcecommons.org

How it works: The idea, in hindsight, seems disarmingly simple. You get enough people (from this sector) to sign-up, and say what software tools they use or find useful. When I check ‘My Toolboxes’, I find some 46 tools listed by me. Says Social Source Commons: “Your Personal Toolbox is for listing tools you use and recommend to others. The contents of your Personal Toolbox are used in calculating tool popularity and recommendations for the SSC Community.” What’s more, I find out who’s using the same tools as me.

For instance, CiviCRM (the Free Software/Open Source constituent relationship management system) is used by me and 51 others! CivicSpace, the Free/Open Source content-management system platform for grassroots organizing and civic activity, gets used by 19 of us.

Site features: On the site, there’s a list for new tools that are useful for non-profits — DonorWorks, DonorVision, DonorTrax, DonorTools, GeoGebra and other names we’ve probably never heard of. There’s also a list of the most active tools — Donation Solution, Donarius, Donation Tracker, Development Logic, DirectToCRM, and Donation Director. You can search through tags, build contacts and more.

You even can create additional Toolboxes to share lists of tools by category or by theme. Such as “Tools I Use When I’m Travelling” or “Free Tools Everyone Should Know About”.

Creator: This is one of the current projects of the San Francisco-based Aspiration, and is supported by the Soros-funded Open Society Institute Information Program.

Aspiration defines its mission as being “to connect nonprofit organizations with software solutions that help them better carry out their work.” It says, “We want nonprofit organizations to be able to find and use the best software available, so that they maximize their effectiveness and impact and, in turn, change the world.”

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2. Under the Baobab Tree: News and Blogs from Kabissa Members

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3. Kabissa Matters

Membership Update

17 organisations joined Kabissa this month, bringing our membership total as of today to 1372.

The Kabissa site received 5496 unique visits in the month of February, according to ClustrMaps.

News from Kabissa

In case you missed it last month, Kabissa is in the process of taking an evolutionary step. We are streamlining our Internet services to focus on domain registration, and relaunching our community website in May. Thank you everyone who completed our web development survey! If you have any questions or would like to contribute, please contact us!

If you have not done so already, please read the following posts to imform yourself of the changes taking place.

4. Technology News and Resources

5. Opportunities Pot

VOICE OF THE YOUTH ASSEMBLY (NIGERIA) PARTNERSHIP/SPONSORSHIP

6. Member Spotlight

This space is reserved for spotlighting exemplary organizations making particularly innovative use of technology in support of their mission.

Have you just launched a powerful new online initiative? Got a new website you want to share with the community? A technology story to tell about an approach that worked for your organization? Tell us about it!