Over the last few months, the team at Connecting Up Australia has been working on something really exciting: The StreetCloud Project. The dream? To connect individuals and communities within our local areas in an innovative way.

There's lots of information out there about social media and developing a strategy for your nonprofit, charity or community organisation.

Complete this survey to inform Nonprofit and Community Sector development – share your perspective.   All data is confidential.

AND go in the Draw to win Survey Draw prizes :

• 1 x new 32GB iPod Touch
• 1 x  8GB iPod Touch

Click here to fill it in now survey ( https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JCGSMWS )

Closes next week – Tuesday 23rd March. Drawn the next day.

One week to submit your survey response and enter the draw!

The “Listening Project” is a national research into the needs and priorities of community organisations in Australia. Our organisation Connecting Up Australia  provides a number of free support and information services to the community organisation sector across Australia including the well known DonorTec program.

This research aims to build understanding around the sorts of challenges faced by nonprofit / community organisations operationally and strategically and what support is available and needed.

Research findings will be published and shared with the sector. It will also be used to inform Connecting Up’s services to the sector and collaborations with other nonprofit service providers, business, government and academic sectors.

All data /comments will be confidential. For more information contact researcher Karen Gryst : (08) 8212 8555 or kg@connectingup.org
Click here to complete the survey ( https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JCGSMWS ) and go in  the draw to win some great prizes.
Closes 23rd March and drawn 24th March 2010 – winners notified by phone / email.

Woohoo! 

If any of you like me have developed a real interest in the exciting medium of photography and video to tell the story of our community work and create real impact that cuts through so many barriers from litercay issues and language barriers to our audience being time poor and overloaded with information - a picture tells a 1000 words!

I discovered the course on our linked in group : Connecting Up Australia through a discussion posted by Roger Burk from http://www.pictographers.org/ conducting the course. I was sure this would be another fantastic US course - but it's in Australia.

Course details : http://www.idss.com.au/pages/1261366836.app 

I'm going to register right now!

Check out some examples of the power of digital storytelling:

• our Video blog for examples of more Australian nonprofit organisations using video and photos.
• the "A Jpeg is worth a 1000 words competition"   and more info.
• "Big Stories" an amazing project - award winning documemntary
• Online Video for Nonprofits workshop slides - a how to guide - from Connecting Up Conference 09

By Karen Gryst

Have you heard of a digital story? It’s a story that is told using photos or video and then shared via the web. The Digital Storytelling Challenge is an event that has been initiated by TechSoup, our US partner organisation in the DonorTec program.

The aim of the challenge is to encourage community organisations to share information about what they do and connect with each other on issues of common interest. Using simple online tools and publishing on the web overcomes geographic limitations and offers different ways of participating. This challenge is open to the community at large, nonprofits, individuals, libraries, as well as local and international organisations.

Participants are invited to submit Digital Stories that demonstrate your organisational mission/goals/needs in a thoughtful and creative way. The Flickr image sharing platform and the YouTube video platform will be used to share the stories with the world.

If you are interested in joining the challenge and need some help or encouragement, we will be happy to help. Please contact Rosalie Day rd@connectingup.org or tel. 8122 2755.