DemocracyInAction Offers Salsa to Help Organizations...
March 12, 2008
DemocracyInAction Offers Salsa to Help Organizations Spice-up Their Online Campaigns
Six Non-profits to Receive One Year of Free Online Advocacy Tools Through Empowers Grant
Washington, D.C. (March 12, 2008)--DemocracyInAction (DIA), a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that provides online advocacy tools for organizations committed to social change, humanitarian efforts and environmental issues, today announces winners of its Empowers Grant. Now in its third season, the grant offers six organizations complete access to Salsa, DIA’s online communication, fundraising, and advocacy platform. This year’s grant winners are Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE); Puget Sound Sage; the Direct Aid Initiative; the New Jersey Work Environment Council (WEC); Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA (GHRC); and Afro-Netizen.
“Since the introduction of the Empowers Grant Program in 2007, response has been absolutely phenomenal,” says April Pedersen, executive director of DemocracyInAction. “We received 85 applications this year from small and mid-sized organizations from around the country. Among the six non-profits we selected, all had to demonstrate a strong commitment to using technology that promotes social change and advances the progressive movement. Empowers winners are truly inspiring organizations with limitless potential.”
SCOPE works to improve living conditions for low income and disenfranchised residents in the nation’s second largest city. SCOPE plans to use Salsa’s online postcards, letter customization, volunteer management, fundraising, and event planning capabilities.
"We believe our online strategy must be as sophisticated as our on-the-ground power building approach," says Naomi Boas, development coordinator for SCOPE. "DIA tools will allow us to develop a more strategic approach to deepen and broaden our current efforts to increase voter turnout, shift public consciousness, and connect low income communities to quality jobs."
Seattle-based Puget Sound Sage is a partnership between labor and community organizations to promote economic development and sustainable community benefits, including living wage jobs and affordable housing. “Salsa will help us communicate with our community in a variety of formats and even different languages with customized messages and actions,” explains David West, executive director of Sage. “Salsa’s ‘action tools’ will help us involve diverse neighborhoods and constituencies in local government decision-making on housing, economic development, and jobs.”
Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Direct Aid Initiative brokers peace for and with Iraqis by connecting Americans and Iraqis to help delivery of timely and effective medical care to Iraqis displaced in the Middle East. Using the Salsa platform, the Initiative plans to develop a rapid-response capability to raise funds over the Internet in support of Iraqi families in urgent need.
WEC is an alliance of 70 labor, community and environmental organizations working together for safe, secure jobs and a healthy, sustainable environment. According to Debra Coyle, Assistant Director for WEC, the organization plans “to provide educational information about the adverse impacts from diesel emissions and mobilize more people to join our letter writing campaign asking the Governor to issue an Executive Order to limit diesel emissions in New Jersey.”
Washington, D.C.-based GHRC monitors, documents, reports and advocates for the survivors of abuse, and works toward eliminating human rights violations. "Human rights abuses are unfortunately daily occurrences in Guatemala that often need immediate reaction from the international community to pressure the Guatemalan government to act, investigate, and prosecute those human rights violations,” notes Julie Suarez, co-director for GHRC. According to Suarez, Salsa will enable GHRC to quickly respond to new developments and ask for specific actions from their supporters, whether it be a letter campaign, donations to sustain a program or an event.
Founded in 1999 as a massive e-mail-based news aggregator by native Chicagoan and social entrepreneur Chris Rabb, Afro-Netizen has become an “influential new media-based community of conscience whose mission is to inform, inspire, and engage afro-netizens--citizens of the Net--and the communities they touch.”
“Afro-Netizen's focus is on reaching and empowering civic-minded, intellectually curious African Americans nationally and abroad primarily through sharing substantive news, opinions and resources that express the diversity of thought and activity in this expansive community,” says Rabb. “The organization will use Salsa to further engage their supporters through email blasts, database reporting and fundraising.”
In addition to the six grant recipients, DIA offered substantial discounts to many organizations that applied. “Our Empowers Grant Program goes to the heart of our mission to democratize online advocacy,” comments Pedersen. “We want to lower or remove the barriers to entry and allow groups, even the smallest ones, access to Salsa, our platform of online organizing and fundraising tools.”
About DemocracyInAction (DIA) DemocracyInAction (DIA) is a 501(c)3 organization that believes technology can be a decisive force for social change. DIA exists to empower those who share its values of ecological and social justice to advance the progressive agenda. The DIA platform, Salsa, was designed to help advocacy organizations engage their supporters more effectively. Salsa offers a flexible, online solution without the need for any technical expertise, and is designed to integrate easily with web publishing systems and offline databases. For information on DIA and its Salsa platform, visit DemocracyInAction.org.
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Contact:
Dennis Powell
DemocracyInAction
202-558-2808, Ext. 133
dpowell@democracryinaction.org