Dear DIA Members, Friends and Colleagues,
It must be November. The leaves are falling, fundraising appeals are being crafted, and Salsa is in full swing. As we finally transition the last of our members to Salsa, it's worth a few words about the deeper change Salsa represents and the bigger-picture reasons why we're making the move.
- It removes a number of programmer bottlenecks. The interface layers are easily editable by the non-technical staff here, which means that coders can spend more of their time coding and less of it tweaking the headquarters layout. It lets us develop faster while still being more responsive to user feedback.
- It makes the toolset "skinnable". We've barely scratched the surface of this -- sorry, no Star Trek LCARS theme available yet -- but this change goes well beyond fun. It enables custom interface formats that could let users who don't need every option have simplified input screens. It permits organizational re-branding. And it renders the toolset fully internationalizable.
- It makes data extensible. No longer constrained by the interface, the Salsa database can extend to take on custom data objects with no special UI engineering required. This is also something we're just getting our arms around, but as we work with it, we expect to develop -- and see developed by the user community -- add-on modules, organization-specific customizations, and a host of other plugins to power up the system.
From here on out, everything is in Salsa. While users of the original system can still log into and use their accounts, and old pages calling that system will continue to function (well into the future, if not indefinitely), there is officially no development, patching or support available for it.
If you're just getting started with Salsa, or need a refresher, we have an extensive list of Webinars planned throughout the fall. If you're not using Salsa, please contact us (info@democracyinaction.org) immediately so we can help you transition. As always, we welcome your feedback on this new milestone for the DIA toolset.
...and now for what's happening this month:
- Events and Trainings
- DIA Empowers Grant: Project Katrina
- Be a DIA Guru
- Meet the Staff and join the team!
- Around the DIA Community
- Holiday Referral Program
Events and Trainings
| Holiday Fundraising Strategy Webinar: Nov. 27, 2007
This time of year provides an excellent opportunity to drive traffic to your site and raise funds for your organization. Join DIA for some helpful fundraising tips to make the most of the Holidays. |
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| Holiday Fundraising Strategy Webinar: Nov. 29, 2007
This time of year provides an excellent opportunity to drive traffic to your site and raise funds for your organization. Join DIA for some helpful fundraising tips to make the most of the Holidays. |
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| Salsa 101 Webinar: Dec. 5, 2007
A telephone training/webinar on core toolset items. |
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| Donations Webinar: Dec. 7, 2007
Join us for an intermediate training session on how you can use Salsa to handle donations. Learn about tracking online and offline gifts, customizing donations pages, and using your own merchant account! |
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| Tagging Webinar: Dec. 11, 2007
Join us for a webinar on Salsa's unique tagging capabilities. Learn about search, tracking and reporting. Appropriate for both newer and more advanced users interested in exploring tagging. |
- Save the date! DIA's Holiday Party is Dec. 12th, location TBA.
DIA Empowers Grant: Project Katrina
We're thrilled to announce this cycle's Empowers recipients. All four organizations are doing amazing work to better the lives and communities of those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Each organization will have access to the entire Salsa platform with no service fees for one year. We applaud their work and look forward to supporting their online and offline efforts in Louisiana.
- Louisiana Justice Institute
- The Alliance for Affordable Energy
- People's Hurricane Relief Fund
- The Gulf Coast Civic Works Project
As a DIA intern, Welch Canavan is currently learning about the field of systems administration and helps to perform the day to day administration tasks for the DemocracyInAction system. Specializing in both Voice over IP and Networking disciplines, he is a core facet of the "Democracy Proving Grounds" project and is assisting in the build out of it's related infrastructure.
Want to help build a progressive movement? Join the team! We are currently seeking highly talented and energetic folks to fill three senior level positions:
- Director of Member Services
- Director of Finance and Administration
- Director of Marketing and Outreach
Around the DIA Community
With so many exciting things happening in the DIA community, we are starting to build a central space for members to showcase their work. If you have a cool Youtube video, want to promote your latest campaign or view Flickr photos from the latest events, this is the place for you! Visit the new Community page on our website and look for an expansion of this in the coming year.
Shop With a Cause
There's a ton meaningful gift ideas being offered by members of our community. Check out the Progressives Guide to Holiday Gift-Giving and do some shopping.
- Read the Fox Attacks blog, a project of Brave New Films.
- We have excellent news! After months of hard work, including thousands of messages sent to Congress by you all, the House of Representatives just passed H.R. 2003, the Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act. Thank Just Foreign Policy by supporting their work.
- Many experts believe that the dangers of using toxic chemical flame retardants are higher than the safety advantage they may bring. Tell the Senate that you want them to make sure the CPSC doesn't inadvertently introduce toxic chemical in our homes.
- Sign this petition and call on condom manufactures to send 50,000 safe condoms to youth in rural South Africa.
- This year, CIVIC created limited edition bracelets as 'gifts' for the donations you make for your friends and family. Cool!
Holiday Referral Program
