San Francisco, CA, September 25, 2006 — Tides Foundation today announced that the inaugural $10,000 Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest will go to George Hotelling for his development work on CitizenSpeak — a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizations.
”This award is really an honor for me,” notes Hotelling. “This award highlights the importance of public space software and how it‘s helping grassroots organizations and individual activists get their voices heard.”
The new Pizzigati Prize — a project launched by Tides Foundation’s Florence and Frances Family Fund — aims to honor individuals who, in the spirit of open source computing, fashion outstanding applications that help nonprofits become more effective in their ongoing efforts for social change.
“Our judges faced a difficult choice,” notes Jason Sanders, the Tides Foundation philanthropic advisor who coordinates the Pizzigati Prize. “Each of the six finalists for our first prize has made a valuable contribution to public interest computing.”
Hotelling’s work on the CitizenSpeak project began when he realized that local groups needed a tool that could help them impact local decisions and decision-makers. He soon discovered that CitizenSpeak.org, a free online service founded in 2002 by Jo Lee and Pablo Calamera, shared the same vision. Hotelling, with over a decade of experience working with open source tools, rebuilt CitizenSpeak and made the code available as open source software.
Community groups have been putting the revamped CitizenSpeak to work in a wide range of campaigns, everything from a Rhode Island effort to stop the siting of new schools on contaminated land to a multi-denominational offensive against religious intolerance in the Delaware town of Indian River.
The code that runs CitizenSpeak is available as a free module for Drupal, the popular open source Web content management platform. For more information, please visit http://www.citizenspeak.org.
The finalists for the 2006 Pizzigati Prize included Zachary Rosen for CivicSpace, Donald Lobo for CiviCRM, Kevin Smith for Martus, Ethan McCutchen for WagN, and Jamie McClelland for Basebuilder. Honorable mention went to Zachary Rosen, whose leadership and vision has helped catapult public interest software into the public consciousness. To learn more about the 2006 prize finalists — and the entire prize effort — please check online at www.pizzigatiprize.org.
About the Pizzigati Prize
The Pizzigati Prize honors the brief life of Tony Pizzigati, an early advocate of open source computing who spent his college years at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, working at the MIT Media Lab and later the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science. Three years after his 1992 graduation, Pizzigati, then 24, died in an auto accident.
The three judges who selected the first Pizzigati Prize winner brought have each earned wide respect within the nonprofit computing world.
Allison Fine is Senior Fellow at Demos, a public policy research and advocacy organization committed to building an America that achieves its highest democratic ideals. Joseph Mouzon serves as the executive director of nonprofit services for the Network for Good, the largest nonprofit technology service provider in the United States, and Katrin Verclas currently directs NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network, a professional community that connects people involved in nonprofit technology and strives to help them effectively use technology in their work.
The deadline for the 2007 Pizzigati Prize will be July 1, 2007. Applications forms and background information will be available later this fall at the Pizzigati Prize Web site.
About Tides Foundation
Tides Foundation partners with donors to increase and organize resources for positive social change. Tides brings together people, resources, and vision through Tides Donor Advised Funds, Tides Initiatives, funding collaboratives, gatherings and learning opportunities, foundation management services, comprehensive and flexible program services, and a framework for strengthening the progressive movement.
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Providence, RI – April 12, 2006 – The Webby Awards, the leading international honor for web sites, today recognized CitizenSpeak (www.citizenspeak.org) as an Official Honoree, a distinction awarded to sites for their excellence, vision and superior quality. Described as MoveOn.org for the rest of us, CitizenSpeak provides a free and easy-to-use email advocacy service for grassroots organizations.
Using CitizenSpeak, civic organizations and individual activists – which may be just a couple people organizing around a kitchen table - can launch powerful email advocacy campaigns to educate representatives and targeted decision-makers about their causes. Activists across the country have created accounts on CitizenSpeak raising awareness and building constituencies in their communities about issues such as education, discrimination, economic injustices and the environment.
Recent CitizenSpeak campaigns launched by local organizations include: Say No To HR4437: Enforcement First means Immigrant Families Last, East Side Public Education Coalition launched in response to the closing of a local middle school in Providence, RI, and Florida’s Gulf Coast Proposed Oil and Gas Drilling which demands a new public hearing to accommodate the availability of local community residents.
Called the “Oscars of the Internet” by the New York Times, the Webby is the leading international award honoring excellence in Web design, creativity, usability and functionality. “The Webby Awards honors the outstanding web sites that are setting the standards for the internet,” said Tiffany Shlain, founder and ambassador of The Webby Awards. “CitizenSpeak’s Official Honoree selection is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators.”
“We’re thrilled to have been selected as an Official Honoree by The Webby Awards,” said Jo Lee, co-founder and director of CitizenSpeak. “At the heart of CitizenSpeak is a profound belief in democracy protected and maintained by a strong civil society. Our goal is to help grassroots activists get their voices heard by providing powerful online tools at the community level.”
CitizenSpeak was created by Jo Lee and Pablo Calamera, designed by Development Seed, built by George Hotelling and made possible by the support of the CivicSpace community. The code that runs CitizenSpeak is available as a free and open source Drupal module at http://drupal.org/node/32189. The module has been used by domestic and international organizations including Planned Parenthood and Public Campaign to educate communities about important causes.
About CitizenSpeak (www.citizenspeak.org): CitizenSpeak is a non-profit that provides grassroots organizations and local activists with an easy-to-use, powerful e-advocacy service. Since its inception, CitizenSpeak has supported organizations from all across the country, including formal organizations with long term goals, as well as individuals using CitizenSpeak for one-time issue-oriented actions. The code that runs CitizenSpeak is available as a free and open source Drupal module. CitizenSpeak is based in Providence, RI. For more information, please visit http://www.citizenspeak.org.
About The Webby Awards:
Called the “Oscars of the Internet” by the New York Times, the Webby is the leading international award honoring excellence in Web design, creativity, usability and functionality. Established in 1996, the 10th Annual Webby Awards received over 5,500 entries from all 50 states and over 40 countries worldwide. For more information visit www.webbyawards.com.
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====================== NETPULSE =======================
The e-journal of politicking on the Internet
Volume 8, Number 3
February 18, 2004
A project of PoliticsOnline -
News, Tools, And Strategies
Phil Noble - Publisher
David Abel - Editor
http://www.PoliticsOnline.com
SOUNDOFF
USING ONLINE TOOLS TO BUILD LOCAL COMMUNITIES AND INCREASE VOTER TURNOUT IN 2004
By: Jo Lee
Contributing Editor
With MoveOn and the Dean campaign as role models, there has been a growing trend in the development of online tools for local community organizing. For example, based on exposure to MoveOn’s email campaigns and participation in my neighborhood’s struggle against a hospital’s expansion, we launched CitizenSpeak - a non-profit that offers a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizing. With CitizenSpeak, anyone or any organization can set up a MoveOn-like email campaign and invite their contacts or members to participate.
At the time, I thought that CitizenSpeak’s value was that it empowered individuals to express their concerns about local issues to targeted decision-makers. I soon realized that CitizenSpeak’s real value was that it let grassroots organizations build capacity by tracking participation and expanding their list of supporters.
With CitizenSpeak, organizations can download reports that include participants’ contact information and personal statements. With this information, organizations can learn who their more ardent supporters are and what concerns them. Because CitizenSpeak allows participants to forward email campaigns to their circle of friends, CitizenSpeak reports also include new contacts that can be added to an organization’s database. Online campaigns provide a cost-effective way for organizations to empower their members and broaden their pool of potential donors and supporters for future actions.
But now that the 2004 election is around the corner, I’m realizing that there is another value to CitizenSpeak. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam has famously argued that the rate of American’s participation in civic associations has declined over the past few decades, and with it rates of participation in other forms of civic engagement such as voting. If members of associations are more likely than nonmembers to vote, than a “get out the vote” tactic for 2004 should include efforts to increase associational affiliations.
Online tools for local organizing can play an important role, perhaps more so than organizing for national issues, in fostering a more civic-minded electorate and in turn reversing the trend in declining voter turnout. Local email campaigns can:
Reach More People: Local campaigns often address niche issues that tap into a pool of people who might otherwise not get involved in national issues. These individuals may be more motivated by activities in their neighborhood that directly impact the value of their house, the quality of their drinking water or safety of their children. Participants in local email campaigns may also be less inhibited and feel less intrusive about forwarding a local email campaign to neighbors to get them involved.
Build Stronger Networks: Based on reasons of proximity, these same people are more likely to attend a local meeting where face-to-face deliberation can take place and stronger ties formed.
Demonstrate Politics and People Matter: A successful local campaign (getting a toxic dump removed) is a learning process and can produce very visible and tangible results. As people get involved they become better informed and have a better understanding of how the system of government works. A successful campaign demonstrates that people can make a difference and that politics isn’t just for politicians and special interests.
Increase Accountability: Democracy isn’t just about voting once every four years, and delegating all power to representatives. It’s about continuously exercising your rights and ensuring that representatives and officials do their job. Through local campaigns people can have continuous input into the decision-making processes. Just by looking out their windows, they can see whether or not their elected officials are responding to their demands, and vote or act accordingly. This not only increases accountability, but it also builds trust in our political institutions.
CitizenSpeak is one of many easy-to-use and free to low cost tools available for local online organizing. However, awareness about these tools remains limited. My hope is that larger organizations, committed to getting out the vote in 2004, turn to these tools to empower local organizations and in turn reinvigorate an American tradition of civic association and improve voter turnout rates in 2004.
Jo Lee is Co-founder of CitizenSpeak. For more information visit http://www.citizenspeak.org or email Jo Lee at jo_lee at citizenspeak.org.
———————THE WEEKLY POLITICKER———————-
The Newswire of Politics on the Internet
A Publication of PoliticsOnline
Fundraising and Internet Tools for Politics
Phil Noble - Publisher
David Abel - Editor
http://www.PoliticsOnline.com
For the Week Ending September 12, 2003
HOTSITE OF THE WEEK
CitizenSpeak - Aiding E-Democracy
Site URL: http://www.citizenspeak.org
By: David Abel
This week’s HotSite is awarded to a new non-profit called CitizenSpeak. The web-based advocacy group provides the tools for grassroots organizations to integrate an email campaign into their communication strategies. What makes this site so “hot” are two key items. The first item is the cost. CitizenSpeak is a free service. Free is good, especially with low-budget campaigns. The second item is what it promotes. The site allows anyone an opportunity to turn his or her soapbox issue into a larger platform agenda. CitizenSpeak is furthering e-democracy, which deserves recognition.
An email campaign through CitizenSpeak works by allowing an organization’s members to email targeted decision-makers one-on-one messages with a single click. CitizenSpeak strengthens organizations’ lobbying efforts by putting immediate pressure on decision-makers and by providing reports on participation. The website also enables organizations to invite supporters to make a donation, volunteer or become a member.
Co-founder Jo Lee indicated that the website was inspired by the appeal of the MoveOn email campaigns during the antiwar movement. However, CitizenSpeak has more of a local flavor for activism on the community level. If you are considering using email as part of your grassroots campaign, check out CitizenSpeak.
Political spin: Instead of “Moving On” CitizenSpeak moved local. PoliticsOnline asks, who will “Move Global?”
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The e-journal of politicking on the Internet
Volume 8, Number 6
April 5, 2004
A project of PoliticsOnline -
News, Tools, And Strategies
Phil Noble - Publisher
David Abel - Editor
http://www.PoliticsOnline.com
SOUNDOFF
From Bowling Alone To Bowling Online
How Online Tools Can Build Community and Increase Voter Turnout in 2004
By Jo Lee
CitizenSpeak Co-founder
The Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam has famously argued that the quality of America’s civic life has declined over the past few decades, and with it trust and participation in America’s political institutions. Perhaps he most colorfully captures this decline of social connectedness by pointing to the fact that more Americans bowl today but they do so alone rather than as members of leagues.
My family is a textbook example of Putnam’s argument. The traditional family structure, job stability and long-term homeownership that defined my parents’ suburban lifestyle afforded them the time and incentive to invest in local associations like the PTA, Lions Club, and their neighborhood association.
According to Putnam, my parents’ participation reflected norms that characterized a more socially connected period in America’s history; norms that made my parents feel part of a civic-minded community that valued public engagement and saw voting as a duty.
Fast forward to their baby boomer/Internet offspring, and you see two-income earning families with high mobility and stress rates. There simply isn’t enough time in the day to fulfill family and job demands let alone community or voting responsibilities - and these are the economically privileged families in the US. The result of this frenetic and atomized existence has been massive declines over the last generation in voter turnout and in almost all other forms of direct civic engagement.
MoveOn - Connecting Online. Leveraging CRM tools, the ubiquity of email, and new online consumer habits, organizations like MoveOn found a way to politically tap this wired but socially disengaged generation. From Putnam’s perspective, MoveOn might not qualify as a conventional association where members meet in person. However, I would argue that MoveOn, while accommodating time limits and new expectations for online and immediate communications, addresses members in a more personal way than traditional national organizations, and as such, builds a greater sense of community and civic mindedness amongst its members.
Traditional organizations solicit member support by arguing that they are the most qualified to represent members’ views and act on their behalf. Individuals, in effect, delegate representation, and communication is one-way. MoveOn, on the other hand, interacts individually and continuously with members, providing a constant flow of feedback that draws members in, making them part of a larger community.
For example, MoveOn:
* Allows me from the convenience of my office or home to become informed about national issues and individually express my concerns to decision-makers.
* Lets me know that I’m not alone - that 50,000 other people participated in the same online action as me.
* Sends personal communications to me from individuals (we all know the ten MoveOn employees’ names) rather than a monolithic bureaucracy.
* Respects my opinion by asking me which actions I want to fund, like a TV commercial, rather than simply solicit a generic donation at the end of the year.
* Provides meetup tools for face-to-face interactions with neighbors at local officials’ offices and events such as the anti-war candle light vigil.
MoveOn gave me a new found sense of social connectedness that, in part, inspired me for the first time to join my local neighborhood association and take a far more active role and interest in the current primary election.
Local Online Organizing Tools. With MoveOn as a role model there has been a growing trend in the development of online tools for local organizing. For example, based on exposure to MoveOn’s email campaigns and participation in my neighborhood’s struggle against a hospital’s expansion, we launched CitizenSpeak - a non-profit that offers a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizing. With CitizenSpeak, anyone or any organization can set up a MoveOn-like email campaign and invite their contacts or members to participate.
At the time, I thought that CitizenSpeak’s value was that it empowered individuals to express their concerns about local issues to targeted decision-makers. I soon realized that CitizenSpeak’s real value was that it let grassroots organizations build capacity by tracking participation and expanding their list of supporters.
With CitizenSpeak, organizations can download reports that include participants’ contact information and personal statements. With this information, organizations can learn who their more ardent supporters are and what concerns them. Because CitizenSpeak allows participants to forward email campaigns to their circle of friends, CitizenSpeak reports also include new contacts that can be added to an organization’s database. Online campaigns provide a cost-effective way for organizations to empower their members and broaden their pool of potential donors and supporters for future actions.
Increasing Voter Turnout in 2004.
But now that the 2004 election is around the corner, I’m realizing that there is another value to CitizenSpeak. Getting back to Putnam, he claims that members of associations are much more likely than nonmembers to participate in other forms of civic engagement such as voting. If that’s the case, than a “get out the vote” tactic for 2004 should include efforts to increase associational affiliations. Online tools for local organizing can play an important role, perhaps more so than national email campaigns, in fostering a more civic-minded electorate and in turn reversing the trend in declining voter turnout. Local email campaigns can:
Reach More People: Local campaigns often address niche issues that tap into a pool of people who might otherwise not get involved in national issues. These individuals may be more motivated by activities in their neighborhood that directly impact the value of their house, the quality of their drinking water or safety of their children. Participants in local email campaigns may also be less inhibited and feel less intrusive about forwarding a local email campaign to neighbors to get them involved.
Build Stronger Networks: Based on reasons of proximity, these same people are more likely to attend a local meeting where face-to-face deliberation can take place and stronger ties formed.
Demonstrate Politics and People Matter: A successful local campaign (getting a toxic dump removed) is a learning process and can produce very visible and tangible results. As people get involved they become better informed and have a better understanding of how the system of government works. A successful campaign demonstrates that people can make a difference and that politics isn’t just for politicians and special interests.
Increase Accountability: Democracy isn’t just about voting once every four years, and delegating all power to representatives. It’s about continuously exercising your rights and ensuring that representatives and officials do their job. Through local campaigns people can have a continuous input into the decision-making processes. Just by looking out their windows, they can see whether or not their elected officials are representing their interests. This not only increases accountability, but it also builds trust in our political institutions.
Redeeming Technology
Robert Putnam writes, “There is reason to believe that deep-seated technological trends are radically ‘privatizing’ or ‘individualizing’ our use of leisure time and thus disrupting many opportunities for social-capital formation.”1 No doubt Putnam is right. Between Tivo and cable, why bother leaving our homes. On the other hand, technology can be used to draw us back into the public sphere both virtually and physically where, like my parents, we can enjoy a sense of shared responsibility with fellow citizens and a reinvigorated calling to exercise and protect our civic rights.
For more information about CitizenSpeak, please visit http://www.citizenspeak.org or email Jo Lee at jo_lee@citizenspeak.org
1 Putnam, Robert, “Bowling Alone; America’s Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy, Volume 6, Number 1, January 1995, p. 75.