A Question of Trust
WAND offered a webinar with the Demos Institute on “Making the case for government”—a timely topic. As pollster Stanley Greenberg argued in the New York Times, the debt ceiling crisis was driven in part by declining public trust in government’s ability to fairly distribute benefits. It’s a fundamental challenge to all who advocate for public expenditures.
Caution! Shiny Object Coming Through.
It seems the entire tech world is talking about Google+. Although critic reactions have been mixed, advocates are quickly signing up to explore the social network’s potential for advocacy campaigns and grassroots organizing. Philly Netsquared even held a webcast earlier this week precisely on this topic. As with any new service, advocates should find out if Google+ actually suits their needs before jumping on the bandwagon. (Can a bandwagon be virtual?)
Storytelling 101
While we’re big fans of literature (everything from Hamlet to Twilight), here at APEP we know that stories can be much more than entertainment. For example, the Stanford Social Innovation Review recently profiled GlobalGiving’s use of local anecdotes to gauge community needs in developing countries. With the help of some cutting-edge qualitative analysis tools, the GlobalGiving team is creating maps of local perceptions that are helping nonprofit organizations better serve their target communities. Storytelling has never looked so good.
