Events

Aspiration provided facilitation at this convening of open curriculum practitioners. The goal of the gathering was to discuss better approaches to peer production and collaborative development in the open curriculum space. This initial meeting allowed participants to share perspectives why they care about open curriculum, to map out what’s working and what’s not, posit visions and plans for open curriculum efforts, and zoom in on common ideas.

Aspiration took its open eAdvocacy curriculum on the road to nonprofits all over California for a week of trainings in Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. The one-day “Email For Advocacy and Community Organizing: Basics, Essentials, and Best Practices” training covers email campaigns, how to write effective email campaign messages, tracking open rates and responses, how to manage and sustain email lists, as well as best practices for privacy, security, and avoiding “spammer” status. The trainings were designed to enable grassroots nonprofits to learn effective process and tactics in using email in their campaigns and strategic work. The training materials have been prepared by Aspiration in partnership with Radical Designs and ScoutSeven, and funded by the Community Technology Foundation of California. All materials are being distributed under Creative Commons license.

This two-day meeting, convened in partnership with SourceWatch , brought together a broad range of strategists, organizers and implementors working in online strategy and advocacy. Participants included staff and allies from SourceWatch, True Majority, Radical Designs, Democracy in Action, CitizenSpeak, Scout Seven, Greenpeace, Ruckus Society, SEIU, and others who met to discuss how to better get online activism tools into the hands of local activists. A range of capacity building concepts were brainstormed and discussed, from documentation to mentoring to turnkey services.

Aspiration designed the agenda and facilitated this convening of educators and technologists meeting to discuss new approaches to teaching analytical skills through computer programming in the South African educational context. The goal was to consider how to develop a self taught, peer mentored program, which can be effectively evaluated without expert supervision, and to provide tools for analysis that will be general useful across the range of disciplines being taught at any given age. A range of leading thinkers, including Alan Kay, Guido Van Rossum, and Mark Shuttleworth, and a range of practitioners in computer software instruction met for 2 days to collaboratively advise the Foundation on project scope and direction.

The Innovation Funders Network 2006 Summit took place in San Francisco on January 30th & 31st. Aspiration was honored and delighted to direct the agenda and oversee event facilitation.

The event convened funders, invited affiliate organizations and thought leaders from around the world at Wharton West in San Francisco to explore the role of innovation and networks in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. Over 100 participants, coming from a range of perspectives and experiences, discussed challenges and opportunities across the fast-changing landscape of innovation funding.

Over the past decade, the emergence of the internet, cellular phones and other innovations in Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) has brought about profound social and economic change. We are now living in a networked society. These networks provide new ways to collaborate, express ourselves politically and culturally, address social and economic issues, and build local and global communities. The event addressed a range of topics, including:

• the use of ICTs in recent humanitarian relief efforts, online advocacy, community Internet, telecentres and community technology centers.
• innovative uses of networks to deliver social and humanitarian services, advocate policy positions, communicate with constituents and the media, build collaborations and raise funds.
• How do we ensure access? How do we equitably distribute benefits enabled by these networks? How do we foster innovation communities within the social sectors? How do we scale these innovations across issue areas and geographic regions?
• different funding models including traditional and corporate philanthropy, social venture, peer to peer investing, online fundraising, microfinance. We will explore the use of these networks to foster collaboration amongst funders.