Kim Charlson on "Access to print: Literacy, information access, assistive technology, and opportunity as a civil right"

Kim Charlson, director of the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library, will be our featured guest at the next Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Kim Charlson, Director of the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library
Topic: "Access to print: Literacy, information access, assistive technology, and opportunity as a civil right"

Here's a little bit about Kim from the Perkins School for the Blind:

Kim Charlson was appointed director of the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library in 2001 following 16 years as the Service Management Librarian and Assistant Director. She has distinguished herself as a recognized national and international expert on library and information services for people with disabilities, braille literacy, adaptive technology in libraries, and information access.

Ms. Charlson serves on a number of committees for the Library of Congress’ National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and as a national member of the Braille Authority of North America, the standard-setting body for braille in the United States and Canada. She is chair of the Massachusetts Braille Literacy Advisory Council, past treasurer of the international Council on English Braille, and has served as an appointed member of both the Governor’s Advisory Council on Disability Policy and the Secretary of State’s Help America Vote Act Advisory Committee. She is first vice-president of the American Council of the Blind.

She is also active in a wide range of consumer advocacy arenas including arts access and audio description, civil rights, guide dog access issues and special education.

In addition to her many other responsibilities, Ms. Charlson has published Establishing a Braille Literacy Program in Your Community: A Handbook for Libraries and Other Community Organizations. She has contributed to numerous other publications including a chapter on braille library services in the book, Braille: Into the Next Millennium, which was published by the Library of Congress. She is a contributing author to the book, Making Theatre Accessible: A Guide to Audio Description in the Performing Arts, published by Northeastern University Press. Recently, she has published Drawing with Your Perkins Brailler, an instructional book for using Braille to create tactile pictures that blind children and adults can share with sighted people.

In 2004, she was inducted into the Massachusetts Library Association Hall of Fame. In spring 2005, she was named a Library Journal Mover and Shaker, in spring 2006, she was honored as the Alumni of the Year by the University of North Texas, School of Library & Information Science, Denton, Texas. In the fall of 2008, she was honored with a Special Recognition Award for outstanding community service by the Watertown-Belmont Chamber of Commerce.

Ms. Charlson has a master’s in library science, summa cum laude, from the University of North Texas.

Here's a little bit from Kim herself about the topic:

Most people can participate in reading by going to their local bookstore or public library to borrow the latest bestseller, browse newspapers and magazines, or check out videos or CD's. The convenience of having a community library available is a resource often taken for granted.

However, for people who are blind, visually impaired, have a reading/learning disability, or have difficulty holding a print book, access to information and reading materials in a format they can use is not always readily available.

For an estimated 150,000 individuals across Massachusetts who have difficulty reading standard print, the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library is their equivalent of a local public library. The Perkins Library is the primary source for borrowing audio books and magazines, materials in braille, or in large print (with over 125,000 audio titles and 19,000 braille titles in the collection). Users access daily newspapers through Newsline, a computer-generated speech output phone service, and check out audio-described videos that announce the key visual elements of a movie including action, settings or facial expressions. The Perkins Library also loans special digital players for talking books, has staff to assist in finding materials that meet each person’s needs and interests, and provides online and downloadable access to its vast collection. Like public libraries, the Perkins Library’s services are provided free of charge and all materials are delivered to a borrower's home through the mail at no cost.

Sounds like a great service, doesn’t it? Yet, only about ten percent of Massachusetts residents eligible to utilize the Perkins Library are being served because of limited state funding and/or people not realizing the service is available and that they are eligible to use it.

As the Director of the Perkins Library, and a person who is blind, I know what a difference this resource makes. Patrons come from all walks of life -- from the child who is blind and reads books in braille to develop lifetime literacy skills, to the teenager who has a learning disability and borrows audiotapes for class, to the young professional who listens to The Boston Globe on her cell-phone while riding the "T" to work, to the senior citizen who takes great pleasure in listening to talking books by her favorite authors.

Like those who are sighted and use print materials, people with disabilities still depend heavily on books, magazines, and newspapers for valuable information to help them participate fully in the life of the community, satisfy their thirst for knowledge, and enhance the quality of their lives through the sheer joy of reading.

We will discuss assistive technology, have demonstrations of specialized equipment, show web access with a talking computer, and explore the myriad issues surrounding providing access to information in accessible formats. This will be a very hands-on presentation with equipment demonstrations, discussions and question and answers. My role as Director of the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library is to ensure that reading is for everyone, including those of us with disabilities. Reading for the sighted community is not a luxury, it is a right. It should be no less so for people with disabilities.

After the Ethos Roundtable session adjourns at 6:00 pm, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Please remember that there's never any need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on the 20th!

New ways to support the Ethos Roundtable and the Boston 501 Tech Club

As many of you know, TechFoundation (TF) has underwritten the Ethos Roundtable and the Boston 501 Tech Club for a number of years. These two events bring together many local technology professionals who work with and for nonprofit organizations. We are extremely grateful for TF's many years of support!

TF is now changing its focus to work on international projects, and is ending its support of our two local groups. Therefore, we are looking for the following kinds of help. This is not an all-or-nothing deal; it's quite feasible for several different groups or individuals to step forward and offer different pieces of the puzzle.

Here's what we need:

1) Conference room facilities for the Ethos Roundtable's monthly sessions. (This would include internet access, a data projector, and a screen. No food is served, but ice water is always appreciated. Attendance ranges from 15 to 40 individuals)

2) Meeting room facilities for the Boston 501 Tech Club's monthly events. (Attendance ranges from 20 to 50 individuals, and the room is usually arranged with six or eight tables that seat about six people each. A bar and a buffet table are convenient but not necessary.)

3) Donations of food and drink - or a monthly lump sum to cover them - for the Boston 501 Tech Club's monthly events. (This could be as simple as pizza or as elaborate as a Thanksgiving dinner, which is what TechFoundation generously provided at yesterday's gathering.)

4) A volunteer to serve as the head honcho, organizer, and point person for the Boston 501 Tech Club's monthly events. (The ideal volunteer for this task would be a technology professional employed by a nonprofit, since that describes exactly the kind of person 501 Tech Club was created to serve.)

If you want to step up to offer support, or you are willing to contact potential donors or volunteers, please email Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org) and me (ethos DOT roundtable AT gmail DOT com).

Many thanks!

Come to the Ethos Roundtable, and learn about the Boston Foundation's new online Giving Common!

Update: Jennifer Aronson will not be able to join us, so Katherine Westlund will be our sole featured guest. We will miss Jennifer, but look forward to welcoming Katherine.



Please join us for our November session!

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Jennifer Aronson and Katherine Westlund, the Boston Foundation
Topic: The Giving Common

Here's a little bit about the topic from Jennifer and Katherine:

Please join us to learn about The Giving Common (TGC), an exciting new tool being developed by the Boston Foundation to launch in the spring of 2012. Powered by GuideStar, TGC is a forum for Massachusetts nonprofits to share their story with potential donors, funders and the community-- free of charge. Learn how nonprofits can increase their online presence and enhance their fundraising capacity; and how funders can augment their knowledge and strengthen their due diligence and research capabilities around grantees and areas of investment. You will leave this conversation with early knowledge of this new local resource as well as the tools you need to take advantage of it.

Here's a little bit about Jennifer and Katherine:

Jennifer Aronson is the Director of Nonprofit Services at the Boston Foundation. In this role she oversees TBF’s work to enhance the long-term vitality of the Massachusetts nonprofit sector which is focused on increasing the transparency and visibility of the sector & building the capacity and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations. The Giving Common is a cornerstone of this work. Jennifer holds a BA and an MA from Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Jennifer serves as the Board Treasurer for the Lenny Zakim Fund.

Katherine Westlund is the Nonprofit Services Associate at the Boston Foundation focused on the development and launch of the Giving Common database. Katherine moved to Boston from San Diego where her work was instrumental in the launch and management of a similar database. Katherine has a passion for helping nonprofits and has worked at community foundations across the country. She holds a BA from Wittenberg University and a MA in Philanthropic Studies and MPA from Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis.

We recommend that you visit the Giving Common web site, in preparation for the tour that our featured guests will provide at our Ethos Roundtable session.

After the Ethos Roundtable session adjourns at 6:00 pm, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Please remember that there's never any need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on the 15th!

Valerie Fletcher on assistive technology for positive social change!

Please join us for our October session!

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Valerie Fletcher, Institute for Human Centered Design
Topic: Products and Technologies that Change People’s Lives: Universal Design and Assistive Technology in Massachusetts

Here's a little bit from Valerie about the topic:

A fortunate intersection of evolving technology and demographics shows promise for Massachusetts to lead the nation in inclusive technology. Across the developed nations, we live longer and survive illness, injury and congenital conditions more than ever before. Difference in ability is mainstream, a key element of 21st century diversity. And the profile of functional limitations is changing. Baby boomers who led the disability rights movement were move likely to focus on mobility limitations, given the impact of the polio epidemic and the high rates of amputations and back injuries in the Vietnam War. Today, we still need solutions responsive to physical issues but equally to sensory limitations and conditions of the brain that include developmental disabilities, mental health conditions, learning disabilities, brain injury and dementia.

Emerging and cutting edge technologies can improve everyone’s ability to live independently, to work, to learn and play for a lifetime. Trends like mass customization and personalization start from the premise that everyone is different, ideally suited to a vision of design-for-all. Valerie will share the experience of a recent conference, expo, design competition and policy summit conducted for the Commonwealth and explore the potential of adding universally designed products, information and communication technology (ICT) and assistive technology (AT) to the Massachusetts’ Innovation initiative.

Here's a little bit about Valerie herself:

Valerie Fletcher has been executive director since 1998 of the Institute for Human Centered Design (IHCD), an international educational and design non-profit organization based in Boston, Massachusetts founded in 1978 as Adaptive Environments. The organizational mission is to advance the role of design in expanding opportunity and enhancing experience for people of all ages and abilities through excellence in design. Fletcher writes, lectures and works internationally. She currently oversees projects ranging from the development of a global, web-based collection of case studies of universal design in the built environment to user-expert research in cultural facilities, national parks and service businesses. Her research focus is social and environmentally sustainable solutions for classrooms, workplaces and homes.

Fletcher’s career has been divided between design and public mental health and she is the former Deputy Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health where she oversaw the largest participatory planning process ever undertaken in a state mental health system.

She is a special advisor to the government of Singapore and to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Fletcher has a master degree in ethics and public policy from Harvard University. The Boston Society of Architects awarded her the Women in Design award in 2005. She’s a trustee of the Boston Architectural College and co-chairs the Executive Committee of the Design Industry Group of Massachusetts.

Here are some web pages that Valerie recommends to attendees who want to brief themselves on the basic principles that will be under discussion at the Ethos Roundtable:

• Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design
• Raising the Floor
• Norwegian Design Centre
• Inclusive ICTs
• Institute for Human Centered Design
• Universal Design Case Study Collection
• Change People's Lives
• Institute for Human Centered Design Store

After the adjournment of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Please remember that there's never any need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on the 18th!

Shava Nerad kicks off our new season of Ethos Roundtable sessions!

Please join us for our September session!

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Shava Nerad

We are delighted to be back after our summer hiatus, and grateful to Shava Nerad for stepping up to be the first featured guest of the season. This will be a return engagement for her; in 2007, she joined us to talk about how tools for online anonymity can facilitate civic engagement.

The topic on September 20th is "What's in a name? Google+ and the #nymwars."

Here's how Shava describes the issue:

Google recently raised the hopes of many online privacy and social media watchers with the launch of the beta of Google+, their social network and answer to Facebook. Praised as a match to the collegiality and depth of early 1980s Usenet by old Internet hands, and embraced by many Internet natives, Google+ ran into one major snag with a good many of the early adopters who'd hoped to see one of their favorite Internet companies show a "do no evil" social network could leave Facebook in the dust.

Google+ insisted on every user register under their name on their wallet ID. That wasn't exactly their stated policy, but that did end up being their policy as it was enforced. Within a week, the EFF and a small crew of the oldest and youngest of the articulate bloggers on G+ were speaking out for the "nyms," the people who wished to use pseudonyms on Google+. Some wanted privacy, some wanted to be known by the names they were known on other services. Some needed to segregate their blogging identity from their professional life for various reasons. Women and others were concerned about stalkers.

Come to the Ethos Roundtable to hear how online and on the streets and in the press, the nymwars have played out -- and why Google has seemingly abandoned their long vaunted motto of "Don't be evil" and may be shedding young engineers over the issue of pseudonymity on their most recent social media effort on the rocks.

Here's a little bit about Shava:

Shava Nerad will be celebrating thirty years of professional life on the Internet in 2012. In 1982, she was chief software engineer at DEC, working on prototype applications for IVIS (the Interactive Video Information System), the first commercial multimedia authoring system, integrating color graphics, video, and audio for educational software and marketing applications, pre-PC. She's devoted most of her career to public interest Internet, technology, and society issues.

Recently Shava is probably best known for her work as the founding executive director of the Tor Project), the anonymity software that acts as the "caller ID blocking" for IP addresses on the Internet, used to protect journalists, democracy activists, and many others -- notably many of the major players in the Arab Spring revolutions.

Shava recently recovered from a years-long illness that took her away from full time work, and has been building up her networks on G+ while writing her book and advocating for the nymwars issues.

She's currently working on a book on online/offline organizing and leadership for digital/Internet natives called "How to Save the World in Your Spare Time" and is actively seeking consulting in nonprofit consulting, grant writing, social media, speech writing, blogging, and ghosting.

Here are some links that Shava recommends to those attending this session:

My Name Is Me: Supporting your freedom to choose the name you use on social networks and other online services

My Name Is Me resources

Real Names: Google+, Government & The Identity Ecosystem

Your name and Google+ Profiles

After the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Please remember that there's never any need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on the 20th!

Our sessions resume on September 20th! Please save the date!

We will be posting information about our featured guest and the topic as soon as we can. Meanwhile, please note these logistical points:

Tuesday, September 20, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

As always, we will stroll down the hall after the Ethos Roundtable adjourns, to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the Boston 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

The Ethos Roundtable will be on hiatus in July and August!

The Ethos Roundtable will be on hiatus in July and August, and so will the Boston 501 Tech Club.

However, we will be actively recruiting featured guests for September and beyond, so please send us an email (ethos.roundtable AT gmail DOT com) if you have any ideas.

Mark Tomizawa and Barry Stein at the Ethos Roundable on June 21st

Please join us for the June session of the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests: Mark Tomizawa and Barry Stein

We're waiting for a short bio from Mark, and have received the following from Barry:

Dr. Stein is President of Goodmeasure, Inc., co‑founded with Rosabeth Moss Kanter, which advises executives and organizations on productivity, innovation, leadership and design. Representative past clients include Ford, IBM, Washington Hospital Center, P&G, BID, AA, Royal Bank of Canada, Robert Bosch, the UK Foreign Office, OTA, NSF and the US Congress.

With IBM, Dr. Stein developed a user-guided web suite of leadership and management tools. One version is being used in US public schools, and a second version (BoldStroke) is available more generally. He has published in many professional journals, books and magazines, on both technical (materials science and pattern recognition) and social issues. Life in Organizations (with RM Kanter) was named a best business book of the year. Quality of Work Life in Action was written for the AMA. He co-authored The Challenge of Organizational Change. Organizations: A Repair Manual, is due in 2012. He is also a frequent public speaker, and wrote and hosted "Management Speaks," ten videotapes on business issues.

Earlier, Dr. Stein was on the senior staff of Arthur D. Little, Inc., Research Manager at the Center for CED, and President of OD Associates. He has taught Organization Behavior at Harvard, Socio-economic Development at MlT, Management at UNH and was a Visiting Lecturer at Yale. He holds a SB, SM (ChemE) and PhD (Planning) from MIT and was elected to Sigma Xi.

The topic that Mark and Barry have chosen to discuss is structuring success. Here's the summary that Barry gave us:

Almost without exception, our hopes and wishes, both as individuals and enterprises hinge on our success at persuading people to help us raise the odds of realizing those wishes – or at least to avoid people’s acting to oppose those wishes. Some of this is inevitably a matter of individual persuasion, but the heavy lifting almost always requires working with and through social units such as groups, organizations and communities.

The overall record of attempts to bring about significant and deliberate change is pretty awful; details vary but most experts agree that about 2/3 of these efforts have either been only marginally success or outright failures. Most experts also agree that the root problems are usually related to cultural constraints and individual resistance. However, since most change approaches inevitably stress just these strategies, that seems to be asking for trouble – and so it proves in practice. We really need new ways.

The core issue, in my view, is to understand what, exactly, brings about the actions – and results – we seek. What makes deliberate change possible at all? Can we reliably increase our success rate? Can we cut the cost, the time, the struggles? Can we even imagine a situation in which those involved, even passively, actually enjoy the trip? I think the answer to all of those questions is: Yes. The trick is to understand how change really comes about in social systems, and particularly, to learn to take advantage of the context in which the people are embedded.

After the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Please remember that there's never any need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on June 21st!

Rick Heller on "Compassionate Comments" and bringing nonviolent communication online

Please join us for the May session of the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Rick Heller, creator of Compassionate Comments

Here's a little bit of background about the session from Rick:

Rick Heller is the editor of the online magazine The New Humanism, a publication of the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University. He is the creator of the Seeing the Roses project, which provides online videos teaching mindfulness with the aim of encouraging consumers to make more environment-friendly choices.

His writing has appeared in Free Inquiry, UUWorld, and Buddhadharma magazines, as well as the Lowell Sun and Boston Globe. His fiction has appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine. He holds degrees from Boston University, Harvard and MIT.

Rick is also a Web developer, currently working in Ruby on Rails. He created Compassionate Comments using Javascript inserted into a standard Wordpress template, to demonstrate the 4-step nonviolent communication process and how it potentially could be adapted for web comments. The steps, developed by Marshall Rosenberg, are:

1. Make nonjudgmental observations.

2. Note one’s feelings.

3. Identify the personal needs that give rise to those feelings.

4. Optionally, make a request.

For more information, please see Rick's recent article on the Public Conversation Project's blog.

After the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Please remember that there's never any need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on May 17th!

Lisa McNeill talks about online tools for volunteer matching on April 19th!

Lisa McNeill of Cape Cod Volunteers will be joining us at the April session of the Ethos Roundtable. We hope that you'll be there as well!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Lisa McNeill, President of Cape Cod Volunteers

Here's a little bit about our esteemed featured guest:

Lisa McNeill started Cape Cod Volunteers in November 2010 after researching and developing the initiative for almost 4 years while at the Cape Cod Foundation. As Vice President of the Cape Cod Foundation, Lisa’s responsibilities included oversight of grantmaking and special program initiatives as well as various aspects of organizational management and donor services. Prior to joining the Cape Cod Foundation, Lisa was Executive Director of the Cape Cod Center for Sustainability and worked with community leaders to publish the first Sustainability Indicators Report for the region in 1999. Lisa served as a member of the Sustainability Indicators Council through 2006.

Lisa holds a Masters degree in International Development and Community Development from The American University in Washington, DC, and a Bachelors degree in Business Management and Marketing from St. Joseph College. She has worked on democracy building and nonprofit support programs in El Salvador, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and she spent two years living in Japan and teaching English to students of all ages.

Here's a little bit about her organization:

Cape Cod Volunteers is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to link people with meaningful opportunities for volunteering on Cape Cod. CCV does this by informing Cape Codders—residents and visitors alike—about the many opportunities, programs, and agencies that exist in our community, and by helping people identify their own interests, skills, talents, and passion for service to the community. The vision of Cape Cod Volunteers is to create a network of organizations and opportunities that will inform, inspire, and engage people of all ages and backgrounds in strengthening our community through volunteering.

A website launched in July 2010, provides an online matching tool for nonprofits to list their volunteer opportunities and a place for Cape Codders to search for openings that match their interests. We also provide one-on-one service for those community members who want personal help in identifying their own interests, and identifying a meaningful way to contribute to their community. Cape Cod Volunteers also promotes volunteering to involve more people in service to their community, and it provides learning and networking opportunities for nonprofit organizations in order to strengthen volunteer programs on Cape Cod and to make them more effective for the organization and the volunteer.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Please remember that there's never any need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on April 19th!

Rescheduled: George McCully at the Ethos Roundtable

Those of you who missed the opportunity to learn about the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory because of the inclement weather in January will have another chance! We are delighted to announce that we have been able to reschedule George McCully for the March session of the Ethos Roundtable.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: George McCully, founder of the Catalogue of Philanthropy and the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory

Here's a little bit from George about the Philanthropic Directory:

We all know that Massachusetts philanthropy is becoming systematic, enabled by internet technology. The Catalogue for Philanthropy, in collaboration with a statewide consortium of foundations, corporations and individual donors, is launching momentarily an on-line, complete, analytical, directory to all Massachusetts charities of interest to donors generally, for free use by everyone in and around philanthropy?donors, grant-makers, philanthropic advisors, strategic planners, journalists, scholars, students, et al.

The new system will embody many "firsts": It will be the first complete dataset to distinguish definitively between philanthropic charities and the vast majority of other "nonprofit" organizations, proving that the word "nonprofit" should no longer be used as a synonym for philanthropy. It will be the first presentation of philanthropy as a coherent whole, organized by the first systematic, comprehensive, taxonomy (i.e., not just an unsystematic "list") of about 200 fields, branching out logically from three fundamental fields: Nature, Culture, and People. It will be the first to identify user-designated complete groups of charities?by field, location, budget size, year of IRS authorization, and demographics served, or any combination thereof. It will be the first to offer direct links to the websites of all group members. It will enable new kinds of questions to be asked and answered?about the histories, fiscal, geographic, and demographic, distribution, of philanthropy or parts thereof in designated groups and regions; the distribution of services within and among fields in communities and regions, as well as what fields or regions are not adequately developed (because the taxonomy and data are complete, gaps will important to public policy and strategic development of the sector); comparative analyses of philanthropic activity between and among fields and regions; and in time, since "Give Now" buttons are distributed throughout the site, statistical data on giving. After testing the system in Massachusetts, the Catalogue will extend it to all other states.

Here's a little bit about George himself:

Philanthropy is George McCully's second career. Trained in Renaissance history at Columbia University (M.A., 1961, Ph.D. 1967), he taught and published articles on history, the philosophy of history, and higher education, for nearly twenty years—as a graduate student, at Queens and Bronx Community Colleges, Barnard and Columbia; then at Swarthmore, Princeton, Yale, and Wellesley, with two years in academic administration at Brown, as Assistant Dean of the Faculty.

In 1980 he entered philanthropy as Executive Director of the Center for Field Research, awarding $1.5 million annually in grants for field research in the sciences and humanities world-wide. This put him on a number of boards, and by 1983 he was a full-time independent consultant in philanthropy, serving since then as fundraiser, strategic planner, trustee, and advisor to charities, foundations, families, and individual donors.

In 1984 he was founding Board President of the national Center for Plant Conservation—a consortium of 12 (now 31) leading botanic gardens from Boston to Hawaii, created to manage plant endangerment in the United States. He conceived its Priority Regions Programs in Hawaii, California, Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, and as a spin-off for the New England Wild Flower Society, the New England Plant Conservation Program. For 20 years he has helped to build the Boston Early Music Festival as today the world’s leading institution of Early Music. He is a 20-year trustee of the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation (Boston), and has helped to create four community foundations, serving for ten years as founding trustee of the Community Foundation of MetroWest (Boston).

He is also a founding Board director (2008) of the Davlin Fund, a philanthropic mutual fund, and of its corporate Foundation. In 1997 he led a coalition of 20 foundations, corporations, and individual donors, to create in Massachusetts the first Catalogue for Philanthropy (incorp. 2002), to promote charitable giving and strengthen the culture of philanthropy through donor education. He wrote vols. I-XI (884 pp.) of the Catalogues —articles about philanthropy supported by descriptions of (in twelve years) over 900 charities, which is cumulatively the most thorough and detailed description, defense, and advocacy of philanthropy ever published. Also in 1997 he created for public awareness purposes the "Generosity Index," which became the nation's leading stimulus for media discussions of charitable giving. Together the Catalogue and the Generosity Index played a leading role in doubling Massachusetts charitable giving in only four years (1997-2000), from $2 billion to $4 billion.

In 2008 the Catalogue published his book, Philanthropy Reconsidered—a concise but comprehensive introduction to, and strategic overview of, philanthropy, from ancient Greece, through the American Revolution, to the current national paradigm-shift, which he first identified as such in two articles of Foundation News, in 2000, and of which the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory is at the cutting edge. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Conversations on Philanthropy, and is a main author of the Wikipedia article on “Philanthropy,” which in the last year attracted over 1.2 million hits.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Please remember that there's never any need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you in March!

Kudos to Robbie Samuels and Socializing For Justice!

Many of us were disappointed when George McCully had to cancel his presentation on the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory. However, yesterday's Ethos Roundtable session was a great success as an "open-mike" event, and we owe a vote of thanks to Robbie Samuels for that!

We had a really good turn-out, considering the weather, and a terrific session. Fifteen or twenty people attended, and Robbie Samuels gave a truly inspired impromptu presentation about his project, Socializing For Justice. His model for cross-issue community building among activists, and his use of web tools to support face-to-face interaction was very much in keeping with the Ethos Roundtable's themes of expanding ethos and using technology for positive social change!

George McCully will not be able to join us today for the Ethos Roundtable session.

It's 4:00 (eastern time) on January 18th, and I've heard from George McCully's colleague, Carl Mastandrea. Neither of them will be able to make it to our 4:30 Ethos Roundtable session.

I am already at the hotel, and will be here to hold a very informal, "open-mike" Ethos Roundtable session with anyone who decides to attend.

I hope that those who are disappointed or inconvenienced will accept my apology for the short notice.

Best regards from Deborah

If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now: Civic Engagement Online in a Disconnected America

Lisa Williams, CEO & founder of Placeblogger, the largest searchable index of local weblogs, will be joining us at the Ethos Roundtable in February to talk about what knits geographic communities together online. Please join us!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Lisa Williams, founder of Placeblogger

Here's a little bit about Lisa and the Placeblogger project:

Placeblogger was a winner of the Knight 21st Century News Challenge, which gives out $5 million dollars annually to innovators with projects that aim to define the future of journalism. Placeblogger helps companies who want to start an online community or increase their success with social media; the company also helps media buyers and strategists for political campaigns assess the blog/social media landscape. She recently won the 2009 New Media Women Entrepreneur of the Year award for her work at Placeblogger.

Ms. Williams is also a fellow at the MIT Media Lab’s Center for Future Civic Media. The Media Lab is one of the most well-known university-based technology and innovation centers in the world. The newly formed Center for Future Civic Media focuses on meeting the information needs of humanity over the next 100 years.

Prior to founding Placeblogger, in 2004 Ms. Williams founded H2otown, an online community and news site by and for the residents of her hometown of Watertown, MA. H2otown became a nationally-recognized model for what came to be known as “citizen journalism,” or news created by nonjournalists as a way to create a sense of community in their neighborhoods.

Lisa has worked with the Boston Globe, Dan Gillmor’s Center for Citizen Media, and countless startups and media organizations. She was named Peter Jennings Fellow at the National Center for the Constitution and was recently named one of the “Top 25 Women to Watch in Tech” by AlwaysOn/Stanford Innovation Forum. She lives in Watertown, MA, with her spouse and two children.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Please remember that there's never any need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you in February!