All posts in Communications

The time has come to get out there and vote!

It’s been a crazy two years since the historic presidential election of President Obama.  Since then, we’ve seen the passage of national health care reform,  the rise of the tea party movement, and the economic crisis strike across the country.  We’ve also seen negative campaign ads, local critical mass, and all kinds of parties to make sure we make it out on election day.  And now the time has come.  A number of our key partner organizations are at the forefront of local and national civic engagement efforts including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, San Francisco Rising, Oakland Rising, and Voto Latino.  Below are some voter resources, including two voter guides from the League of Women Voters & The Ballot as well as organizational voter guides from the Ella Baker Center and Oakland Rising

League of Women Voters

The Ballot

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Voter Guide

Oakland Rising

We’re very proud to share that our own Carmen Rojas has been tapped to serve on the EPA’s Environmental Education Training Program Task Force, one of five people in the *nation* to serve in this capacity!! The task force is charged with reviewing education materials that are developed and distributed to low income communities on pressing environmental issues. Many congrats to Carmen for representing community interests at the local, state, and federal levels!

Just wanted to thank Adrian Henderson and the M. Robinson Baker YMCA in Oakland for presenting me with a Community Service Award at their Juneteenth celebration last Saturday (the Kapor Foundation has underwritten their college fair costs for the past two years though the College Bound Brotherhood).

This is a definite honor, considering that these are folks who embody community service through their everyday work in the heart of West Oakland. So the feeling is mutual – thank YOU for your thoughtfulness and dedication to community! (And my apologies for wearing shades onstage, lol).

I just sat in on a webinar entitled ‘Affordable Video Production for Nonprofits’.  It was hosted by Nonprofit Webinars, a company that provides all kinds of low-cost and free webinars to nonprofit organizations.  In just an hour, I learned some cool information that I wanted to pass along to you.

Online video is becoming more and more prominent.  The webinar speaker cited a 2009 study from the Pew Research Center that showed that far more people were using video-sharing websites, like YouTube, than even social networking sites, like FaceBook and Twitter.  That being said, it’s understandable that lots of nonprofits are trying to boost their video presence.

Here are four unique vide0-related opportunities out there for nonprofits:

1. Flip Video Spotlight Program -  provides steeply discounted access to selected Flip Video products to qualifying charitable organizations. To start, charitable organizations apply online to become a Participating Partner. If approved, Participating Partners join our online community and receive access to the Flip Video Spotlight storefront. For each Flip Video Ultra camcorder purchased through the storefront, Flip Video Spotlight donates a free unit.  Click HERE for program guidelines.

2. YouTube Nonprofit Program – provides premium branding capabilities and increased uploading capacity, the option to drive fundraising through a Google Checkout “Donate” button, a listing on the Nonprofit channels and the Nonprofit videos pages, and other benefits.

3. Animoto – produces creative and unique videos from your photos, video clips, and music for free!  They have a professional option available for a quarterly or yearly fee.

4. Lights. Camera. Help. – nonprofit organization that is dedicated to encouraging other nonprofit and cause-driven organizations to use film and video to tell their stories. They do this through education, volunteer match programs, screenings, and an annual film festival. The goal of the volunteer match is to connect nonprofits in need of films with film makers who are willing to donate or discount their services.

If you’re curious, check out these tools to try your hand at using video to promote your organization’s mission.

Last week we had the fortune to host the CiviCon, the first gathering of open source programmers working on CiviCRM, the free relationship management software. CiviCRM provides online fundraising and donor management, event registration, membership management, email blasts, newsletters, and report generation. All for free!

Check out this hella cool message that Mitch recorded (and our colleagues at Kapor Creative illustrated and energized) explaining the achievements and merits of CiviCRM.

Our Assistance & Advising program is launching our first communications workshop that will feature the expertise of our internal communications team.  Trevor Parham, Creative Director, and Sean Aquino, Creative Producer, will be leading this interactive workshop about communications strategy.  Attending will give you an opportunity to ask questions about various types of communications strategies, to learn from each other, as well as allow you to offer insight into what our future workshops around technology and communications strategy will be about.  Click HERE to register.  Also, you can find more information about this and future workshops, like our upcoming series on Program Evaluation, on our Assistance & Advising web page.  Hope to see you on March 9!