Operated by Aspiration, The San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center is a shared workspace and training center for organizations focused on meeting nonprofit technology needs.
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Events
The San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center holds free seminars and special events on a regular basis. These events often focus on technology best practices for nonprofits, and from time to time, we host seminars on new developments, concepts and specialized technology projects that are relevant to those using technology for social change. We also get together socially, and if you're interested, check the listings below for Euchre nights and other less work orientated gatherings. Feel free to call 415 839 6456 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 415 839 6456end_of_the_skype_highlighting for details
Upcoming Events at the Technology Center
Anniversary Party
It's
time for another anniversary party at the San Francisco Nonprofit
Technology Center. And while number four isn't as sexy as a 50 or
even a 10 year milestone we should all feel pretty proud of
ourselves.
On
Friday, September 17th we're going to raise a glass and
celebrate another year of socially engaged technology use and
community building. It will be here at the Tech Center, naturally.
And we'll get the fun started around 5:00pm with food and drink and
quit when the last guest is safely on their way home. We look forward
to seeing you.
1370
Mission St., 4th floor, San Francisco, CA 94103 (map link)
* Use
Aspiration's call box entry to get buzzed in.
Recent Events at the Technology Center
Building Your Own Social Media Dashboard
Hosted by Aspiration, Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 from 2pm to 4pm
The
goal of these workshops is to help nonprofit staff learn both about social
media as well as how they can track the impact and reach of their
messaging.
This hands-on, learner-driven event allowed
participants to set up their own "listening dashboard" where they can
track the impact of their online communication efforts (web, Facebook, Twitter,
and more), while also tracking issues pertinent to their organization,
all with a single free online tool. Participants used the NetVibes platform to create their dashboards.
These
workshops are designed for those starting out in social media as well as
those who have established a social media presence but don't know how
to start assessing the reach of their messages and the online activity
around their programmatic issue areas.
Aspiration's own Matt Garcia led another thought provoking, participant-driven workshop that encouraged a fresh look at how one gets information from the internet, and how to adopt simple, practical tools to make the most of one's online presence and engagement.
Building Your Own Social Media Dashboard
Hosted by Aspiration, Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 from 2pm to 4pm, and again on February 4th, 2010 from 2pm to 4pm
The
goal of the workshop was to help nonprofit staff learn both about social
media as well as how they can track the impact and reach of their
messaging.
This hands-on, learner-driven event allowed
participants to set up their own "listening dashboard" where they can
track the impact of their online communication efforts (web, Facebook, Twitter,
and more), while also tracking issues pertinent to their organization,
all with a single free online tool. Participants used the NetVibes platform to create their dashboards.
The
workshop was designed for those starting out in social media as well as
those who have established a social media presence but don't know how
to start assessing the reach of their messages and the online activity
around their programmatic issue areas.
Building Your Own Social Media Dashboard
Hosted by Aspiration, Friday, January 8, 2010 from 2pm to 3:30pm
The
goal of the workshop was to help nonprofit staff learn both about social
media as well as how they can track the impact and reach of their
messaging.
This hands-on, learner-driven event allowed
participants to set up their own "listening dashboard" where they can
track the impact of their online communication efforts (web, Facebook, Twitter,
and more), while also tracking issues pertinent to their organization,
all with a single free online tool. Participants used the NetVibes platform to create their dashboards.
The
workshop was designed for those starting out in social media as well as
those who have established a social media presence but don't know how
to start assessing the reach of their messages and the online activity
around their programmatic issue areas.
SFNTC Anniversary Party
Hosted by the organization here at the SFNTC Fri. Oct 2, 2009
Join
us as we celebrate three years of community and tell a few war stories.
The festivities should get underway at about 5pm. Be there or hear all
about it from the cool kids.
As part of Mozilla Service Week, Aspiration and
the San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center will be hosting an
afternoon of open learning labs we're calling the Social Media Sewing
Circle. The goal is to help nonprofit staff both learn about social
media, and just as importantly, learn how to track and assess the impact
of their social media efforts.
This hands-on event will enable participants to explore:
* Social Media Tracking: How to assess the reach and impact of your
social media efforts
* Publishing strategies for social media channels: how to make it all
make sense together
* Facebook and Twitter essentials
* Beginning and advanced blogging skills
* Any questions you have about the relevance of social media in your work
This is a free and open event, but space is limited, so please RSVP to
info@aspirationtech.org.
You may direct questions to that email address or to 415.839.6456
We invite anyone who's curious about enhancing their social media skills
and knowledge to join us for this hands-on event.
Can Translation Technology Help Bridge U.S/Arab Cultural Divides?
Meedan is building tools for sharing blogs and mainstream media between English and Arabic internet users. Their platform is designed to help highlight relationships between media in the west and media published in the Arab world. All items in the system are translated between Arabic and English, and organized geographically based on source. The ultimate goal is to allow Internet users to get a more complex view of the range of blogs, media, videos, conversations, and people that contribute to the 'meaning' of a given event in the world.
The seminar was structured as a discussion aimed at understanding the needs and usage patterns of people who spend time surfing the web for news from foreign blogs or media sources. A primary goal is to understand what role YouTube, Digg, Facebook, and other sites play in media consumption habits and what frustrations and pain points exist around these practices.
Creating Successful Web Campaigns for Your Nonprofit.
Designing online campaigns is still a daunting task, especially for grassroots organizations with limited staff and budget. Technology choices are many, and well-documented processes are few.
This seminar documented the basic steps and process for achieving the following goals:
* Mapping Campaign strategy to online strategy
* Identifying and developing online audiences
* Understanding how to engage supporters over time
* Developing and evolving campaign calendars
* Managing campaign data
As always, the format was question-driven, and a few participants brought their specific web campaigning and online strategy questions which made for a compelling session.
5 Things Every Nonprofit Should Know About Their Hosted Data
As nonprofits increasingly depend on hosted web applications to support their operations and programmatic work, each organization is creating a complex, unique and distributed set of information resources. These assets live on different servers, in different formats, managed by different software, under different licenses, in different jurisdictions. Online storage of membership and supporter databases, mailing lists, web applications, shared documents, remote backups, audio, video, and images comprise a larger volume of the nonprofit information lifeblood each day, but their long-term availability and cohesion is by no means a given.
And nonprofits are not always cognizant of risks raised by these new software and storage models. Data that is remotely stored can become unavailable and be lost in a number of ways. Ownership of hosted data is not always well-defined or well-understood, and control of hosted data is too often through individual staff members rather than through the organization. Nonprofits working on controversial issues expose themselves to new surveillance risks when information is managed by third parties, and security and backup take on new complexities when data lives outside the physical office. Just knowing where all the data lives is an ongoing challenge.
But there are concrete steps each nonprofit can take to retain control of their data destiny. The seminar reflected on 5 critical things each nonprofit should know as they host their data remotely. As with all Tech Center seminars, the session was interactive and participant driven, with specific scenarios offered up by attendees as examples for review.
A San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center lunchtime salon.
While much of "nonprofit tech" attention focuses on software and hardware, Aspiration continued it's series of discussions about your most valuable and critical nonprofit technology asset: your universe of organizational information. Addressed was a range of"information-centric" topics, including an upcoming September discussion on "5 Critical Things Nonprofits Should Know When Hosting Data With Third-Party Services".
The salon was a great opportunity to hear a very unique perspective on information rights, ownership, privacy and policy, in terms of how they impact both individual nonprofits and our society as a whole.
Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, discussed his efforts to change global copyright laws. The fight against copyright aggression tends to focus on economic aspects of the shift to a networked economy. Falkvinge covered how this conflict is much more important than that: the fight against the copyright regime is about the right to fundamental civil liberties -- down to the postal secret, whistleblower protection, freedom of the press, and the very right to an identity.
How can you help nonprofits build capacity for utilizing GIS (Geographic Information Systems)?
Aspiration and Web-based GIS 101 for Non-profits (a strategic impact project funded by ZeroDivide) made the open invitation to “YOU, GIS practitioners and anyone curious about the same”, to come and brainstorm how we can help mission based, nonprofit organizations learn and access the wonders of GIS.
The idea for this brainstorm grew from two GIS 101 sessions conducted in Fresno and San Francisco to nonprofit organizations. The audience was completely new to the concept and use of GIS and a total of 40 nonprofit organizations participated and expressed a need for more such trainings.
The discussion focused on several facets:
* What has already been done in the realm of GIS for nonprofit needs?
* What tools are most appropriate and most ready for nonprofit adoption today?
* What trainings can be readily designed in conjunction with those tools?
