I have been spending quite a bit of time on the TechSoup Forums. It is a vibrant community with many folks asking and answering questions related to Non Profit Technology and how it can be integrated and embraced in pursuit of an organization's mission.

I think a lot about how, even for groups with little intersection with tech, NPT can be woven into the fabric of nonprofits ranging from use of email, to forums, to building listserv, and in a Web presence.

Community is key to the success of all nonprofits.

1. The community that the nonprofit serves
2. The community that funds the nonprofit

The communities need to be cared and nutured. If they are not looked after, then the community shrivels up and goes away. This doesn't necessarily mean that the community needs to grow, but it does need to be maintained.

Through WESTAF, I'm working on a project right now with the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs in which there will be some kind of blogging component. I'm not going to go into specific details of the project as elements are still being fleshed out. It will be a Web 2.0 style site with lots of community building tools.

In our conversations/brainstorms/planning, I was introduced to a site called Convinceme.net. ConvinceMe is a debate site in which a person shares a question, and then the community can chime in.

A couple of weeks ago I finished updating TourWest for work. WESTAF uses its own CultureGrants Online(tm) Basic software to administer the program. I helped develop both the first version of this software many years ago and then, to rebuild it from the ground up about two years ago. It continues to be refined.

CultureGrants Online(tm) Basic has all the general tools a grants adminstrator needs to accept applications, process them, create panel books, run a panel with scoring, fund, and communicate with applicants. It also has some basic reporting tools.

10 years ago I was in graduate school. I had just finished the second performance event in my thesis work. The summer before, I had worked for the William King Regional Arts Center in Abingdon Virgina as production co-ordinator for the Appalachian Cultural Festival, Living Traditions. There, I met a man name Jim Loyd--a barber and old-time musician. He was a member of an Old-Time band called the Konnarock Critters.

I approached the Critters to play a series of concerts in the Virginia Tech Black Box Theatre. We scrounged a camera and hooked it into a Mac. We broadcast a video stream on the Internet and invited people from around the world to tap in as well.