CIVICUS and IPS collaborate on online database to connect CSOs to the Media

CIVICUS - World Alliance for Citizen Participation - has partnered with IPS to create an online database to make civil society worldwide more accessible to the media. I learned about this today in a special mailing (pasted below) from eCivicus. This new database is a great idea and I recommend Kabissa members explore it and sign up. I do wonder, though - this means yet another online profile for CSOs to maintain. How does it add value beyond what is already provided for civil society organizations by services like Kabissa, Idealist and Wiser Earth, not to mention Wikipedia and Facebook Fan pages?

Now more than ever I am seeing a need for an organizations API to connect up many of these likeminded platforms so that organizations, especially those with poor connectivity to the Internet like many Kabissa members, don't have to keep long lists of platforms they need to log into in order to keep their crucial details up to date.

Dear e-CIVICUS subscriber,

We do not often email you outside of our regular newsletter, but this is an opportunity we do not want you to miss! It's a great way for you to make your organisation more accessible to the media. Read on to find out how.

Do you sometimes think that your civil society organisation would have been able to shed some light on the latest news story – if only you’d been asked? Do you want to make the expertise of your organisation more accessible to the media? If yes, you’ll want to take part in this initiative.

CIVICUS, in collaboration with the Inter Press Service (IPS), is developing a database to facilitate the relationship between civil society and the media. This database will contain the names and contact details for civil society organisations as well as their fields of expertise and the regions in which they work. The database will allow the media to quickly and easily find sources for their stories within civil society on a wide variety of themes.

If you would like to be part of this database, please complete the form (www.civicus.org/cs_gateway/).  If you have any questions, please email us at communication@civicus.org.

Sincerely,

The e-CIVICUS team