In the first part of this two part discussion with Radha Bhardwaj, we are given an overview of the Aids Committee of York Region (ACYR). In the second video Radha talks about the recently completely Walk to the Water event and her vision for the ACYR in the coming years.
I was recently invited to sit on the Board of the Aids Committee of York Region, an invitation I most gratefully accepted. I feel very honoured to be given an opportunity to serve on the Board of this vital community organization.
Volunteering is a big part of my life and I especially enjoy contributing to the Board governance process. I will do my best to bring the skills gained from working with youth/community development organizations, my local experience in community building initiatives in York Region, plus my expertise in working with organizations in the use of social media strategies and tools.
Continue on to learn more about the Walk to the Water Event and how Radha envisions the growth of the Committee in the coming years.
Tanya gives a wonderful overview of the Krasman Centre’s work with consumer survivors of the mental health system. Her organization marked their 10th anniversary this year so this is a special interview to celebrate that milestone.
Her talk gave me greater insight into the values and approach a consumer survivor organization assumes in the day to day work of fostering and supporting the voices of those with lived experience. For those not familiar with the consumer survivor philosophy and practice framework, this interview with Tanya will be a good introduction.
Over the past 6 months, Michael and other community leaders, primarily from the non profit sector have being working diligently on establishing the York Region Multi-Media Film Development Council & Institute.
Michael is the Chair of the Council and a driving voice behind this much needed community building initiative.
In this interview, Michael gives a brief overview of the Council’s plans for a yearly film festival and eventually the creation of a York Region Multimedia Film Institute.
Turn your speakers up a wee bit as Michaels voice is on the soft side. I’ll be posting more on this exciting collaboration project over the coming months.
To see how you might fit into or participate in the Council’s plans, I’ve included a portion of their governing statements.
It was a great day on Friday, August 14th, 2009. My partner Alain Hurtubise (of iAutomate) and I completed a proposal we worked hard on over the preceding weeks.
We felt on the ecstatic side of life that afternoon. We had just submitted the most fully designed presentation of our thinking and what we are aspiring to provide for non profit groups in York Region. Flushed with our success, we retired to a local restaurant not far from Alain’s home and had a well deserved celebration drink.
As I had my new and untried FS200 Canon camcorder with me, we thought that we should test it out by talking about our evolving social web platform.
Alain did a wonderful job of outlining the changing landscape of web design and how we are trying to deliver an affordable social web platform to York Region non profits.
Both of us were pleasantly surprised as to the quality of video and sound from this little camera. It will definitely be put to more use in the coming weeks and months.
ResearchImpact, Canada’s emerging knowledge mobilization network, is designed to support the active, two-way exchange of information and expertise between knowledge creators and knowledge users.
My hot off the press newsletter, MacKinnons Cloud, is now launched. I sent it out to over 400 people and so far, I’m getting some pretty positive responses. Now that it’s out in the wild, I’m making it available here on my website.
The content below is the cover letter I used to introduce my newsletter to readers. I created a newsletter because I wanted to provide useful resources and share more about what I do as a social media consultant for non profits.
I am connected to many networks and service providers in York Region that are looking to the social web to strengthen their organization and the communities they are a part of. I will do my best to make MacKinnon’s Cloud a useful guidepost for those people and organizations embarking on a social web journey.
The cloud metaphor comes from a presentation given by Mark Pesce gave at the ConnectingUp Australia conference where he suggested that non-profits need to look more like clouds than towers. Beth Kanter and others have written extensively on his suggestion. Here is Beth’s post titled “Can Non-Profit Organizations Work More Like Clouds? How?
A special thanks goes to Alain from iAutomate (web partner) who helped me with learning how to use the free php List software.
Throughout my career I have sought out opportunities to design and manage innovative initiatives that address complex social issues affecting children, youth and families.
Figuring out my personal communication style is a full time job. Throughout my career working in non profit towers, I’ve had to speak as a representative of the tower.
Now that I am no longer an official Tower representative (as a full time employee), I feel more comfortable in speaking from a broader platform as a consultant.
I continue working and speaking on behalf of organizations through my consulting work. In my new role, I strive to represent the interests of these groups and I continue my obligation to provide high levels of service.
I have new towers to report to but I also have a degree of flexibility and freedom that I didn’t have as an employee.
Now as I look back on all the work I’ve undertaken and how fortunate I’ve being to experience so many challenging roles in the community, I feel more comfortable in letting more of my spontaneous and personal side be expressed through my weblog.
A social non profit is attuned, responsive and adaptive to the complex factors affecting its constituents and communities. In a social non profit there is an alignment between staff, services, governance systems and online communications. Social non profits value learning and innovation and believe in working smarter by using social tech tools to enhance communication, collaboration and learning amongst staff, volunteers, partners and service users. These organizations believe that strategic use of social media empowers staff, improves services and strengthens governance practices.
Recent and Current Projects
Faith Community
• Social Learning & Collaboration
• Return to Rural – Alberta;
• Film Development Council of York Region;
• Delisle Youth Services - Toronto;
• York Region Alliance to End Homelessness;
• York-Durham Association of Museums & Archives ;
• Streetjibe – York Region Youth Poverty Program, Street Kids International.
Contact
brent@socialmediatools.ca
Social Web Partners
I'm very pleased to have a number of very capable and talented consultants as friends and partners that work with me from time to time.
Alain Hurtubise (iAutomate.ca) designs and developments web 2. 0 platforms. Alain has over 20 years experience in web design and enterprise systems programming with large corporations. Alain's passion is paying it forward through his work with me in the non profit sector.
Peter Levesque's company, Knowledge Mobilization Works (based in Ottawa) is dedicated to building the capacity of people to create value through knowledge mobilization.
Mark Holmgren (Mark Holmgren Consulting - Edmonton AB) contributes his extensive organizational change expertise along with an array of social media integration expertise.
Social Media – a definition
Social media are works of user-created video, audio, text or multimedia that are published and shared in a social environment, such as a blog, podcast, forum, wiki or video hosting site. More broadly, social media refers to any online technology that lets people publish, converse and share content online. (via Socialbrite)
Social Learning – a definition
Social learning is participating with others to make sense out of new ideas. What's new about this is how powerful social media works together with social learning.
Marcia Conner, Tony Bingham: The New Social Learning, A Guide to Transform Organizations Through Social Media.
Figuring out my personal communication style is a full time job. Throughout my career working in non profit towers, I’ve had to speak as a representative of the tower.
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