Top Nonprofits

AUGUST 3, 2021

I was reminded of this recently, at the first evening of the online course in Grant Proposal Writing: Our fifteen working adult students logged in to Zoom and were welcomed into our shared virtual classroom. It can be inclusive and participatory. My goal is to design virtual experiences to be as inclusive and participatory as possible.

Virtual 52

Virtual Track Student Virtual Classroom 52

Forum One

DECEMBER 15, 2021

Within Forum One, and among the mission-driven organizations we work with, I sense that more people understand that accessibility isn’t a box to check, but rather an integrated part of project design and delivery. Perhaps the dramatic changes to work and home life brought on by the pandemic sparked a greater understanding of accessibility.

Accessibility 71

Accessibility Goal Virginia Audience 71

sgEngage

JUNE 28, 2023

Typically, it takes someone seeing a situation that needs to change and doing the work to change it. Participatory grantmaking has been a big part of the Boston’s Women’s Fund since its founding. Once Natanja saw who wasn’t there, she could work with her team to fix it.

Voice 66

Voice Strategy Mississippi Boston 66

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 7, 2014

Like all good training sessions, this workshop started off with an opening conversation that allowed us to get to know others in the room and connect to what we already know. Heather facilitated this exercise as a series of share pairs where we discussed each question with a different partner for a few minutes. It was followed by this: 4.

Design 105

Design Course Leadership Network 105

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 23, 2014

As you can see from the schedule overview , this is more of a participatory event versus the traditional conference with powerpoints and panelists. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working with my fellow track facilitators to design the process that we will lead the participants in our track through.

Registration 128

Registration Leadership Impact Change 128

sgEngage

MARCH 27, 2023

What worked in one area of the world is not guaranteed to work in another. But the people who are on the frontlines of these issues—the people who work directly with the unhoused, who live in areas affected by severe weather, or who are a member of a marginalized group—are the ones who often know how best to loosen the knot.

Participatory 69

Participatory Trend Community Grant 69

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2010

Last week, I attended Structure Lab , a half-day workshop on legal and financial structures for ventures for social good. Like many people in the arts, I'm interested in new models that help people combine mission-driven work with an entrepreneurial spirit.

Structure 31

Structure Model Social Profit 31

Museum 2.0

APRIL 1, 2010

This is the final segment in a four-part series about writing The Participatory Museum. This posts explains why and how I self-published The Participatory Museum. From the very beginning, I knew I wanted to license The Participatory Museum using Creative Commons and give away the content for free online. Why Self-Publish?

Participatory 33

Participatory Museum Process Adobe 33

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

FEBRUARY 16, 2011

I spent today at day 1 of the TechSoup Global Summit in Mountain View with two hundred and forty people who work in the TechSoup Global Network around the world, plus other stakeholders. Her final point was that working as a network is fun! The rest of the day was spent in small group discussions framed around different issues.

Global 96

Global Network Participatory Netsquared 96

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 7, 2010

I'm a huge fan of work and the way she thinks - especially after she road the Scare House ride on the Santa Cruz boardwalk with me and did a brilliant reflection on its design. Nina has written a fantastic book engagement called The Participatory Museum. One colleague suggests that users should be able to contribute original work.

Model 98

Model Activities Active Activism 98

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 20, 2017

I first sensed the difference at the front door. Courageous speakers from dozens of countries described bold, participatory projects. While I've been to conferences with this focus in many countries, El Museo Reimaginado is different. They were doing the work. There wasn't one. Birds flew through the proceedings.

Museum 40

Museum America South America Participatory 40

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 8, 2011

The report analyzes many examples of networks and provides tools and tips for Network-Centric Grantmaking. Diana Scearce, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with on the Network of Networked Funders project, is the report author. Bridging differences: Deliberately connecting people with different perspectives.

Network 104

Network Report Empowerment Structure 104

Media Cause

AUGUST 9, 2021

Within Media Cause’s Creative, Brand, and Design team, one of our favorite things to do— besides creating incredible work for our clients—is sharing inspirational and educational resources with each other: articles, POVs, webinars, classes, books, case studies, blogs, tutorials, cheese. Community is key: working with, not for.

Design 52

Design Experiment Nonprofit Collaboration 52

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JANUARY 5, 2018

This year I used a new tool recommended by colleague Alexandra Samuel, the “ Year Compass, a free downloadable booklet that provides a set of structured reflection questions. I also include my list of work/life habits that I want to maintain or modify. Year in Review.

Professional 0

Professional Finland Journal Reflection 0

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

Note: the title of this post pays homage to Elaine Heumann Gurian''s excellent and quite different 1981 essay of the same title. In 2008 and 2009, there were many conference sessions and and documents presenting participatory case studies, most notably Wendy Pollock and Kathy McLean''s book Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions.

Museum 45

Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Museum 2.0

MARCH 27, 2013

There's a constant dialogue in participatory work about how to make peoples' contributions meaningful. I've written about different structures for participatory processes (especially in museums), and recently, I've been interested in how we can apply these structures to the design of public space.

Design 49

Design Participatory Children Museum 49

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

Note: the title of this post pays homage to Elaine Heumann Gurian's excellent and quite different 1981 essay of the same title. In 2008 and 2009, there were many conference sessions and and documents presenting participatory case studies, most notably Wendy Pollock and Kathy McLean's book Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions.

Question 49

Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

The Leading Change Summit was drastically different from the Nonprofit Technology Conference, NTEN’s flagship event that has over 2,000 attendees, dozens of tracks and hundreds of panels, big parties, a trade show, and all the things you would expect from a traditional conference. What do you want to learn from working together?

Reflection 124

Reflection NTEN Change Facilitation 124

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Many of you know that I have had the honor of working with IIE on some amazing Networked NGO and social media skills capacity building and train the trainer projects in the Middle East over the last 2-3 years. Department of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Office of the Middle Eastern Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and managed by IIE.

Tunisia 104

Tunisia Reflection NGO Libya 104

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 25, 2009

Answers will differ depending on who's asking, but they are also influenced by the designed environment in which questions are asked. People answer questions differently in harshly lit interrogation rooms than they do in welcoming therapists' offices or in the privacy of their own computer terminals.

Design 31

Design Goal Difference Platform 31

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 2, 2013

Proposals involve sculpture, performance, participatory-projects, videos, and installation that use and respond to the museum’s collection. In 2003, collaborator Stephanie Sherman and I “re-discovered,” the former store, declared nothing for sale, and began inviting artists to create works using the set, or collection of objects.

Artist 49

Artist Museum Proposal Participatory 49

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

What does the word "participatory" mean to you? The various definitions of participatory projects can lead to confusion and misunderstandings. How do we define and talk about these different kinds of participation? This isn't just a rhetorical question. Fortunately, science has a (partial) answer.

Public 36

Public Research Participatory Report 36

Museum 2.0

MAY 19, 2016

Consider whether you want a bonded group (people who are like each other) or a bridged group (people who are different from each other). Not surprisingly, a different focus group of social service providers and homeless adults had a very different set of concerns about downtown. Please add your own ideas in the comments too.

Build 35

Build Community Museum Participatory 35

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

We're seeking great folks for public programs, participatory exhibit design, online marketing, 3D design, and whatever else you might have to offer. At our museum, we don't provide a lot of structured mentorship for interns. I often feel like I spend every day relearning that people think differently from each other.

Museum 35

Museum Student Participatory Structure 35

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 16, 2015

It’s a pilot supported by the Packard Foundation that tests different approaches to emerging leaders professional development. The skills that we are focusing on are “networked leadership” skills both online and offline and working with self and working with others. Reflection questions : “Why did this work?”.

Skills 50

Skills Build Technique Language 50

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2008

Specifically, we analyze the relative social behavior of people on buses versus those on trains, and look for clues as to what design elements contribute to different kinds of participatory behavior. The express bus I take most days to get to work feels like a big, slightly uncomfortable family. People talk.

Participatory 20

Participatory Design Museum Childhood 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 28, 2009

Creating open communities with old siloed corporate structures. And yes nonprofits mimic their corporate brethren with siloed structures. How can you tell the difference? Instead, how can you use your Facebook group to engage your fellows, change your work environment, and spark your movement. And that is the crossroads.

Create 94

Create Green Social Media Structure 94

Museum 2.0

MARCH 13, 2013

It can be incredibly difficult to design a participatory project that involves online and onsite visitor engagement. is a project that lets real-world and virtual visitors share their work in our gallery. The museum selected and is featuring 13 works recently added to our photography collection. At its core, Oh Snap!

Authoring 53

Authoring Open Experiment Museum 53

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

What if they used a design thinking process to not only get feedback from grantees but as a way to develop a more agile way of working? I was thrilled to work with the Brainerd Foundation staff to help design and facilitate a design lab using techniques based on Luma Institute methods earlier this month.

Design 50

Design Strategy Facilitation Advocacy 50

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 1, 2014

They designed a participatory project that delivers a compelling end product for onsite and online visitors… and they learned some unexpected lessons along the way. Then we started working with our local design and technology firms— Ziba Design and Fashionbuddha —and in the prototyping, it became clear we had to go another way.

Museum 43

Museum Story Project Design 43

Museum 2.0

MAY 21, 2014

LinkedIn has a new feature where people can congratulate each other on work anniversaries. Seeing so many cheerful one-liners in my inbox made me think about how different my work situation is today than the last time I reflected on it in public in 2012, at my one-year anniversary. We''re working on a theory of change.

Museum 49

Museum Director History Teen 49

Museum 2.0

JULY 7, 2010

Most of my work contracts involve a conversation that goes something like this: "We want to find ways to make our institution more participatory and lively." If new programs are sufficiently different from the traditional ones, they may be more effective as standalone program tracks than as gateways to the traditional experience.

Audience 40

Audience Museum Oakland Participatory 40

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Audience segmentation and research has become a hot topic in museums, especially when it comes to crafting appealing offerings that are customized to different kinds of visitors. First, we realized that our museum is different from other museums, but our benefits and membership structure were the same as others.

Interview 46

Interview Director Museum Arts 46

Museum 2.0

MARCH 4, 2009

In other words, a new kind of talkback board or participatory educational program. Here's how Signtific works (their rules here ): The organizing institution presents a three-minute video exploring a "what if?" A big board, with the "What if" question across the top and six different colors of cards. Red for positive.

Game 24

Game Experiment Participatory Museum 24

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 29, 2009

It was held in Newcastle in the north of England, and about 70 folks from around the world (but mostly Europe) came to play, learn, make stuff, and help each other work out challenges inherent in trying to make risky ideas happen. That said, the phrase "structured opportunity" is where MuseumNext suffered most. Facilitator bits.

Facilitation 32

Facilitation Reflection Museum Participatory 32

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 4, 2010

It's rare that a participatory museum project is more than a one-shot affair. The project's implementation keeps changing, and I can't decide whether it is getting better or just different. The project's implementation keeps changing, and I can't decide whether it is getting better or just different.

Wikipedia 40

Wikipedia Arts Museum Images 40

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2012

How do you find out what's important to different communities, and how do you change your plans based on their needs? The whole meeting took 90 minutes and the majority of the time was spent really working, not sitting and listening. How do you develop programs that are responsive to your community in a meaningful way?

Program 49

Program Community Design Museum 49