Social changemakers and technological forerunners come together at Net Tuesday events to mix, swap stories and ideas, build new relationships, and reinforce the online NetSquared community.
At NetSquared DC we feature two formats and our calendar switches between the two formats monthly:
- Featured nonprofit or technology topic
- Pimp-my-nonprofit.
The featured nonprofit or topic format focuses on the technology challenges, opportunities or competencies of a notable nonprofit or takes a deep dive into a technology topic of relevance to nonprofits. Former featured nonprofits include Center for Responsive Politics and Kabissa. Featured topics we’ve covered include Mapping for Nonprofits, and Technology and Innovation in Africa.
The Pimp-My-Nonprofit format gives a nonprofit the chance to present their current technology challenge, then provides the audience the opprotunity to provide free consulting and feedback to the nonprofit. In the past we’ve worked with ThinkProgress, Prevent Human Trafficking and CODEPINK. Each of these nonprofits benefited from crowd-sourcing audience feedback. In many cases, the ideas were implemented quickly, exemplifying the direct, real-world benefit and impact of NetSquared DC meetups.
We meet on the third Tuesday of each month (barring holiday schedule shifts). Attendance ranges from about 30 to 60 people. You can R.S.V.P and join us here.
“Great group, everyone knows what they are talking about, but they also want to learn more. “ —Garth Moore
NetSquared is related to TechSoup and CompuMentor. We recently asked, Britt Bravo, Community Builder for NetSquared to elaborate upon the interrelationships between these diverse brands. Here’s what she told us:
CompuMentor is a nonprofit that has been around since 1987. It has 150 staff members. I think it started out “mentoring” nonprofits about their technology needs.
TechSoup is a part of CompuMentor that started in May 2000 as a web-based information source on all aspects of technology for US nonprofits. It has community forums, downloadable articles, a TechFinder service directory and TechSoup Stock gives nonprofits access to donated and discounted technology products and services. Now it serves nonprofits and NGOs outside of the US as well.
NetSquared was started a couple years ago as a place for information and networking about how nonprofits can use the social web. It has a community blog that any registered user can post on, a podcast, a vlog, an e-newsletter and Net Tuesday Meetups in Atlanta, Guayaquil (Ecuador), Houston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle and of course, DC. We have a NetSquared Conference each May.