#shapena

[deneb-trevino]

Helloooo Sacramento, CA 🤗🇺🇸 #ShapeNA #GlobalShapers #Sacramento #California #Enjoy #Travel #Awesome #Fun #USA #Vsco #CityView #Buildings (at Sacramento, California)

[shape-north-america]

Team 3 Hackathon- Participatory Philanthropy by Nate Olson

Alright. So I’m in Detroit at the North American Global Shapers Conference. During our second day of programming, we were split into teams for a half-day hackathon. On my team were representatives from San Juan, Cleveland, Calgary, Kingston, Boston, Milwaukee & Kansas City. (Totally amazing to collaborate with change agents from so many diverse places btw).

During our collaboration period, our group threw out tons of great ideas specific to our home communities, however, we were looking for something that we could all do together…

We agreed that one major issue we have in our communities is the lack of community engagement from philanthropic organizations when they decide what to fund and for whom. In other words, Philanthropic organizations suck at customer development. I know, I work at a Foundation — and we rarely engage the end user we are trying to serve when we are building programs we want them to use. That’s insanity! Literally. Flipping crazy.

Let’s make better use of the money, time and resources.

The Global Shapers are expanding a system pioneered in Halifax to crowd source community grant making. We are building a bridge between the funders and the community. If all goes well, over fifty cities across North America in 9 months would host a summit to enable people to vote with their feet for the organizations they want to get funded. It’s gonna be HUGE!

[shape-north-america]

Team 3 Hackathon!! by Denisse Rodríguez

I´m in Detroit, in the middle of my first hackathon experience and I have no idea how to code. I´m surprised, however, that I´m able to co-design a solution to a problem shared by Milwaukee, Calgary, Boston, Kingston, San Juan, Halifax and Kansas City. What in the world could this shared problem be? And how did we come up with it?

Well, it definitely took some time for us to share the laundry list of local issues that we are passionate about. We discussed brain drain, food security and the fact that there are 1,000 problems and 10,000 NGOs trying to solve these. 

But then we brought up an issue that definitely made everyone stop: the diminishing interaction within communities. We discussed how the retiring population could interact with young people and how we could engage the diaspora into collaborating with people in their countries of origin.

How can we re-engage communities and ignite interaction in a way that lasts? What if we provided the space for people to participate in the decisions that they are usually not included in and that actually matter? Like grantmaking? What if grantmaking was transformed to be a democratic process?

Virtual interaction is banned. This is all about people coming out in person, learning about the projects that are being proposed to the grantmaker, enjoying the added benefits of more residents meeting each other and even volunteering to work on solutions themselves. 

Another spin to this could be that a community comes out to have dinner together, followed by short presentations by proponents and finally, a participatory voting process. If dinner was $10 each, then we have a proposal crowdfunded by a community. This community will feel that their DNA is in the project and will probably feel compelled to provide continuous support to see it be successful.

We are positive that we´re unto something important that has the potential to go viral across North America.