Introducing: Movements.org Marketplace
SUPPORTERS: SIGN UP NOW TO DONATE YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERTISE TO THE MARKETPLACE
ACTIVISTS: SIGN UP NOW TO GET THE THINGS YOU NEED FOR YOUR CAMPAIGN OR MOVEMENT
What makes Movements.org different from other organizations working with grassroots activists? Two important things:
1. We help activists by fostering peer-to-peer resource sharing and collaboration, as opposed to simply a top-down training approach. This makes the process of learning about how to be a more effective digital activist a little more sustainable, since peers are relying on peers instead of trainers who might not live in their part of the world.
2. We build relationships between activists and private sector partners who want to help but don't have the time/know-how/background knowledge to do so.
In the past, we have accomplished these goals in more of a one-off fashion: introducing people to one another at our summits, identifying supporters to help with an activist's specific campaign, etc. We are happy to announce that we are bulding a new platform to scale these efforts and improve our ability to connect activists with activists and activists with people from the tech world who want to help them.
We are currently building the Movements.org Marketplace. An online platform where activists and their supporters can post and exchange things they need and things they have. By helping their peers with posted "needs," activists in our network (it's a closed platform) earn points which they can then cash in for items and resources donated by supporters and sponsors.
Here's an example:
Someone posts: "Design Help Needed: need to get website up ASAP for my online campaign to spread awareness about an imprisoned blogger." A fellow activist sees this post, replies that they can help, and helps them get the site up. For doing this they earn a certain number of points, which means access to the resources that have been donated by our private sector partners. Donated items range from small grants, mobile and computer hardware, legal or strategic advice, a ticket to a tech conference, a celebrity re-tweet, etc.
The Marketplace administrator will also respond to urgent posts and identify opportunities for our sponsors to help an activist with an immediate need. Such as a small grant to buy a new server, etc. The Marketplace is scheduled to launch for a group of our pre-vetted activists in Summer 2011. We thought we'd let everyone know beforehand, though, in case you want to get involved. How can you help?
Donate your time! Are you an engineer, designer, grassroots organizer, or online marketing or advertising expert? Donate your expertise as an item in the Marketplace!
Donate a good! Are you hosting a tech of media conference, work for a mobile phone or computer company? Donate an in kind item that could benefit one of our activists!
Donate a small grant! A lot of the time, as we've learned from talking to the activists in our network, a small grant - less than $5,000 - can go a long way. Make a donation today!
If you can help please email us: info@movements.org.
And last but definitely not least, a big thanks to our team of volunteer engineers that've been hard at work on this: Nikila Srinivasan and Arunram Kalaiselvan. Thanks guys!
