Nonprofit Bootcamp – San Francisco August 18

This looks like too good an opportunity to miss. It will cut into our “weekend catchup time” in the 30 Day Challenge, but why not add some real world networking into the online community building mix.

Craigslist Foundation – Boot Camp
Join Craigslist Foundation for a day of knowledge, resources and networking, all focused on how to start and run a vibrant nonprofit. Nonprofit Boot Camp is designed to educate and empower the next generation of nonprofit leaders and social entrepreneurs.

A few of us from Many Hands will attend so we can cover as many of the workshops as possible. If you are going to be there, leave a comment and we’ll figure out how to run into each other.

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What’s going on at Many Hands?

What’s next for Many Hands Foundation? When do we return to Silindile to finish the building? What about the library project? What about Bhekisipho’s business plan? What about laptops, internet access, training? How come it’s been nearly a year since the last work team returned from South Africa, and there’s nothing much about it on the website – no team member pictures or journal entries?

That’s what we’re trying to figure out.

We’re a small organization, but we have a big vision. We believe that volunteers can change the world, one small project at a time. We see the value as not so much in the actual work we do, but in the human connections we make – across language and cultural divides, across borders, timezones, continents, oceans – while working together for a common good.

So how does a small volunteer organization with no administrative budget make a big difference? How do we support volunteer work teams locally and nationally and globally when it’s just a handful of people doing all the work? How do we seek out and discuss and promote new projects, or let people know what we’re currently doing, when only one person knows how to update the website without breaking it?

By sharing the load. By perceiving ManyHands as more a community than an organization. By looking to the community for the resources we lack as a small group of volunteers. By becoming ManyHands 2.0.

What exactly does that mean? We don’t know yet. We’ll share our ideas and report our progress in this space, but we really don’t know yet. What do you think it means?