http://webofchange.com/

Mark, when is this "Portland to Africa: Grassroots Efforts & Sharing What Works "?

That's intended to be an open space <Ned> event ... date TBD.

So many groups doing that kind of work in Portland, but few have the chance to meet and share best practices, ideas, etc.

I host the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago every six months. Next one is Nov. 15 and 16. The web site is http://www.tutormentorconference .org

For those who can't come to Chicago (99.99% of the people involved in volunteerism, tutoring and/or mentoring) I hope you'll join us on Facebook, or in http://www.tutormentorconnection .org or in other forums you might recommmend where people focus on this topic.

~Mark said: That's intended to be an open space <Ned> event ... date TBD.~

You'll let me know when that is happening? With as much warning as possible please!!! :D

Yes indeed, I promise.

Great list but I cant afford to go to any of them. I was an SEA member and was even thinking of submiting to speak as I had a great presentation idea "how to bootstrap a social enterprise", but then when I found out that speakers still had to pay for the conference I lost my last straw of faith about the motives of the organizers.

I don't think I have ever seen a conference where speakers didn't need to pay registration except if they were invited plenary speakers or keynote speakers. Only thinking of it because I paid registrations today for two conferences I am speaking at this month and next....also had to pay a registration for a conference that I have to work at....that's even worse! (Though I am working on getting the university to pay that one).

Most of the conference we speak at pay our travel expenses and if they dont they certianly dont charge us.

I think it is rather lame to ask speakers to pay. I really dont like SEA for other reasons though. As far as I can tell all they really do is take money from mid-large size non-profits that think they may want to do a income generating project, and hold a conference which is well funded by large sponsorship fees.

Anyone attending Social Enterprise conference in Boston March 2 or Social Enterprise Alliance gathering in Boston March 9 - 11?

Im not going to the SEA, even though it is a quick drive I have gone completely off the SEA. If it was free, I would go, but otherwise I am not a fan.

Is the other one the Harvard one? I think Ill skip that this year but have not looked at the schedule.

I'm hosting another Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago, on May 29 and 30. I started doing this in May 1994. At http://www.tutormentorconference .org you can read about the goals and how this integrates into our overall, on-going strategy.

I'm looking for workshop presenters now, so I hope some of you might consider doing workshops on topics of how SE's build effective organizations, recruit volunteers, and communicate their messages, or that you'll invite people from your own networks to participate.

This has been a grassroots event since 1994. All speakers donate their time, and we give scholarships to anyone who can't afford the $100 two-day fee.

One of the special features of this conference is an on-line attendee list that a person can add their name to when they register. This enables people to see who else plans to attend, and contact them directly. We keep this up after the conference with a goal that more people will stay connected to each other, and the information shared, during the months between each conference. You can see this at http://www.tutormentorconference .org/RegistrationList/

I just looked at the Harvard Schedule for this weekend, and I think Im going to go. Sarah might come as well.

What WILL We Do To Change Our World, TODAY?

2nd Annual HeArts Coming Together Spring Conference

April 17-20, 2008, in Canton, Ohio >+=>

One of my student event ushers (I am SO proud!) has organized a week-long development symposium for Middlebury College's International Student Organization: http://go.middlebury.edu/develop ment

More on facebook, too: http://www.facebook.com/event.ph p?eid=10204673298&ref=mf

Lectures and events include: Tuesday, April 1 at 7:00 pm, MBH 219 Title: “Awakening: Empowering Women through Microloans” & KIVA (Screening – 48 minutes Awakening documents the social and economic empowerment of women in Afghanistan and India whose roles have traditionally been restricted by their cultures. Awakened to new possibilities through education and access to micro-loans these women are redefining their roles in society. The documentary will be followed by an introduction to KIVA that will involve the audience in micro-lending.

Wednesday, April 2 at 7:00 pm, MBH 220 Title: “Welcome to Alta Gracia”- Discussing Fair Trade with Julia Alvarez, Bill Eichner and Paul Ralston Writer in Residence, Julia Alvarez, and Bill Eichner will talk about their organic coffee plantation in the Dominican Republic together with the president of the Vermont Coffee Company, Paul Ralston. The Alta Gracia coffee is distributed in the United States by the Vermont Coffee Company. Our three speakers will discuss their experience with this Fair Trade initiative: how they decided to start the Alta Gracia Project and how it developed into what it is today.

Friday, April 4 at 4:30 pm, MBH 220 Title: “Revolutionaries and Champions: Critical Ingredients to Ending Global Poverty” Sam Daley-Harris is the founder of RESULTS, an international citizens' lobbying organization focused on generating the political will to end global poverty and founder of the Microcredit Summit Campaign which seeks to reach 175 million of the world's poorest families with microcredit by the end of 2015. In his presentation, Daley-Harris will describe development revolutionaries and rule-breakers like Muhammad Yunus and Jamii Bora, individuals who have broken the rules of banking, international development, and of microfinance in order to accomplish what others assumed to be impossible. He will also posit that these rule-breakers are in need of champions in Congress, in the media, in communities and on college campuses if these breakthroughs are to spread widely and rapidly.

Monday, April 7 at 4:30 pm, RAJ Conference Room Title: “Globalization and its Antinomies: The Potential and Dilemmas of Fair Trade” Fair Trade is an example of the 21st century responses to globalization. It is an initiative that brings together consumers, producers, and a range of other intermediaries, around efforts not to stop globalization, but to redirect it towards more sustainable development. By exploring the case of Fair Trade, Douglas Murray, Director of the Center for Fair and Alternative Trade Studies and Professor of Sociology at Colorado State University, will speak about the potential, as well as the limits, of this and other 21st century movements for social change.

Monday, April 7 at 8:00 pm, MBH 216 Title: “Birdsong & Coffee: a Wake Up Call” (Screening – 58 minutes) Coffee drinkers will be astonished to learn that they hold in their hands the fate of farm families, farming communities, and entire ecosystems in coffee-growing regions like Costa Rica. In this film we hear from experts and students, from coffee lovers and bird lovers, and-most importantly-from coffee farmers themselves. We learn how their lives and ours are inextricably linked, economically and environmentally.

Tuesday, April 8 at 4:30 pm, Hillcrest Conference Room Title: “Growing the Wealth of the Poor” The World Resources Report for 2005 had the engaging and disorienting title of "The Wealth of the Poor: Managing Ecosystem to Fight Poverty". Its thesis was that income from ecosystems can act as a fundamental stepping stone in the economic empowerment of the rural poor. This requires that the poor manage ecosystems so that they support stable resource productivity over time. Dan Tunstall, Senior Fellow, People and Ecosystems and Director, International Cooperation at World Resources Institute, will expand on this thesis, discuss some of the community-based natural resource management case studies that suggest this approach is working and that it can be scaled up to make a significant impact on all three development outcomes: poverty reduction, ecosystem and ecosystem service sustainability, and improvements in environmental governance.

Tuesday, April 8 at 8:00 pm, MBH 216 Title: The Big Sellout (Screening – 94 minutes) The Big Sellout is a documentary about privatization - the economic tool that many claim to be the answer to our current global questions. Shot on four continents, director Florian Opitz depicts the ludicrous effects of privatization of water (Bolivia), electricity (South Africa), health care (Philippines), and maybe most astonishingly, British Rail (UK), breaking down an abstract phenomenon into a pugnacious portrait of very concrete human destinies, dictated by anonymous international financial institutions in Washington D.C. and Geneva, such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.

Wednesday, April 9 at 7:00 pm, MBH 220 Title: “The Multiple Facets of Development – the Rules of Globalization, Environmental Management, and a New Outlook” A closing Panel Discussion with Middlebury Professors; John Maluccio and Robert Prasch of the Economics department, and Michael Sheridan of the Sociology & Anthropology department. - Robert E. Prasch: “Globalization, Finance and the Less Developed Nations” - Michael Sheridan: "Why experts get things backwards: Development and environmental management in rural Tanzania" - John Maluccio: "Conditionality at the Micro Level: Conditional Cash Transfer Programs and Human Development in Latin America"

Just let me know if you need directions!

Lovely...might add or modify the following:

2008 Skoll World Forum 
Date: March 26-28, 2008
Location: Oxford, UK
Theme: TBD
<Ned> Members Attending:

Nathan Cryder and Theresa Williamson went, as best I know. And finally met face to face! Global Gain + Catalytic Communities?

Open Money Mexico Intensive
Date: March 2-10, 2008
Location: Tepoztlan, Mexico
Theme: Currencies and Collective Intelligence
<Ned> Members Attending: Jean Russell (and Omidyar peeps: Eric Harris Braun, Lewis Hoffman, Ethan McCutchen, and Gerry Gleason--are they here on <ned>?)

NetSquared
Date: May 27-29
Location: Cisco campus, San Jose, CA
Theme: Mashups
<Ned> Members Attending: Jean Russell?

Anyone going to NetSquared? http://www.netsquared.org/ I will be there....

December 1-3, 2008
Buddhism in the Age of Consumerism
Mahidol University, Salaya Campus
Bangkok, THAILAND

December 5-7, 2008
2nd International Conference of the Buddhist Economic Research Platform: Theory AND Practice
Ubon Ratchathani University
Warin Chamrab, THAILAND 

I will be going to both of these! Fancy that!

:

"Portland to Africa: Grassroots Efforts & Sharing What Works"

Working on this as an open space event perhaps 7/25 in Portland, Oregon. Details soon.

With Linda in Cambridge

Happy New Year!

The next Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference will be held at The Chicago Field Museum on November 21, 2008. The web site is http://www.tutormentorconference .org

Just got back from the Open Sustainability Network camp in San Fran. Was Oct 18/19

http://www.appropedia.org/Open_S ustainability_Network_Conference _2008

Starting to plan an event with Christine Eggers of Social Actions to likely take place in Chicago in spring of 09. It will focus on open standards for action and giving data, moving giving from quantity to quality, connecting doing with being, and building out peer to peer review of the orgs in the space. Or something like that. Will keep you posted.