Crowdsourced buzzes and communities

I've been asked a few times lately - where are the 2008 buzzwords? The answer is: we're working on them. We've turned to crowdsourcing them this year so please feel free to email me/post a comment with the philanthropic buzzwords you've been noticing. Two things I've realized about buzzwords since the 2007 list took off:

1. Buzzwords may become jargon, or they may start as jargon from another field that then gets applied to philanthropy, and
2. Buzzword watching is a cheap and easy way to look for patterns and trends - try it at home!

I'm going to three conferences over the next five days so there will be plenty of buzzing to capture. And those of you at COF please use the COF2008 tag so we can follow your feeds.

Here is a crowdsourced list of ideas about little things we can do everyday to make our communities a better place - feel free to add yours. Note, we approached this from the perspective that community is more about making connections and sharing experiences - which everyone can do. Contributing money can help, but it is a means, not an end. Also assume that we have (at least) two kinds of communities - home and work:

-- save your daily pocket change and donate it at end of month to community center or library
-- eat lunch with a different work colleague every day.
-- sit on your stoop and talk to your neighbors
-- sweep the sidewalk in front of your house and chat with passerby

- take public transit to capture a snapshot of your community's residents and help the environment
- pick up litter you see on the street
- read a local blog or article on community issues/news (and comment on it)
- turn off your cell phone or don't answer it in public places. Or, at the very least, say "Excuse me, please" to those you are with before you answer it!
- Make sure your child and every other child in your community goes to school every day starting in kindergarten..

- organize your neighbors or participate in neighborhood meetings
- grow fruit and vegetables in whatever patch of soil you can find for that purpose
- Shop at farmers markets
- Get to know your local shopkeepers
- subscribe to listservs that offer information on community activities and/or freecycling
- encourage your local police department to set up an online group with daily updates, email the chief with questions, encourage the police to hold community meetings
- ask yourself what makes your community special and what you can do to keep it that way for the future. Then do that.

Finally, Prediction markets and nonprofits were recently covered in Financial Times, yours truly quoted. Link is here.

Tags: philanthropy, buzzwords, socialchange, crowdsourcing, cof2008