LA Philanthropy Watch

At least that’s one version of history.

This afternoon NPR’s All Things Considered featured a story on the first communication via the ARPANET.  On October 29, 1969, a programmer at a UCLA computer lab sent a two-letter message to a techie in a computer lab at Stanford Research Institute.  It was the first two letters of the word, ‘login.’  When he hit the ‘g,’ the computer crashed.  An hour later, so the story goes, l-o-g-i-n was successfully transmitted.

That ought to be worth a celebration – or at least a moment of recognition.

I recommend the 6 minute 38 second report.  It’s worth a listen just to gain a perspective on how far this communications revolution has come.

(The image is from Wikimedia Commons.)

Update, October 30, 2009:  While we’re celebrating the technology that made blogging – and the whole familiar world wide web – possible, here is the link to an article I ran across some time ago by Chris Andersen, ‘Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It’s Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity,’ which reviews technological changes over the past 40 years.

Britt Bravo, Bay Area social media consultant,offers 10 elements for an effective nonprofit or advocacy blog.  Her comments offer simple help for anyone new to blogging or web tools.  But before you start a blog, she suggests in an earlier post, you need to do a bit of planning.

On July 28 LACMA director and CEO Michael Govan announced that the museum would be “ending its weekend film program by November,” sparking a grassroots movement to save the program.  Save Film at LACMA led this grassroots campaign – and within a month had won at least a reprieve for the program.  In the words of David Mermelstein in the Wall St. Journal, “the surprising triumph of several thousand mostly ordinary film lovers over Los Angeles County Museum of Art has inspired grass-roots organizations everywhere.  And so it should, for it demonstrates that sometimes those who wield cultural power must listen, and heed, the concerns of regular folk.”

It is a pleasure to introduce a guest post by Debra Levine, co-founder of Save Film at LACMA, to provide an insider’s account of this savvy campaign, which (as she puts it) “lived almost entirely in cyberspace.”  The Save Film at LACMA story offers insights for anyone interested in grassroots organizing in the era of social media.

Debra’s day job is heading Levine & Associates, an LA-based marketing communications firm.  Debra, a former dancer who is passionate about the arts, blogs at artsmeme.com.

Debra Levine’s post, “(Not) The Last Picture Show or Good Writing Wins the Day for Save Film at LACMA,” follows this post.

Mark Horvath, an activist who has spent more than a decade advocating on behalf of the homeless, is featured in a story by Jessica Garrison in yesterday’s LA Times. Through his compelling videos, “…Horvath lets homeless people talk – raw and unscripted – about their panhandling, lost children, drug additions, sorrows and hopes.  He punctuates their words with plenty of his own.”

By stopping to record interviews with folks that most of us would encounter (if at all) only fleetingly or from a distance, Horvath humanizes people who live on the streets and in tent cities – people not so different from us and our more familiar world.

Horvath embarked on Road Trip USA last week – to record video stories in 24 cities across the county – from the West Coast to the East Coast and back again.  His return to LA is scheduled for October 7.

The Times story (online) links to Horvath’s InvisiblePeople.tv blog and recounts Horvath’s experience with homelessness in Hollywood a decade and a half ago.  He had worked in the television industry before his descent into alcoholism.  The article credits the Dream Center with helping him overcome his dependency, after which he began helping churches boost their media presence.

The Times article illuminates Horvath’s commitment, in spite of threatening encounters, to document homelessness; it doesn’t mention his personal blog, where he talks a bit about his faith.

In addition to the Dream Center (which I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts) the Times article mentions a couple of other local nonprofits combating homelessness: PATH Achieve of Glendale and the Union Rescue Mission.

This past weekend, Triple Pundit featured eco-friendly shoes from New Balance, which caught my eye because I’ve been an avid runner (and – Disclosure – a longtime fan of NB shoes) for more than 30 years.

One of the most popular social change blogs on the web, Triple Pundit, is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.  3p offers a daily fresh helping of interesting and useful ideas on creating a sustainable environment, society and business.

If you’re interested in a sustainable environment, and practical ideas for businesses and organizations, check it out.  It’s a lively site (created by “critical optimists”) that will lift your spirits.

Britt Bravo raises this question as she prepares to celebrate a milestone in her life.

Update: this post on the popular Have Fun – Do Good blog, is the first in a series on social change blogs, especially California-based blogs.

Give and Take reports a list of the most influential blogs that focus on nonprofit causes and social change. “The ranking provides a glimpse into the change and cause bloggers who are trying to positively affect our lives throughout the world,” writes Geoff Livingston; his professional blog is currently hosting the list, which will eventually move to the Chronicle of Philanthropy website. (Click on the above links for background and technical information on the ranking.)

The list may draw wider attention to the ranked blogs. I certainly intend to check out the blogs that are new to me.

I look forward to having this website up and running soon.  (Posted at 12:17 am – an early morning success with WordPress!)