CrisisCongress Photo Courtesy of Taylor Davidson on Flickr

As I’ve grown into my activist and humanitarian roles, technology has helped me find a place where I feel like I belong in the response. It’s not my primary profession, per say, in life. But it is a place where I feel like I can make a difference.

How?

Sometimes, from using our voice. Our voice online has the ability to multiply and make a bigger impact. Using your voice on the internet (and this could be Facebook or your own blog) is a way of standing up for what you believe, asking questions, and seeking answers.

That’s what happened to me in January. The earthquake happened and I turned to the Internet to see what the response would be. I had heard of Transparency Camps happening last summer, but only pieces, as I had been in the Philippines on my Kiva Fellowship. I had heard more about CrisisCommons from friends like Alex Rose and Chad Catacchio and with my incessant need for information learned more about the Camps. I started to see them pop up around the country and people were reaching out to me, since I now lived in New Orleans, asking to connect with people who had been instrumental in the response for Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and wondering when there would be a CrisisCamp in New Orleans.

From the bottom of my cause-filled activist heart, you could say this is how I was roped in to creating CrisisCampNOLA.

I was helped by Robert Fogarty, who himself has a nonprofit focused on evacuation techniques called Evacuteer.org and by Barrett Conrad, who leads up a monthly developer event in New Orleans and could tap into those networks to get developers to attend.

So I had Alex and Chad rooting me on, and Robert and Barrett partnering and helping shoulder the load, and the local New Orleans community donating space (LaunchPadNOLA), food (Naked Pizza) and press/promotion (New Orleans Tech) and all of the pieces were coming together. But more than all of that, all CrisisCamps would be remiss not to mention Heather Blanchard.

Heather’s passion for creating CrisisCamp and moving CrisisCommons into a viable entity were never far off from the overall goal of having a successful campaign.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We held CrisisCampNOLA, we invited local Haitians to come and tell their stories and we built a local response and also helped on the national scale. It was, by all means, a success.
Through the type of connections that we make online in this day and age (which makes me feel so old for saying this way but it’s true), Heather and I stayed in touch. In fact, we put together a CrisisCamp dinner during SXSW and we also put together a panel during SXSW about CrisisCamp. We talked many times after about how to move forward and then the Oil Spill happened.

That stupid Oil Spill. God, it makes me so angry and sad and frustrated and wondering what I could do to help. But to “help” I mean, we couldn’t clean the beaches and the catastrophe was so severe.

Again, there was Heather heading up a oil spill reporter app to help people create visuals of where the spill had hit and working with the technical resources at her disposal around the country to make an impact.

This leads me to two weeks ago when CrisisCommons held its first International Crisis Congress. City leads from around the world came together to meet in person (most for the first time) and talk about the future of CrisisCommons. Held in Washington DC on July 16th at the World Bank and travel grants graciously given by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, we all gathered for a full day of workshops. The mediator, Allen Gunn, for the day was the best, literally the best, I’ve ever seen. He kept us moving, laughing, engaged and thoughtful. We got up out of our seats and we interacted and asked the hard, tough questions necessary to build and grown CrisisCommons.

Would we be more open? Would we have more rules and legal protection or less? Where are we looking to go in a year or five years from now? We spared nothing to analyze those questions.

In the group, besides City Leads, were professors in emergency preparedness, social innovators, marketers and GIS professionals all bringing their perspectives to the table.

I walked away with a case of the “wow” at the talent that came together for a unified cause. We could have hit a dent in a “virtual conference” but to attend in person we accomplished much more than I ever would have fathomed.

I’d like to extend my sincere thank you and ever-admiration to Heather Blanchard for being the visionary around CrisisCommons. I’m honored to represent New Orleans, and truly moved to be part of the process and be able to flex my own creative muscles into being part of the vision moving forward.

I’m always looking for more passionate and talented people to help grow CrisisCampNOLA and if this is you, please send me an email to sloane@thecausemopolitan.com.

I’d also love to find a way to get training to be able to be a first-responder of some kind for future emergencies around the world. World Vision has people who jump in to assess the needs of an area (like a project manager) and other direct response agencies have people they train in mental health services to go in immediately and help people on the ground. I’m looking to combine my online experiences with real offline field work, so if you know anywhere I should look I’m all ears.

Until then, I’ll continue to search and seek out ways to help with disasters around the world through my contributions with CrisisCommons. I’m so happy to have found a place where I belong and where I can contribute to those in need during crisis.

(Topic for another time…defining crisis!)

Further Reading:

• CrisisCommons Roundtable Series + First International CrisisCongress from CrisisCommons
• How CrisisCommons Is Helping the Tech Community Help Others on Mashable
• UStream from CrisisCongress
• CrisisCongress Flickr Set from Taylor Davidson
• CrisisCommons and Congress on High Earth Orbit

I’m on tour! It’s not quite the Cause It’s My Birthday madness that Doug Campbell and I created last fall, but it’s an exciting opportunity to meet and connect with EXCEPTIONAL techies (along with friends new and old) in five cities this summer. It’s an opportunity to help promote a company and a product we believe in, and help make the launch as viable as possible by sparking conversation and creating content with influencers and those most apt to purchase and develop this product.

The concept went something like this. Erica O’Grady and I wanted to create a unique opportunity for a company to get in front of their target audience, minus the top-shelf sponsorship cost. After all, what does “sponsoring” an event mean? It’s creating a place to get in front of the people that matter to you, right? So if we could do that for you, circulate a room and find the influencers and voices you wanted to reach, evangelize your product, sing your praises and back your endeavors, provide your with leads to follow up with after events that can lead to the same quantifiable ROI, what kind of sponsorship opportunity would that create?

The Party Crashers was born. And for our first project, we are party crashing Mashable’s 5-city SummerMash where awesome-super-amazing-client Microsoft has sponsored us to promote the Windows Phone 7. At each party in Seattle, San Francisco, Washington DC, New York City and Chicago, we’re asking the question (and capturing your answer) to the question:

We’re posting updates on The Party Crashers site, but we’d love you to  Follow Our Adventures on Twitter, Fan Us on Facebook, and please if you’re in Seattle, San Francisco, DC, NYC, of Chicago come to a Mashable Event and say hi (we’d love to get an interview with you)!

You can also leave a comment below with what your dream mobile application would be, we’d love to hear from you!

This is the beginning of a blog post that I am seeing coming flying into my google alerts and into my inbox. It’s the start of a groundswell for tomorrow night’s Gulf Coast Benefit concerts.

Current stand is 60 Meetups, about 45 which are music venues and the rest are awareness get-togethers. It’s grown to 5 countries too (shout out to the Montreal and Paris contingent in particular)! 100% of online donations and the ticket price at venues is going to Gulf Restoration Network. Those who know me, know that I look to inspire others to find ways to give back and this benefit series is speaking to the passionate resolve we all have to help others in times of need.

How can you get involved? Make a donation, whatever amount you can give. Every dollar counts. Then, how about asking 5 friends to match you? Send an email or post to your Facebook wall and say something like:

I just donated $10 to support Gulf Benefit Concerts, will you match my donation?

You can attend. Full listing of venues is on the Meetup Everywhere page.

You can blog about the events. This takes our message to your fans, supporters and friends. A blog post goes a long way! An article in your local paper helps tell more people about what we’re up to. To give you inspiration, here are links to some of the most recent press we’ve gotten. (And huge thanks to everyone below).

• Antiquiet Interview with Co-organizer Casey Phillips:
  

  New Orleans has been in a fight for survival for the past decade. In terms of the deep musical spirit of the area, what’s the general atmosphere among local artists in relation to this crisis?
  
  The strength of the NOLA musical community is a force that some may have doubted before Katrina, but few question anymore. They have lead by example these past 5 years by refusing to let our musical heritage disappear. To me they represent pillars of strength for others to draw inspiration from. The cajun culture of the bayou regions is as important to Louisiana’s heritage as jelly-roll jazz. Right now the future for the fishing communities looks bleak, however, but I can say with certainty that the cajuns are proud people, and the backbone of Louisiana – we will not let them down.

• Live Earth
  

  “We know through music and the generosity of people that we can help make a difference in the Gulf Coast.” Adler says. “We hope this inspires others to make a donation, attend an event and get involved.”

• Fayetteville Flyer

Mountain of Venus, Matt Stell & the Crashers, Bent Grass Green, Black Pearl, Tiffany Christopher and Sarah Hughes will play the show on Thursday at George’s. The suggested donation is $10, and 100% off the door from the show will be donated to the cause.

“We tried to book a diverse group of music, from different genres to try and get all kinds of folks to come out,” said Mountain of Venus’s Tanya Shylock, one of the organizers of the local benefit at George’s.

• Surfer Mag
  

  Rebelution sells out nearly EVERY venue they play in southern California, so this is bound to be a fantastic event!

• Fusicology
  

  Many of our fellow Americans in the foreseeable future will have no livelihood, they’re preparing to leave their homes, and are now lining up for food handouts. The wetlands and wildlife are in desperate need of our attention now and can’t wait for BP to start the clean up process. With hurricane season on the horizon there is reason for great concern and it’s crucial the affected communities be prepared for the worst.

Hoping for much more press, good will, donations and attendance to come. And if you want to get involved, what are you waiting for? Do it! And let me know how I can help.

Update: Full Press List for Gulf Coast Benefits:

• Mashable
• CNN iReport
• Huffington Post
• Huffington Post: The Skinny
• Case Foundation’s Social Citizens
• LAist
• What Gives
• Socialbrite
• Antiquiet
• Live Earth
• Fayetteville Flyer
• Surfer Mag
• Fusicology
• Washington Post Online
• Guide to Portsmouth, New Hampshire
• NOLA.com
• The Gambit
• Paisley Petunia
• Taylor Davidson

Radio/TV

• KROQ Radio
• WWOZ New Orleans Music Show with George Ingmire
• WWL appearance July 1st

What to help and GET INVOLVED? Read more or skip to the get involved part!

Along with Nic Adler, owner of The Roxy on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, CA; Megan Jacobs of The Roxy, Casey Phillips, talent buyer for venues including Tipitina’s in New Orleans and Viper Room & The Mint in Los Angeles, and a terrific support team, we have over 25 venues on board nationally to support this effort with 100% of proceeds going DIRECTLY to the Gulf Restoration Network (@healthygulf on Twitter) and their community-based effort called Gulf Future.

Daryl Hannah, Dave Faustino, Ed Begley Jr., Rebelution, Nicky Avalon and venues like The Roxy, Viper Room, Spaceland, The Echo, The Mint, Fais Do Do, The Comedy Store, Tipitina’s, Press Room and more are involved have enlisted their efforts to help! Volunteers in each city and music industry heavy-hitters are jumping in. Now it’s YOUR TURN!

Is it ambitious to gather music venues around the country to donate ticket sales on July 1st and create an online giving platform that encourages donations to the relief efforts? You betcha. But the people, wildlife and wetlands affected need our support and we’ve combined efforts and networks to make this successful and meaningful for those in the Gulf Coast.

Revenues from ticket sales will be donated to help the fishermen and their families along the Gulf Coast cope with this disaster and aid wildlife and wetlands restoration for the Gulf Coast. Over 25 venues have been confirmed and more are being added every day. Artists performing include national as well as local acts across the US.

“We know through music and the generosity of people that we can help make a difference in the Gulf Coast.” Adler says. “We hope this inspires others to make a donation, attend an event and get involved.”

The wetlands and wildlife are in desperate need of our attention now and we can’t wait for BP to take care of those in need. Many of our fellow Americans will have no livelihood, are preparing to leave their homes and are now lining up for food handouts. With hurricane season on the horizon, there is reason for great concern and it’s crucial the affected communities be prepared for the worst.

What YOU can do!
1) Make a donation! We’re using a WhatGives donation widget where 100% of donations go to Gulf Restoration Network. GRN is distributing the funds directly to community groups after July 1st. You can also put this donation widget on YOUR site!

2) Attend one of the 25+ shows around the country on July 1st! The venue lineup is almost complete. The website and Meetup Everywhere widget are being updated daily. Or go DIRECTLY to the venue’s website and buy tickets. Invite your friends. Have them buy tickets. 100% of proceeds from the door are being donated. Venues from LA to Kansas City and Portsmouth to Aspen are participating. Don’t see a venue in your city? Plan an event of your own on Meetup Everywhere or make a straight donation!

3) Follow @gulfbenefit on Twitter and friend us on Facebook. Put our Twibbon on your Facebook and Twitter profile!

Stay involved! Post the following message:

#RockTheSpill with @GulfBenefit on July 1st at a venue near you! http://bit.ly/gulfbenefit #oilspill #gulf #bp

4) Blog about it! Email your friends! Tell your press and PR contacts that this is an awesome story to cover. You can use copy from our online press release or from this blog post. Every little bit helps.

5) Join the Google Group! We’re creating conversation about what people can do to help – yes for these concerts but beyond this as well. Join TODAY and enter our conversation about more ways to help.

There is a lot of work to be done between now and July 1st. I’m tireless and fearless when it comes to lending a hand and helping others. Are you? Questions, comments, feedback – I welcome them all!

Email me at sloane@thecausemopolitan.com or contact me via Twitter through @sloane.

To a better tomorrow than we have today,
Sloane

I was recently invited to speak at the Association of Fund Raising Professionals (AFP) Fund Raising Day NYC. It’s their largest single-day conference dedicated to the development and fund raising professionals and a huge honor. I was invited into the Internet and Technology track and presented on emerging technologies and tools that nonprofits could use to help fundraising online.

Full details:

Emerging Channels, Emerging Prospects: Building Community Using the Next Generation of Web Marketing and Social Networking Tools.

Questions like “Why aren’t you on Twitter? What’s your Facebook or YouTube strategy? How do we monetize our investments in social media?” are increasingly common. It’s not enough to just have a presence. Organizations need to have clear direction for maximizing their social media resources. Two experts in this emerging field will provide real world case studies for devising effective social media strategies and integrating these channels into your sustainable marketing efforts and what this all means for your budget and staffing.
You’ll Learn:

* To look at social media as part of your overall donor cultivation strategy.
* Strategy tips and case study examples for fundraising campaigns that have been a success, those that haven’t and the why & why nots.
* Tech tools, APIs and tools from the insider’s toolbox to use at your organization, no matter the size or bandwidth.

A huge thank you to Steve Jacobson from JCA who invited me to present and to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, who featured me in a story based on my Cause It’s My Birthday campaign to raise money for malaria nets through an online fund raising campaign and offline series of parties. It was that campaign that I used for the first case study in my presentation, which you can see above from SlideShare.

I was thrilled to be joined by Christopher Maddocks, Director of Information Management and Technology, Children’s Hospital Boston as we split our presentations across different tools included listening and monitoring tools, social media and social network management, and ways to engage with donors.

I come from a traditional fund raising background and felt so at home at the conference all day. The keynote speaker during lunch was Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone and he was irreverent in his story telling and jokes that ONLY a fund raiser would get. We all laughed together and it was amazing to me to think it that room of 1,000 that we ALL look to the giving and philanthropy of others to push social action in nonprofits forward.

I was reminded of the ambient intimacy I feel with fund raisers. Though I’m not in their midst daily, I do always have my fund raising hat on and I think about PEOPLE and COMMUNITY all the time.

The biggest takeaways (technology examples and case studies were included with each)…

• Fish where the fish are – use social networks to engage donors
• Quantify giving – where does that $25 donation go?
• Be transparent in where donations go and what you take for overhead
• Customizing campaigns matters – spending the extra time targeting donors pays off
• Use free technology tools to analyze your efforts. Every act online is measurable
• You can never say thank you enough when acknowledging donors

So get out there and happy fund raising!

You can read more about the nomination on our Tumblr for NOLAlicious.

As many of you know, NOLAlicious is my baby. It’s my passionate side project. It’s one of my favorite things about 2010 and a creation I am deeply proud of. It’s a collaboration effort with two friends that is a daily learning experience and opportunity to share all the things we love about New Orleans with the rest of the world. To think of how far we’ve come in six months is incredible!

To those who don’t know…NOLAlicious is a free weekly email newsletter created with collaborators (and fellow new-to-New Orleans residents) Taylor Davidson and Carl Nelson. We give you five things to do, eat and see around town every week, through the eye of the tourist and the soul of native. We also give you job and travel tips and some pretty awesome photography each week too (if I may say so myself). It’s a little bit for everyone and for the native New Orleanians, recent transplants, expats living around the country, to those who have visited once and got bitten by the bug, NOLAlicious is your way to take a little bite out of New Orleans every week and explore, just like us.

Win or lose, we’ll keep sending the newsletter every Tuesday, but man, I really hope we win because I KNOW it would mean so much to everyone involved and we promise to keep growing and listening to YOU and giving you the best content we can find and deliver each week. Plus, we have new features launching soon that are amazing, so what do you say, can we have your vote?

Here’s what you can do:

1) VOTE
2) Post to your Facebook wall or Twitter this message:

I just voted for @NOLAlicious to win @The_Gambit ’s web awards for best e-newsletter. Your turn! http://bit.ly/GambitWebAwards

3) TELL YOUR FRIENDS!

Thanks everyone, and keep sending in tips for what we can do to make NOLAlicious better and ideas for what to feature. I love reading our emails from the community!

Networking is not a four-letter word! I know many people feel that way in professional networking and career-related networking. As a connector, I often have talked to people about my methods in networking. The first place to start might sound obvious, but it’s often overlooked. It’s all about the PEOPLE! I truly care about people, their stories and what makes them tick, so for me “networking” is a hobby to me like playing an instrument. I keep up with people in my spare time.

But for introverts, those starting new businesses or those who aren’t comfortable in professional networking environments, I’ve created a talk and slidedeck that I go through with easy and tangible steps in networking 101 for the busy career professional.

I spoke this week to the 2010 Entrepreneur Class at Idea Village and my slideshare from that talk is above.

Making connections and building relationships is one of the most important things you can do to help your professional career. So next time you think about networking, replace the word “networking” with “connecting with people” and go get ‘em!

What started as a concept to cowork with two friends (and new transplants to New Orleans), turned into an opportunity to create a small side project capturing the best of 2010 – our first year in New Orleans. NOLAlicious was born and today continues to blossom.

I’m excited to announce that today NOLAlicious launched a new website. We wanted to make it simple – sign up for the newsletter for more great content! We have changed small pieces of either the website or the newsletter just about every week – all the while – creating learning opportunities, reacting to our open rate, click through, sign ups – I have to say side projects are the best place to play. We’ve made errors, we’ve had success. We continue to grow and learn from the experience.

What is NOLAlicious?

We dig around for the best of what New Orleans has to offer each week so you don’t have to.

NOLAlicious is a free weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox on Tuesdays. We give you five things to do, eat and see around town every week. Brought to you with the eye of a tourist and the soul of a native.

We also are hosting a Rebuild Day with St. Bernard Project on Friday, May 28th. RSVP now and join us.

More to come about all of the great things with NOLAlicious, stay tuned! In the meantime, sign up now!

By now, hopefully your calendar, a Twitter post or all the Mothers Day cards in the stores has reminded you that Mothers Day is right around the corner. My mom, always taught me that a gift I made just for her was what she really wanted – so this year I’m taking the time to do just that. She taught me I could change the world, and with my gift this year I plan to do that too. Actually my mom also reminded us you couldn’t go wrong with buying her shoes, but that’s another post for another time.

This year, my gift will be my personally created “heartspace” on To Mama With Love, and a donation in my mother’s name that will help another mama who is even further away. In her village in Arusha, Tanzania, Mama Lucy (@MamaLucy) is literally a mother to an entire school that she envisioned and built using her money she made selling chickens as seed capital. Serving over 400 children, the school is already one of the top-ranked primary schools in her region – all because of a woman with a vision of a brighter future and an organization called Epic Change who helped generate thousands of donations via various social media outreach efforts.

To learn more about this exciting campaign, I’d like to invite you to join me as I moderate a discussion about To Mama With Love tomorrow night (THURSDAY) from 7:00 – 8:00 PM EST with Stacey Monk (@StaceyMonk), founder of Epic Change and Jen Consalvo (@noreaster), founder of Shiny Heart Ventures (plus one more guest I’m excited to announce tomorrow)!

Join us in a live chat to talk about #ToMamaWithLove and how we all can give back a little more each day. It will be an informative and fun panel debate and we’d love to see you. Thursday night, 7pm EST. Details here: http://bit.ly/tomamawithlove

Here’s one story from a student at the school in Tanzania:

“I started learning at this school since I was six years old; Now I am 12. Mama Lucy is a founder of our school Shepherds Junior. She is a hard-working mama. She is kind. She loves us and I love her very much.” – Nihad, a student at Moma Lucy’s school, echoing the sentiments of her fellow students.

Mama Lucy has another dream – to build a home on campus for some of the children who attend her school including a few of the TwitterKids of Tanzania. This Mother’s Day, as you think about the mamas in your life, consider doing two things:

1. Create your own heartspace to show how much you love the momma’s in your life. The donation to create your heartspace will go directly to Mama Lucy’s real-life heartspace – a children’s home in Arusha, Tanzania. Look around on the site at the new heartspaces popping up!

2. Post your special creation to your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. encouraging others to create theirs as well. This is a chance to make a real difference in the world for our next generation.

3. Use #tomamawithlove in Twitter

Read more on Social Edge, Tech Cocktail and across the blogosphere!

Spreading the love,
Sloane

The week between Jazz Fest weekends is known to be the stomping grounds for fests of all kinds and this year was no exception. Fests rule the day when the weather is nice but not too sticky here in New Orleans! I was asked to give a talk at a newcomer to the Fest scene” Launch Fest: A fun conference for serious entrepreneurs. In the social entrepreneurship talk on Tuesday I gave a talk called: The Art of Storytelling. I talked about how storytelling is the new elevator pitch and showed examples of compelling stories on the market as well as gave tips, tricks and resources for everyone to discover and cultivate their own story around what they do, why they do it and who they are.

Reference websites from my slides:

• Kiva
• Vittana
• Microsoft BizSpark
• Microsoft Give Camp
• Microsoft DigiGirlz
• Charity Challenge Weekend
• Donate Life PA
• Step Up To Speak Up
• Donate Life Pennsylvania Facebook
• Walt Disney World Public Affairs
• Disney’s Friends for Change
• Citizen Effect
• Do Something
• Volunteer Spot
• KaBoom
• Story Navigation
• More Than Myth
• Answer With Action

You can see more of my slides from past talks on slideshare and also see my new consulting website, Answer With Action for a full list of services. I love connecting with communities and talking about how to put your best foot forward with stories that matter and are aligned with your overall business goals. Thanks to everyone at LaunchFest, it was a blast!