Part of our mission has always been to democratize online advocacy. We want to break down financial barriers and allow groups--even the smallest ones--to be able to access our tools platform, Salsa.

The Empowers grant gives full access to Salsa to those groups who need it most. These groups use the tools to customize their user experience while efficiently engaging their supporters. Sending out action alerts, creating dynamic content pages, easily sending emails to representatives, processing online donations, creating reports, and planning events are just the beginning. Once a group received the Empowers grant, they're a part of the DIA community and can share tips, attend trainings and events, and collaborate with the progressive community to make change.

And the 2008 winners are...

Strategic Concepts in organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE) works to promote living conditions for low income and disenfranchised residents in south LA. They combine community organization, leadership development, strategic alliance building, training and policy advocacy to pursue this mission. They will use Salsa to effectively integrate e-advocacy tools into their organizing approach. " We believe our online strategy must be as sophisticated as our on-the-ground power building approach", says Naomi Boas of SCOPE. They plan to use postcards, letter customization, volunteer management, fundraising and event planning, while running real time reports on their progress. " 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".


Puget Sound Sage is a strategic, broad based partnership between labor and community organizations to promote accountable 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. Similarly, the ability to produce customize HTML newsletters will have a big impact, as well as petitions which, as an organizing tool,  have proven to cut across all our contingencies"  says David West of Sage. While Sage is a new organization, they're cutting edge and have a great track record within the growing national network of partnership for Working Families, which can only be increased through using Salsa.


The mission of the Direct Aid Initiative is to build peace for and with Iraqis by connecting American's and Iraqi's to help delivery timely and effective medical care to Iraqi's displaced in the Middle East. Through this process, they also aim to bring the voices, experiences and perspectives of the diverse Iraqi people into the public American discourse on Iraq. " Having a centralized, user-friendly, and integrated system to keep in regular contact with our donors and supporters will allow us to reach out much more dramatically and impact fully online, offering the opportunity to exponential expansion of our base while maintaining positive relationships with supporters as individuals" notes Noah of Direct Aid Initiative. They plan to develop a rapid-response capability where they could raise funds to support Iraqi families in urgent need in real-time through targeted email blasts and campaigns that leverages their identity as an organization with teams both in the Middle East and several parts of the US.


The New Jersey Work Environment Council (WEC) is an alliance of labor, community and environmental organizations working together for safe, secure jobs and a healthy, sustainable environment. They link workers and communities through education and training, technical assistance, grassroots organizing and public advocacy campaigns. "We can use the tools to provide educational information about the adverse impacts from diesel emissions and mobilize more people to join our letter-writing campaign to the governor; have the letters go directly to him; increase the number of letters signed and help us keep track of the supporters that sign letters" says Debbie Coyle of WEC.


Founded in 1982, the Guatemala Human Rights Commission monitors, documents and reports on the human rights situations in Guatemala. They advocate for the survivors of human rights abuses and work towards a positive systemic change. Julie Saurez of GHRC notes "Human rights abuses are unfortunately daily occurances in Guatemala that often need immediate reaction from the international community in order to pressure the Guatemalan government to act, investigate and prosecute those human rights violations. GHRC responds to atrocities in Guatemala by alerting our network of grassroots activists and organizations and asking them to contact the applicable Guatemalan government officials by phone, fax or email in order to demand an investigation, and ultimately justice". Salsa will enable them 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.

Announcing recipients of Project Katrina Grants!

Louisiana Justice institute

The Louisiana Justice Institute is a nonprofit, civil rights legal advocacy organization, devoted to fostering social justice campaigns across Louisiana for communities of color and for impoverished communities. They strive to serve as the Justice Portal for Louisiana and the Gulf Coast by utilizing multimedia documentation and information-sharing activities including a state-of-the-art, interactive web site, with text, pictures, audio and video. Tracie Washington of LJI says " I know we do good work, but we're like the tree that falls in the forest if no one hears about the struggle, the movement, and even our successes". They will use the Salsa Platform as a megaphone to get their actions heard.

The Alliance for Affordable Energy

The Alliance for Affordable Energy is a nonprofit public interest membership organization dedicated to creating fair, affordable and environmentally responsible energy policies and programs for Louisiana and the nation. As Louisiana's only environmental and consumer advocacy organization, they provide traditional regulatory action combined with on-the-ground environmental programs and global warming activism. The Alliance would utilize Salsa, beginning with Email Targeting, Fundraising, and Supporter Management to promote topics such as the current fight against converting a local power plant to use coal , or work with the New Orleans City Council or Louisiana Public Service Commission to adopt renewable portfolio standards or good net metering rules.

People's Hurricane Relief Fund

The mission of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) is to win the right of return with equity and justice for all those displaced as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita by building a multi-national mass movement, and to ensure that the civil and human rights of all New Orleans and Gulf Coast residents are respected and implemented throughout the United States. Akil Head of PHRF is excited to use the Salsa platform "...because the needs of the Gulf Coast are great and we need efficiency within our organization to continue the struggle of our work".

The Gulf Coast Civic Works Project

The Gulf Coast Civic Works Project (GCCWP) is a national effort to promote federal action to create 100,000 Work Progress Administration (WPA)-like jobs for Gulf Coast residents to rebuild their own communities. The GCCWP will solve three of the major questions facing the Gulf; the right to return, the rebuilding of the public infrastructure , and living wage jobs for local residents to rebuild their communities. Scott Myer-Lipton noted "The GCCWP is a movement. There are 100s of college students and faculty across the country pushing for this federal action. With the support of DIA, we can continue to pressure Congress."

Past winners include:

Mediachannel

MediaChannel exists to provide diverse perspectives while inspiring debate, collaboration, action, and citizen engagement about media issues. How do they do this? They communicate daily  with their supporters; journalists, media professionals, organizations, scholars and citizens. MediaChannel helps them obtain improved access to information, resources and opportunities in order to reach out and build connections. This kind of communication shouldn't be costly, and that's where we come in. MediaChannel is incorporating Salsa into their online strategy to better connect with their supporters, begin a membership program, and raise funds online.

The Transportation and Land Use Coalition (TALC)

The Transportation and Land Use Coalition (TALC) is a partnership of over 100 groups working for a sustainable and socially just Bay Area. They have already achieved significant victories in their ten years of work, including shifting billions of dollars towards public transit instead of towards freeways and infrastructure that supports suburban sprawl. By using Salsa, they will be able to direct  constituents to contact the appropriate elected official, monitor how many people have taken action, and allow these supporters to tell-a-friend about the action. Seth Schneider of TALC says ?this will allow us to increase our effectiveness in reaching our campaign targets, monitoring our campaigns, and growing our subscriber base. These are all key to our real goal which is to create a more sustainable and socially just Bay Area.?

U.S. Labor Against the War

U.S. Labor Against the War was established to mobilize and organize the labor movement. Their goals are to compel the U.S. to end its war and occupation in Iraq, close down all military installations and bases, withdraw all troops and security contractors, and redirect U.S. foreign policy to meeting human needs at home and abroad. US. labor Against the War mentioned they ?...need a system for mobilizing union members to communicate with Congress and a more reliable methods of communicating with our affiliates, members and supporters through a variety of listservs?. They'll use the DIA Empowers Grant to do just this.

Wilderness Watch

Wilderness Watch is a national organization located in the heart of the Northern Rockies, in Missoula, Montana. Their mission is to protect and preserve officially designated wilderness and wild rivers. ?We are realistic and choose our battles carefully. We take wilderness defense and stewardship seriously and call attention to systemic degradation occurring in wilderness managed by the Forest Service, BLM, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service? noted Jeff of Wilderness Watch. By using the Salsa Platform, they'll be able to keep their members updated regularly, encourage them to take action, and, most importantly, be able to better manage supporter data with the database. They hope to reach a younger audience and inspire college students to become part of the fight to save wilderness areas.

Sweatshop Watch

Sweatshop Watch has established itself as a clearinghouse of information for workers, consumers, reporters, students, and activists seeking resources on workplace rights, sweatshop conditions, and current campaigns. At this critical moment for low wage immigrant workers in US, there is an urgent need for more effective on-line activism to link with and support the struggles of garment workers in Los Angeles and around the world. Sweatshop Watch wrote that "we would like to add a web blog, integrate the capacity to send fax blasts and sign on-line petitions from our website, and create an on-line archive of living wage formulas and codes of conduct.

Although the DIA Empowers Grant is brand new, we've been able to offer our tools free of charge to great organizations since our beginning...

Breast Treatment Task Force
Friends of Brad Will
CIVIC
Human Ecology Forum
Change.org

What they're saying...

We're certainly honored to be one of the five groups that was selected. Given the many systems that we're working on setting up this year (Drupal, DIA, and Salesforce), it's very helpful for us to be able to reduce our expenses. So this is much appreciated!
-Seth, TALC

Your generosity has made Wilderness Watch stronger.
-Jeff, WildernessWatch.org