2009 NTC: Online Organizing for Community Organizers (and vice versa)

On April 26th through April 28th, we held the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco.  We presented nearly 100 sessions, on topics ranging from virtualization to branding in social media.  We were lucky to partner with ReadyTalk to present 6 live simulcast sessions.  Here, we give you the audio from one of those sessions.  Full recordings with the slides are available for download at nten.org/ntc:

On April 27th, we presented:

Online Organizing for Community Organizers (and vice versa)

Panelists:

Charles Lenchner | Working Families Party

Community organizing and online organizing - can they go together? An exploration of the differences between the two, resulting in a road map for community organizations starting to use online organizing tools.
Takeaways:

1.List of specific best practices for community organizers integrating online tools into their work. (As distinct from the HQ of community organizations utilizing email lists for fundraising and communications.
2. Review of the state of debate between community and online organizers. (Marshall Ganz versus MoveOn). The goal is to understand the resistance from community organizers and overcome it within the organization.
3. Folks coming from a serious online organizing background will be exposed to the basics of traditional ‘community organizing’ practices: one-on-ones, leadership training, lay leadership, local targets, strong geographic focus, emphasis on low income folks, especially from non-white communities.