Having served as a co-convener of the Ethos Roundtable since 2006, I have finally scheduled myself as a presenter for June 2009:

Tuesday, June 16th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: (yours truly)

I was first inspired to think about one giant web-based tool for capacity mapping and resource matching for nonprofits by a conversation in 2003 with my buddy Tim Gassert. Since then, I've looked for ways to make it happen. Within the last year, some sort of tipping point occurred, and all sorts of esteemed clients and colleagues started pulling me into conversations about pet projects that were closely related to the pipedream that Tim and I had.

I've been actively working on the big picture, and bringing together these folks who are converging on the concept, for about six months. It's clear that this could be a tremendous asset to nonprofits, philanthropies, and communities in the region - at a time when money is tight, it's important to ensure that surplus assets, capacities, and resources do not go unused. It's also clear that this could be many separate projects with clever mash-ups and data interchanges. In the age of XML, it does not have to be a monolith with one owner, one web host, and one platform.

This session will not be a nuts-and-bolts discussion of technical specifications or organizational arrangements, but an exploration of the big picture. Hard times can give us an incentive to collaborate and consolidate in new ways. What if we had web-based tools to help mission-based organizations use every possible resource and meet every possible need? If you're interested in this question, please come and brainstorm with us.


(Full information about the session and directions to the Charles Hotel are available at the Ethos Roundtable's blog.)




Here are some organizations and projects that bear a really strong spiritual affinity to what I'm envisioning:




Here are some other blog articles related to this topic: