Wiser.org Blog

The climate change movement has been gaining momentum in recent months. We’ve felt it building at organizations like 350.org in preparation for the major UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen this December. We had a call with social media coordinator Joe Solomon of 350.org to get a sense of what it’s like to be in the middle of it all, and his thoughts on how to effectively network for a cause. › Continue reading…

Car wrapping can take outreach to a new level while driving home new connections. Here’s an idea that’s definitely not preaching to the choir. › Continue reading…

Jennifer Ruwart, Global Program Director of WorldPulse recently sat down with us to talk about her new program Voices of our Future. Together with the Press Institute, the OpEd Project, and the Empowerment Institute, Jennifer is creating a network of 30 emerging leaders who will harness the power of web 2.0 to broadcast social change news from the frontlines of some of the most forgotten communities in the world. › Continue reading…

“Reveillez l’entrepreneur social qui est en vous’ (see above for my translation of this French title) was the name given to this inspiring one day event for social entrepreneurs which I attended yesterday at la Ruche in Paris. A one day workshop where inventors of sustainable solutions to socially responsible start-ups came together to exchange ideas, connect and re-energize. › Continue reading…

The folks over at The Monitor Institute have been working with The Packard Foundation to explore this question. Their conclusion? Don’t worry so much about the social media tools and instead realize that you are building a social network. To do that you need a ‘networked mindset’ characterized by ‘openness, transparency, decentralized decision-making, and distributed action’. We encourage you to read the full paper ‘Working Wikily 2.0′ but here is a summary of the more important points for people working in the social sector. › Continue reading…

We’ve written before about how you can view your community as a network. Here we use the ‘network lense’ to show how communities typically evolve and what specific actions you might want to take to get to the next stage. › Continue reading…

We have read a lot of books over the last year that aimed to be the “go to” source for understanding Social Media. Finally, one stands out. Here we review, ‘The New Community Rules’ by Tamar Weinberg – probably the single most important book to read this year if you are involved in marketing your organization or cause on the web. › Continue reading…

Without engagement you don’t have a community. But just how do you get people involved? We’ve made a list based on insights from our favorite community experts of some of the best ways to keep your members coming back for more. › Continue reading…