What will Engage:SD actually do?
- Engage:SD is offering eight online seminars on using online tools for branding, sustaining community conversations, and organizing non-profit action and events. These webinars run from July 27 (that's next week! sign up already!) to December 21.
- They'll give five $2500 grants for technical assistance in developing social media strategy. Non-profits focusing on rural community or economic development get first dibs, but RLC is open to other applicants who can make the case that they can put a social media grant to good use.
- They'll also host some in-person skill-building workshops where non-profit staff can come learn to use Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, Flickr, and Delicious (what, no Blogger? ;-) )
Engage:SD offers small non-profits like Habitat ECSD some training and practical tips that they probably couldn't afford on their own. The Rural Learning Center can snag a social media expert and share her knowledge with a whole bunch of groups at once, making a difference in a bunch of communities simultaneously in a way that scattered individual non-profits could not.
If you're running a little non-profit on the prairie, fighting the good fight for small-town arts or business recruitment or social justice, you'll want to look into Engage:SD. This program could give your group a little Web boost to help you connect with your community and get things done.
I signed up last week for the arts council, it's a really cool opportunity to take advantage of, even if you have existing social media technologies up and running, it's building on those with their insight and experience that attracts my interest.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the Mundt Library has a new online resource, the Foundation Center, which is a detailed database of grants and related opportunities, only 3 sites in SD have this tool, Rapid, Pierre, and us. Quite cool indeed!
Looks like Wordpress has a few friends in Howard too, great minds...