Activism Network
|
This software is intended to be used to create an online network of activists (note: it is also useful for non-activists).
There are numerous examples of social networking software (MySpace, Friendster), of organization-centered platforms for social change (CivicSpace Labs, Democracy in Action), of event calendars (protest.net), and of group directories (Activist San Diego, NYC Compass For Change, activist.ca). However Activism Network fills a unique niche: comprehensive social change networking software that prioritizes the greater good of social movements over the interests of any one participant. It encourages networking between groups in the same social movement, and networking between different social movements. When movements grow, then organizations grow too. While several websites include both events and groups, this is the only mature project to go beyond those two things to include: people, groups, events, resources (aka files), issues, campaigns, and more. In fact, this project is a good fit with the recent growing emphasis on the importance of the NETWORK element of an organization. Movement as Network explains how networks are important (and notably their key essay). Unlike social networks, the focus of this software is to promote networking around campaigns for social change. Building relationships between people is a critical part of social change and this can be done by building ties based on our common social change goals. The more social oriented relation building is best done in person (ex. at conferences, meetings, conference calls, and other events). This space is for developers and users of the software who want to understand how it works, provide feedback, download the source code, report bugs, request features, or otherwise help out. New Version You can Download the latest release. In Action This software is currently running on Campus Activism which has been online (with various versions of it) for four years. Three Ways to Use This Software 1. Easy - use the existing CampusActivism.org website to help your organizing. Do outreach to people listed on it. Organize a conference. Upload a resource. Give us feedback about how to improve the software. 2. Medium difficulty - install a client version of the software. So you would pull data from the same database that is used by CampusActivism.org. You would *choose* which information to pull. For instance, you could customize by a country, state, city, region, issue, campaign, and/or network. In addition you can customize the site layout and several other things. 3. Harder, but not too hard - install a new instance of the server software and then one or more instances of the client software. Create your own network. This is a good idea if you want to do this for a foreign country and thus have little need for the people/groups/events/resources listed in the current database. Do this if you want to start afresh. How to Start Getting Involved 1. Send us an email saying who you are, why you are interested in the project, and how you'd like to use it and contribute to it. 2. Join the Email Lists 3. Try it out on CampusActivism.org 4. If you are a web developer, try installing the latest version. 5. Get an account so that you can write comments on this site and create new pages. Contact Us If you have any questions about how to get involved in this project please write us |