Successful Organization with Social Media
How to convert online "friends" into real-world activists--the do's, don'ts and dilemmas of
networked engagement.
Co-Chair: Micah L. Sifry - Co-founder, Personal Democracy Forum
In May 2004, Micah L. Sifry helped co-found Personal Democracy Forum. Since 1997, he has been a senior analyst with Public Campaign, a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Washington, DC working on comprehensive campaign finance reform. In that capacity, he has published articles and op-eds in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The American Prospect, The Hill, Salon.com, IntellectualPolitics.com and many smaller papers and magazines. He is also, with his colleague Nancy Watzman, co-author of Is That a Politician in Your Pocket? (John Wiley & Sons, 2004), a book on how money in politics affects people in their everyday lives.
He is also a freelance writer whose work has frequently appeared in The Nation, The American Prospect, Tikkun magazine and on the web in TomPaine.com and Salon.com. His book Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America (Routledge, 2002) was described in Newsday as "a commanding survey of contemporary third parties... In a more politically developed country, Sifry's reporting would be the gold standard of contemporary journalism." He has also written for The New York Times, Newsday, HotWired's Netizen, World Business, The New York Observer, George, Los Angeles, Elle, Inside Media, The Village Voice, and The Progressive. In 1998-99, he was an Independent Project Fellow of the Open Society Institute (1998-99), and was invited to write the epilogue of The Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America (M.E. Sharpe, 2000). He has appeared on CBS "This Morning," MSBNC, C-SPAN, MTV News, National Public Radio, Air America and many talk radio programs, and is frequently consulted as a leading source on third-party politics by many reporters.
Prior to joining Public Campaign in 1997, Sifry was an editor and writer with The Nation magazine for thirteen years, writing widely on domestic and international politics, especially the Middle East, his first love and specialty. He is the co-editor, with Christopher Cerf, of The Iraq War Reader (Touchstone, 2003), of which the Weekly Standard said: "Most public-policy anthologies are a bore--either too slight in substance or too academic in tone. Not so The Iraq War Reader. It combines polemics with solid policy statements; forceful opinion pieces with scholarly analyses. Readers will find in its pages key documents, speeches, and essays that give depth to the debate about American policy toward Iraq.
Sifry and Cerf also co-edited The Gulf War Reader (Times Books, 1991), which The Washington Post reviewed as "a highly valuable book....a fascinating tour back through the dilemmas and edgy emotions of the crisis." From 1993-96, in addition to being associate editor of The Nation and politics editor of RadioNation, he published The Perot Periodical, a quarterly newsletter, which was praised by the Columbia Journalism Review as "indispensable reading for politics junkies of any political persuasion: first-rate reporting by first-rate reporters."
He is a graduate of Princeton University (B.A. in Politics, 1983) and New York University (M.A. in Politics, 1989). He is also an adjunct professor at the Political Science Department of the City University of New York/Graduate Center, and a founding member of its Independent Politics Group.
Co-Chair: Andrew Rasiej - Founder, Personal Democracy Forum
Andrew Rasiej is the Founder of the Personal Democracy Forum and has served as an advisor to Senators and Congressman and political candidates on the use of Information Technology for campaign and policy purposes since 1999. Among those he has worked with are Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Tom Daschle, Congressman Dick Gephardt, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In 2001, he addressed the United States Senate Democratic Caucus in the US Capital Building on the "Digital Divides Facing Democratic Party" and has been actively involved in the campaigns of many Senators and Congressmen. For the 2004 Presidential race he served as Chairman of the Howard Dean Technology Advisory Council. He recently ran a highly visible campaign for Public Advocate of New York City, running in the Democratic primary on a platform to bring low cost wireless access to all New Yorkers. In the aftermath of the September 11th tragedy, Mr. Rasiej helped organize hundreds of local technology professionals to provide relief and recovery to small businesses and schools in lower Manhattan. From this experience, he proposed the creation of a National Tech Corps that would act similarly to the National Guard and provide emergency technical, communication, and database support in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist strike. This idea, now called NetGuard, was approved in a bill by the US Senate by a vote of 97 to 0 within four weeks from inception and was integrated into the Homeland Security Act and is currently being built by the US Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. Rasiej is the founder and Chairman of MOUSE (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education), an educational non-profit organization started in 1997 focused on providing technology support to public schools. Originally a volunteer organization MOUSE currently runs a program called MOUSE Squad which trains students to run their school's computer systems and thereby helping them not only to learn lifelong skills but also empowering them to expanding their schools capacity in the use of technology for education. Mouse is active in 100 public schools in New York City and over 90 percent of the students in its programs graduate and go to college. Mouse has also expanded to over 20 countries around the world. Mr. Rasiej has served on the 2001 New York City Board of Education's task force on technology and has spearheaded several other innovative projects that support efforts to bridge the "Digital Divide" in public education.
In addition to work in bringing technology innovation to public schools, Mr. Rasiej is a co-founder of www.mideastwire.com, which is a Beirut based news service which translates opinion pieces from newspapers in all 22 Arab countries, Iran, and the Arab media Diaspora and makes them available to English speaking governments, corporations, media, and educational institutions.
Mr. Rasiej is the former chairman and co-founder of the Digital Club Network (DCN) now called eMusic Live, the Internet's largest live music channel which broadcasts concerts of established and emerging artists from premier music venues around the world and makes archive recordings of these performances available for free over the Internet. In 1996, concurrent with his involvement in music and technology, Mr. Rasiej co-founded the world's largest annual digital music conference, "Plug In," which is attended by executives from major record labels and technology companies.
In 1990 Mr. Rasiej founded Irving Plaza, an internationally known concert venue located in New York City and produced concerts by well-known artists such as Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Dave Matthews Band. Mr. Rasiej is also the Founder and President Emeritus of the New York Nightlife Association, a business trade group representing major New York City nightclubs and bars. NYNA works to create strong neighborhood relationships through community oriented programs and outreach.
Previous to his work in technology and the music industry, Mr. Rasiej had a successful career working in the real estate development working on several high profile projects in New York City including World
Financial Center and South Street Seaport. He also started a successful consulting firm giving real estate advice to not for profit organizations.
Mr. Rasiej is a member of the Board of Trustees of the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music program and is a member of the Cooper Union Alumni Association. He is a past recipient of the prestigious David Rockefeller Fellowship administered by the New York City Partnership.
Allison Fine - Author and Activist
Allison is a successful social entrepreneur and writer dedicated to helping grassroots organizations and activists successfully implement social change efforts. Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age, the winner of the Terry McAdams National Book Award, was published in 2006 by Wiley & Sons.
As a senior fellow on the Democracy Team at Demos: A Network for Change and Action in New York City, Allison researches and writes about the future of social change and civic engagement in this new digital age.
Allison’s articles have been published in the Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. She is also a frequent contributor to Huffington Post, Personal Democracy Forum, Alternet and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Allison served as the C.E.O. of The E-Volve Foundation in 2004-2005, and was the Founder and Executive Director of Innovation Network, Inc. from 1992-2004.
Allison currently serves on the board of directors of Just Vision, a nonprofit organization that increases awareness about Palestinian and Israeli non-violent, civilian-led efforts to build a base for peace in the Middle East. Ms. Fine has a Masters in public administration from New York University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History from Vanderbilt University. From 1987-1989, Ms. Fine served as an elected trustee of the Village of Sleepy Hollow, NY and was appointed the Fire and Police Commissioner.
Ben Rattray - CEO, Change.org
Ben Rattray is the founder and CEO of Change.org, a social network that connects nonprofits, political activists, and engaged citizens around the world. He was previously a political consultant and co-founder of GFS, a social entrepreneurship venture that provides software to help nonprofits and municipalities navigate the federal grant process. Ben is a frequent speaker about how organizations and activists can use the social web to advance social change and is a graduate of Stanford and the London School of Economics.
Randall Winston, Director of Nonprofit Relations, Causes on Facebook
Randall Winston is the Director of Nonprofit Relations, Causes on Facebook.
B.A., Harvard '04, Political Philosophy. Before joining Causes spent two years in Beijing working for the urban development & architecturefirm SOHO China, co-founding an investment advisory firm, and as a consultant with Goldman Sachs.
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