Bianca Berkhia, discusses La Casa Norte’s campaign to get 50o Facebook fans by the end of 2009 and how her organization uses social media for its fundraising and communicaitons today from Community Media Workshop on Vimeo.

Ever since Beth Kanter posted in November about whether small nonprofits can succeed with social media (a post that garnered a lot of comments), I’ve been wondering about stories and proof that, indeed, integrating these new modes of communication into our work is part of our future at nonprofits with budgets under $1 million — especially organizations that have been around a while, and those that provide traditional sorts of services. Found a couple stories these past two weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

Health & Medicine Policy Research Group is rolling with health care on the front pages

Health-care reform has been huge a time or two since Quentin Young founded Chicago-based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group in 1980 to channel his and others’ activism to change the way the U.S. delivers health care. Health & Medicine “operates as an independent, freestanding center driven by a singular mission: formulating health policy, advocacy and health systems to enhance the health of the public,” as they say on their blog.

One of the differences this time around? The state of the system is worse, he says: “The health system is disintegrating at a record rate while on the other hand the main corporate players (health insurance, big pharma, for-profit hospitals) are sparing no resource or opportunity to defend the status quo.” Read the rest of this entry »