Trust and civil society

Nonprofits bank on trust. Private assets held on behalf of the public good are even said to be "held in trust" - land trusts, charitable trusts, etc.

Over the weekend two providers of encrypted email services, Lavabit and Silent Circle, shut down. What does this have to do with civil society? These email providers shut down because they could no longer provide a secure way for people to communicate in private. Change that to "associate in private" and you have the very essence of civil society.  This is the moment for civil society organizations - nonprofits, foundations, voluntary and mutual associations - to seize their place as digital "trusts." They need to establish practices, norms, and, yes, new regulations, by which they will hold our digital assets in trust, will respect and defend individual privacy in the pursuit of shared public goals, and recognize that the distinguishing feature of nonprofits in the 21st century will be how they manage private digital resources on behalf of public goods. Business and government are not doing this - we, as citizens, must.

Digital Humanitarian Network

I came across the Digital Humanitarian Network because of their fabulous hashtag #DigiHum - I saw it go by, was interested, and clicked on through.

The network seems to be a coalition of organizations each of which has some role in deploying technology savvy individuals to social change situations. From crisis mapping to data visualization expertise, the ten or so organizations are each global networks of technologists who work with, partner with, serve, and voluntarily complement humanitarian efforts. At least one of them, ESRI, is a commercial purveyor of technology tools (GIS mapping, in ESRI's case). The other member organizations are:

• DataKind (full disclosure, I'm on the advisory board)
• Geeks without Bounds
• Translators without Borders
• Humanity Road
• Statistics without Borders
• Map Action
• URISA's GISCorps
• Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
• UNV Online Volunteering Team
• Standby Volunteer Task Force

The website gives you contact information to "activate the network" and its member organizations. It provides access to the coordinators' meeting notes, contact info for the coordinators, and - impressively - the Codes of Conduct for each of the organizations and the Network itself.  Here they are:

• GWOB Code of Collaboration (also adopted by the Ushahidi community)
• GISCorps Code of Conduct
• Statistics without Borders' Code of Conduct
• Humanity Road's Code of Conduct and Ethics Pledge
• United Nations Volunteers Code of Conduct
• Standby Volunteer Task Force's Code of Conduct

The Network will open to new members- there is an application form on the site. I find the effort interesting on several levels - as an example of coalition building in the digital environment, as a network of digital civil society organizations and their partners, as a portal to key issues about the ethics of data, and, as it grows, it will be a useful source of information about the expanding field.  Glad I found it.

The Nonprofit Times 50 Top Influencers

I was just named one of The Nonprofit Times Top 50 Power and Influencer Honorees for 2013. The honor specifically calls out my use of

"...social media to push out and gather thoughts on how to create, fund, and distribute shared social goods in the digital age. She writes about how data are fundamentally reshaping the flow of philanthropy, calling it the future of good."

In other words - this honor is because of you blog readers and twitter followers, my incredible colleagues at Stanford's Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, the great people at The Foundation Center and European Foundation Centre who make the annual Blueprint possible, and my new colleagues at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation where I am about to begin my role as a Visiting Scholar. So thank you.

The timing is nice as my #ReCoding Good Project colleagues and I will be releasing our first round of white papers (they're out with reviewers this month) and formally launching the Digital Civil Society Lab very soon. You'll be able to follow that work on this blog and @p2173, on twitter at @DigCivSoc, in person at Stanford events, and on the Lab's (soon-to-launch) website. I hope you'll join in.

Thank you for this honor. I'm proud to be among such world changing colleagues.

Crowdsourcing Patent Policy Reform

Trolling Effects is an interesting effort at using crowds to build a coalition of the willing to change federal policy. In this case the policies have to do with the patent system, the coalition to be built includes anyone receiving a demand letter from a "patent assertion entity" and organizations interested in innovation, ownership, and idea use in the digital age.

The idea is to develop a database of demand letters and a crowd of peers to help fight off the organizations that issue these letters and change the policies which regulate them.

The project is managed as a project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation with support from a coalition of nonprofits, including 

• App Developers Alliance
• Ask Patents
• Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at NYU School of Law
• Engine Advocacy
• Public Knowledge
• PUBPAT
• Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at Berkeley Law

Not too much of a surprise that nonprofits that focus on internet freedom would turn to the internet to help with policy change. Do you have any other examples of such crowdsourced efforts (not just petitions or email blasts, but crowd-built shared resources?)

HT @juliepsamuels of #EFF for pointing me to this.