The Social Entrepreneurs Picnic, held in Adelaide 11 May 2010 by the Australian Centre for Social Innovation, was an opportunity for people to meet and find out about each others' work.

DonorTec has 8 two day delegate passes to give away to this year’s Communities in Control Conference. If your organisation is interested in the challenges and opportunities faced by community organisations today then we suggest you  register your interest for a free 2 day pass for this year’s Communities in Control Conference 31 May – 1 June, themed Power Up! Who has it, how to get it & how communities can use it.”

The Communities in Control Conference is the leading Community Conference in Australia: speakers include CHRISTINE NIXON, REBECCA HUNTLEY,  RUSSEL HOWCROFT, The Hon JOAN KIRNER AM, former Premier of Victoria and more...

All you have to do is be in the first 8 people to email us at support@donortec.org. Please include your:

Name
Organisation
Email address
Phone number
Address
Postcode
State
Dietary requirements

All winners will be notified shortly after we have received the required registrations of interest

The Australian Centre for Social Innovation is delighted to invite you to:
Social Entrepreneurs Picnic
11 May - Wall Hall
10 Pitt Street, Adelaide
UnitingCare Wesley Adelaide
12pm - 4pm

At the heart of the most significant and lasting social innovations you will invariably find a social entrepreneur.
 These 'unreasonable people' who seek solutions where most have given up trying
 and take 'no' as an opportunity are central to the positive social change we at TACSI are working towards.

Adelaide is a hub of social innovation in Australia and TACSI is a vehicle for identifying local change agents
and supporting them in developing their social innovations.
To fulfill this ambition, TACSI will be investigating how best to nurture the rise of the social entrepreneur locally, in South Australia.

To help shape our understanding of the local social entrepreneurship landscape,
we're bringing together local changemakers for an inspiring afternoon
 on May 11th on 10 Pitt Street, Adelaide.

Facilitated by our visiting KaosPilot, Bert Meijers
, participants should expect a meaningful opportunity
 to share valuable experiences and ideas.

If you feel like you might gain from the experience,
 or know someone who would,
 get in contact with Jason Quin - jquin@tacsi.org.au

APPLICATIONS CLOSE APRIL 23 - SO APPLY NOW!!

Got a great idea for creating better lives for people in Australia? Want access to amazing mentors and a bucket of cash (up to $1million) to get your idea off the ground??

The Australian Centre for Social Innovation is giving you the chance to turn your big idea into big impact. We’re committed to supporting up to 10 projects that show the best and brightest ideas in social innovation across Australia. Your idea could deal with anything from healthcare to education, climate change to the internet as long as it addresses a social need faced by communities in Australia.

Want to know more? Get more information or apply online on our website  - http://www.tacsi.org.au/challenge, or you can contact Erin Green (challenge@tacsi.org.au) to find out more.

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

Isn't it so frustrating when companies or sponsors or other funding bodies dangle a carrot of much needed funds, but only want to fund a specific thing. "Well what we had in mind was a purple playground for the rare and endangered spotted bunyip, with photos please of happy bunyips for our PR, with a detailed report on their preference of slippery dip or the swing."

I'm being cheeky, but in reality it is easier for these funders to sell a tangible project with popular appeal. It is much harder to sell and promote a story of money for new administration staff, internal IT upgrades, capacity development.

We often hear the story that some sponsorships and grants are more trouble than they are worth, creating more work to try and fit funding criteria on something which can even be a diversion from where we really need to be spending our valuable time. 

Wouldn't it be nice if companies doing their bit for the community understood that we (the nonprofits helping the community) know our stuff, we're passioante about it, we know how to work very efficiently and we are ready to tackle the community issues we deal with through excellent programs. We just lack the resources human or otherwise, to do so.

That is why the DonorTec program is so ingenious. The companies who support this program are saying - 'We know you do great work! So let's help you save those valuable dollars to spend on core programs and priorities rather than IT infrastructure AND become more efficient in the process with the latest and greatest technology. We have it, you need it as well as the additional budget. It is easier for us to give product rather than cash to all these groups."

A Win Win they implement tangible community development and corporate social responsibility and we (the nonprofits) have more funds to get on with our work!

The Connecting Up Australia program DonorTec - operating since 2007 in Australia, has saved the nonprofit sector in Australia and New Zealand $50 million so far.

The very latest technology is donated from companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Symantec, Sophos, Newsmaker and more - in partnership with TechSoup Global.

If you need convincing watch this!

If you ever had trouble explaining the impact of the donation program to people, this excellent short video to see the real, on-the-ground, human impact of just some of those thousands of donations.

Microsoft New Zealand and our TechSoup New Zealand local partner, the New Zealand Federation of Voluntary Welfare Organisations, you’ve done us all proud! Everyone here at Connecting Up Australia is privileged to be playing our role in helping bring TechSoup Global’s donation program to New Zealand, in partnership with all the gang at TechSoup Global around the world.

For more info on technology donations in Australia go to www.donortec.com.au

For more info on technology donations in New Zealand go to www.techsoup.net.nz

Author : Karen Gryst

The Government Taskforce 2.0 has launched the Mashup Australia Competition. http://mashupaustralia.org/

The MashupAustralia Competition will be open for entries from 10AM Wednesday, 7th October 2009.

In the meantime, we encourage you to:

1. Review the contest rules and prizes
2. Browse the data sources
3. Mash them up!

So what's a mashup? Click here.

There are some great prizes :

Prizes (aka. “the Mashies”)

* $10,000 for Excellence in Mashing category
* $5,000 for Highly Commendable Mashups
* $2,500 for Notable Mashing Achievements

In addition, we are also offering some additional prizes for the following categories:

* $2,000 for the People’s Choice Mashup prize
* $2,000 for the Best Student entry
* $1,000 bonuses for the Transformation Challenge

We may even award more than one prize for each category if we are overwhelmed by quality mashups!

Entries close November 6th 2009. So get mashing!

Author : Karen Gryst

If your organisation is dabbling in or considering implementing a social media strategy there are some great resources available to assist you work through this process. Even organisations who have been doing this for a while can learn from some of the experiences of other nonprofits.

See3 and the Case Foundation have wokred together to produce these excellent video tutorials - free online. Check this out!

Alan Noble; Engineering Director Google Australia and New Zealand did a terrific presentation at Connecting Up 09 Conference this year. See more or listen to the audio here.

If you listen to Question and Answer 3 where a conference participant asked : " Only US not-for-profits are entitled to the education version of Google Apps as opposed to the Premier. Do you know if that is going to be rolled out globally outside the US for other not-for-profits?"

Alan said that he would check on this and get back to Connecting Up  via Doug Jacquier our CEO about this so that we could let you all know. We have had a few enquiries about this. Whilst there is no timeline, Alan has just let us know that : " Google is revisiting non-profits' eligibility for Premium Apps globally and Australia is included in this - so watch this space - more coming soon!"

So we'll let you know more when we know more.

Author: 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.

As Becky Wiegand from Tech soup (DonorTec's partner in the US) blogged:

While looking for anything to watch other than Tom Delay shake his bum on Dancing with the Stars the other night, I came across one of the new commercials from Microsoft about their upcoming release of the Windows 7 operating system. The commercial featured the cutest little spokesperson you've ever seen. Since Microsoft will be donating Windows 7 upgrades to eligible nonprofits through www.DonorTec.com.au - this reminded me to post this little "save the date" announcement, as well as give you a heads up as to what you can expect to see from DonorTec as we approach this launch.