Kabissa is a nonprofit organization, and understands the challenges of running an organization‚ NGOs everywhere are underfunded and understaffed. We were founded in 1999 specifically to address the shared technology needs of African nonprofit organizations.
We are passionate about the role of technology in social change, and believe that every organization has a right to make their voice heard in decisions that affect them.
The Kabissa Online Community site is your space to make your voice heard.
Any civil society organization working in or for Africa can benefit from Kabissa membership. Membership is free and gives your organization access to a vibrant community of African civil society organizations, working for change across the continent.
Ready to Join?
Click here to signup today. The online signup form should take you no longer than 10 minutes.
Not everyone is eligible for membership, but there is still a great deal on offer here for everyone with an interest in contributing to social change and progress in Africa, or interested in technology developments and learning resources relevant to the civil society sector.
Here is a sampling of benefits for everyone:
Civil society organizations are those organizations, like orphanages, community groups, women rights groups, and human rights watchdogs, who are advocating for their communities and providing social and humanitarian services. Importantly, they are not private enterprises and they are not arms of the government administration. In this way, they form a third sector, and often act as a check against power or corruption in the first two sectors while working hard to serve the needs of the people.
At Kabissa, we believe that these organizations are a key element of a vibrant and prosperous world. Around the globe, they work tirelessly to ensure the universal rights to freedom, social justice, and peace for their communities.
In many African countries, government-controlled media, poor infrastructure, and a lack of resources often work against these activists, isolating them from the rest of the world. We believe in the revolutionary potential of the Internet to break that isolation, and bring together likeminded activists.
Kabissa strives to connect civil society organizations working in Africa to each other and empower them through opportunities through the Internet and their own space to share their work with the rest of the world.
This page contains useful instructions for Kabissa member organizations seeking to get up to speed quickly with the Kabissa online community website.
Organizations that have been a part of Kabissa since before February 2008 are advised to
carefully follow the instructions to verify that their organization details -
which were transferred from our old system to this new one - are correct and up
to date.
If you can, please print out this page for future reference as there is a great deal to do here and you may need to consult with your colleagues. (As on any Kabissa page, click the Printer-friendly version link to get a simple version suitable for printing)
All Kabissa members with email addresses in our system have login accounts, no matter when you signed up for membership. If you logged in before February 2008, we created your account while migrating your organization details from our old system into the online community website.
If you have not yet logged into the online community site or have forgotten your password, you can have a password and one-time login link emailed to you using the Password Reminder feature. Simply click on the "Log in" link, then on the "Request New Password" tab. Type in your email address and submit the form.
Check your email and follow the instructions in the automated email from Kabissa to log in and update your username and password.
1) When you first log in you will immediately be taken to your personal account
details on the new site. You can then update your username (if you want to make
it more memorable) and create a new password for yourself so that you can log
into the site in the future. Please review and adjust your account preferences
and upload a photo of yourself (or another image to represent you if you
prefer) and then submit the form at the bottom.
2) Next, please click EDIT again and then click the CONTACTS tab to review and
complete your contact details and newsletter subscription preferences. Only
your name, city and country will be shared with other website visitors, and
help to connect you with other people in your local community. Submit the form
at the bottom again.
3) The final step to getting your personal details sorted out is to click EDIT
one last time and then click the PERSONAL tab to provide your personal
biographical information. This is a great place for you to tell the community
about yourself, your background and what you are doing, and in which areas you
might be seeking collaboration and help. If you have a blog or personal website
you can provide a link to it here as well.
4) Now that you are done with your personal details (you can return later
anytime to continue to make improvements!) you can turn to the needs of your
organizational membership on Kabissa. Still on your account page (which you can
get to by clicking MY ACCOUNT anytime while logged in) look for the MY
ORGANIZATIONS link and click on it. This will present you with a list of
organizations you are associated with in our system and the status of your
relationship.
5) Click on EDIT PROFILE to edit the profile for your organization. This is a
two step process. On the first step, you will verify your organization's name,
official email address (for the contact form - don't worry, your email address
won' t be displayed) and your official website (if you have one). A new piece
of information to add here is the acronym/short name for your organization,
which will be used to create a short URL (web address) for your profile page on
Kabissa (in the form http://www.kabissa.org/members/ACRONYM). When you are
happy with the info on this step, click SAVE & CONTINUE to move on to the
second step.
6) The second step allows you to verify your organization's contact address and
phone numbers (and to add a second location if desired) and a range of very
useful organizational data that will enable others that share your interests to
find your organization and connect with you. Please review this data carefully
and ensure it is current, as it will be displayed on your organization's
profile page! When you are done, click SAVE & CONTINUE to finish.
7) Now that you have updated your profile, you can turn your attention to
adding everyone that works for your organization to Kabissa. All of these
people will be associated with your organization through your profile pages and
will be able to blog and add other content to the site. You can also optionally
give them access to updating your profile and managing the people associated
with the organization. To do this, go back to your My Account page and click on
MY ORGANIZATIONS, then click on PEOPLE next to name of your organization.
8) You will see all the people currently associated with your organization and
their status. You can now edit their relationship with your organization, view
their details or contact them. You can also add more people from this page by
clicking the ADD PERSON link. Type in their details and submit the form to add
them. (If they are already in our system, you will be prompted to click a link
to add the existing person rather than create a new account). They will
then receive a link to follow to log in and set their password, then activate
their relationship with your organization.
9) Once you have done the above and have an active and functioning relationship with a Kabissa member organization, you are ready to start sharing! Log in and click on the MY ACCOUNT link to see all the things you can do. You can click CREATE CONTENT to access links to add to your blog, add member news, events or resource listings. You can access Groups (currently only a Beta testing group is set up - more coming soon!). You can invite your friends to join Kabissa and begin following them or sending them personal messages through the site. You can do even more - feel free to explore the site to find exciting new things you can start doing.
We recommend that you take time to browse around the site and become comfortable with the navigation and contents. A good idea, if you can, is to allocate an hour for this purpose and for everyone in your organization to share in the learning experience and discuss ideas for content and which organisations you would be interested in contacting. Depending on how much time you can spend online, you may need to break this into smaller chunks of time.
Once you are familiar with the site we encourage you to begin to post to your own blog and make comments on any interesting blog posts by other members.
More background to Kabissa membership and instructions on specific tasks (like
blogging) are available in Learn about... Kabissa Guide.
If you run into difficulties at any time, contact Kabissa Community Coordinator
via http://www.kabissa.org/contact or directly by email at community AT kabissa.org
We expect all members will want to receive Kabissa Gong Gong, a monthly e-mail newsletter specifically geared towards the information sharing needs of Kabissa Members. The newsletter is edited by the Kabissa team, who gather the best links and resources added to the Kabissa community site and send it out on the first Tuesday of every month. (click Gong Gong Archives to read back issues)
Click here to subscribe to receive Gong Gong and our other mailing lists
Gong Gong is your newsletter! Submit content regularly to the Kabissa Community Website, and it will be considered for inclusion in the newsletter. You can also send us your community news by email to community at kabissa.org.
The Deadline for all submissions to Gong Gong is the 25th of the month.
The newsletter is distributed by email on the first Tuesday of every month.
1. DEAR MIMI: TECHNOLOGY ADVICE FOR AFRICAN CIVIL SOCIETY
Hands on, practical advice on such critical technology topics as the internet, emails, lists, making podcasts, using mobile phones for advocacy, using Web 2.0 applications and software to enhance your organisation's profile and activities.
Have a burning technology question? Discovered a trick or skill that you'd like to share with the community?
 NOTE: Dear Mimi will not answer specific questions on how to reset passwords, update your profiles and other specific Kabissa support issues. These should be directed to support at kabissa.org
2. SPOTLIGHT: MEMBER OF THE MONTH
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?
3. UNDER THE BAOBAB TREE: MEMBER NEWS
What has been happening in your organisation this month?
Do you have news on new information about your organisations's activities, funding, problems you have had with a project, addition of a website, successes and event or participation in a workshop, conference or forum.
4. KABISSA NEWS
5. OPPORTUNITIES POT
Funding and grant opportunities, conferences and workshops, scholarships and courses relevant to African civil society
6. TECHNOLOGY NEWS AND RESOURCES
Latest technology developments relevant to African civil society including tech programs, new web services, software, learning resources etc
A Kabissa meetup is a face-to-face gathering of Kabissa members in a local community, organized and hosted by a member organization. This section of the guide to Kabissa Membership covers everything you need to know to get involved in hosting, organizing and participating in Kabissa meetups.
Please Contact Kabissa if you are interested in helping us to develop this program, or go ahead and join the Meetups Group.
As of March, Kabissa is developing the Meetups program and reaching out to potential hosts to pilot test the concept by organizing some Meetups.
Members in those communities will be invited to participate when dates have been scheduled. Once we have ironed out the procedures, we will open up the program to all members wishing to host a meetup.
Great! Check out the details below, and when you are ready to get started please contact us. Be sure to provide at least the following details:
Here are some very good reasons to get involved in Kabissa Meetups in your community:
There are lots of great reasons to host a Kabissa Meetup! But of course this role isn't for everyone - you will need to provide a space and refreshments, and be prepared to handle logistical work. But check out the numerous rewards above and beyond those already listed above:
We consider organizing meetups on the local level as the "low hanging fruit" in the challenging task we have to encourage and promote horizontal linkages between organizations in our network. Once people are meeting on the local level and sharing their experiences and priorities with each other, and with the network through their post-meetup reports, we are certain amazing things will begin to happen.
In addition, we are motivated by the knowledge that at face to face meetings, you will be able to teach each other things about utilizing the Kabissa platform and other innovative communications tools that would otherwise be impossible. We also hope to get insights into what we should be doing to improve the site and be a better partner to you.
In a nutshell, Kabissa Meetups:
Kabissa is providing no remuneration for hosting meetups, and also is providing no money for covering expenses to attend meetups. Please start small and consider this a grassroots action on the local level. If you have a budget for hosting and participating in events through your existing grants and income streams, so much the better. But please do not expect to charge fees to your colleagues to cover your costs.
Don't hesitate to contact Kabissa to let us know you are keen and to give us any feedback.
Kabissa Ambassadors evolved out of Kabissa's work and attention to "Web 2.0" in the last several years, culminating in the launch of the Kabissa Online Community Website. Last summer we were finalists in the Netsquared competition on "remixing the web for social change" with our Kabissa 2.0: Strengthening The Social Web in Africa proposal.
The Kabissa Meetups and Ambassadors programs are the latest - and we think best - iteration of that proposal, promoting and encouraging grassroots initiatives to adopt innovative ICTs for social change in Africa.
As of March, we are in the process of setting up the program in connection with Kabissa Meetups. If you are interested in participating or have suggestions, please contact us.
No, Ambassadors do not necessarily belong to Kabissa member organizations, though it helps.
No, the role is voluntary and Kabissa provides no financial remuneration for your participation.
Ambassadors are nominated by Kabissa members on the local level at Kabissa Meetups.
We envision that Ambassadors serve for a period of one year from nomination, though with the provision that they can be removed earlier by mutual agreement or at the discretion of Kabissa. After a year their nomination must be renewed at a meetup.