Causecast

To All Nonprofit Organizations:

We’ve all been told that we need to embrace new technology and change, that we need to be on Twitter, and make things go VIRAL.  But how do we do this?  How do we achieve real results with our limited budgets and resources?  To be honest, sometimes we find that technology can even hurt us by creating more problems than solving.  Causecast has learned a lot since it began, and we’re always looking for the opportunity to really help our nonprofits.

With that said and done, it’s conferences like NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference where we feel we can truly help ALL nonprofits.  So we submitted several panel and workshop ideas to NTEN, and they were ALL accepted!  Below is a list of the topics we submitted.  If you’re interested in any of the topics, we’d love your support, and for you to vote for it using the stars.

Going Mobile: SMS at the Forefront of Mobile

Social Media Best Practices

Effective Storytelling in Video

Don’t Make Me Think! Why Design Matters

Alternative Ways to Collect Donations

Brand Symbolism Online and Offline

How to take advantage of Causecast

Thanks again, and we hope to see you at next years NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference!

By: Stephanie Park

Every Wednesday here at Causecast, we have an “all-hands” lunch where everyone in the office has a delicious lunch together. We catch up on everything going on at Causecast, our lives, and simply take a moment to step back a bit from all our hard work. It’s all very refreshing. I actually happened to miss out on today’s lunch because I was dropping off my roommate and her boyfriend at the airport (they’re going to Tokyo for two weeks, how exciting), but it got me thinking about the value of community.

The word community can elicit so many different thoughts and images. One thing I value about community is its flexibility in its meaning. Everything from eerily Pleasantville-esque gated communities in Southern Californian suburbs to crazy hippie communes like the one Peter Fonda and Dennis (not Ed, the American painter) Hopper visit in Easy Rider, can be considered as being a community. During college, I lived in the one cooperative housing building in Westwood. I have to say, it wasn’t much of a true co-op; however, I learned a lot about the concept of community and what it means to me.

One of the things I value most about community is the inclusion of varying skills and strengths of individuals. I really do believe that everyone has the potential to contribute to a collective effort, regardless of the way they do it. It’s a matter of figuring out what you love doing, what you are good at doing, and then combining that coupling with a shared goal or intention. One obvious example of a community would be found in the work done here at Causecast. Individuals with different experiences and skills, fitting them all together in order to produce the social action network known as Causecast. I found another, more understated, example of community in action taking place in my own apartment.

Something as simple as having dinner with friends can be a community building experience that nourishes the body and soul. A few weeks ago, my roommate decided to throw a dumpling making dinner event at our apartment. Each person there was given a task to finish (mine was chopping up baked tofu into a million little pieces), so that it could be added to the final product. After all the ingredients were ready and mixed, we all sat down and made dumplings. We made potato + bacon + chives, traditional pork, cheeseburger (ground beef with cubes of cheese inside), and veggie (baked tofu + noodles + mushrooms) dumplings. Oh yeah, I know you’re all drooling by now. Some were prettier than others, but they were all essentially filled with love and good intent. Ok sure, the vegetarians, myself plus a party of two, were somewhat ostracized since we were making our dumplings in the living room due to lack of space, but it was all still part of a collective effort. All in all the night ended well with some drinks, blankets, and good conversation, outside under the moonlight. Community doesn’t need to be a big, complicated organization with millions of components. It can easily be a discreet experience to enjoy with others. I implore you all to take part in community in any way you see fit. I can promise you that it will bring a smile to your face and fill your heart with satisfaction.

Beginning with food and ending in food. Typical.

By Sarah MacKinnon

Let's Dance

Technically this post was supposed to go up yesterday, but how could I even begin to write when Causecast literally imploded and exploded Tuesday with do-goodery. Banners to be built out, stories to be posted, Huffington Post Impact to be launched, Free the Slaves Freedom Awards to be coordinated, live web feeds to be established, signs printed, lunches scarfed. Yesterday we both changed a family’s life and simultaneously commended the lives of those who continue to perpetuate change for those who are unable to do so for themselves. In our typical company culture, everything seems to happen here all at once; to take the time to reflect seemed almost wasteful in light of participating in the simple fervor of getting things done. I love the days that I can get wrapped up in the excitement and actually see the building blocks of months of meetings and production, late night texts and Friday nights’ dissipation turn into something tangible, something you can point to and say “I was involved in this, in some small way, along with a multitude of others to make this happen and ultimately be successful.”

The bottom line? I’m proud of us, pure and simple, and I feel on this day the velocity of the aftermath of Tuesday, which encourages the reflection I may not have been capable of expressing yesterday. It also inspires a sense of excitement, because really, what’s next? And before this turns into a “Congratulations Graduating Seniors of 2009!” address, I just have to delve into the old colloquialism that I truly feel we are standing on the precipice before some vast abyss of potentiality with our shirtsleeves rolled up halfway, ready to be pushed further up or ripped off all together, you know, humanitarian Hulk style. But really we don’t get mad at Causecast, no. We get it done. And at least with some attempted grace and style coming from my end…well, when it’s not a pajama day of course.

By Lisa Riggs,

In addition to my intern duties here at Causecast, I am finishing up my last year of college, and as part of my illustrious position as a senior I’m taking those classes, that glorious mixture of graduation requirements that you’ve put off until the last minute (international trade theory may be the death of me) and the fun, fluff classes such as modern dance or… Earth and Space Sciences 19.  Now while ESS 19 may sound intimidating, the course load is fairly light and most importantly includes a weekend adventuring in the Eastern Sierras near Yosemite.

Last Friday, after lugging our rucksacks across campus, our class of 15, including the prof and grad students, embarked on a three day hiatus from the usual hustle and bustle of Los Angeles life to enjoy some true blue sky while learning a bit about the natural history of California, and learn we did.

During our day hikes through the Sierras and moon-phase studying nights, not only did I come to understand more about ice ages, the names of the features within Yosemite’s mountains, and the history of the naming of Mt. Whitney, I had a chance to connect with other students.  We discussed the best ratio of garlic to olive oil in bruschetta while we made dinner, AIDS education and prevention policies over late night hot chocolate, and environmental issues surrounding LA’s ownership and use of Owens Valley as its water source as we walked the dusty valley floor.

Weekends like these remind me why I love communities like my Earth and Space class and Causecast.  Living and working with others can be a platform for gaining new perspectives and appreciating other people’s passions.  The opportunity to commune not only with nature but with one another is one I hope to pursue more often in the future.  Maybe a Causecast camping trip could be in the works?

Causecast celebrated its one-year anniversary two weeks ago (Sept 12 2008 was the day of launch), but today I’m celebrating my one-year anniversary of working at Causecast.

It’s hard to condense down a full year into one blog post, and I’ve never been a sentimental person by any stretch of the term, but I do love taking pictures. And I’ve been fortunate enough to tag along when Causecast has gone to different parts of the country: Washington DC during Obama’s inauguration, Austin Tx for SXSW, San Francisco for the NTEN conference just to name a few. It’s been amazing. And if I ever had a moment to spare I’d take some pictures and post them on our Flickr page.

Here are just a few, which I’ll be expanding over time when I have a moment to go through the collection.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandonthebuck/sets/72157622448363970/

Lately I’ve been using the camera to shoot timelapses (here’s the CC crew having lunch).

Where will we be going in the next year? God only knows. It’s pretty amazing how far we’ve gone now. But you can be sure I’ll be taking pictures all the way.