The Big Green Challenge from NESTA is a £1 million prize fund that challenges people to work together to develop and implement new approaches that will lead towards a 60% reduction of carbon emissions in their communities.

The Big Green Challenge is only open to not-for-profit groups. Examples of eligible groups include community co-operatives or clubs, charities, voluntary groups, parish councils and larger not-for-profit organisations. The ten finalists, once selected, will have a year to show that they can turn their ideas into action, and the winner will be announced in late 2009.

Find out all you need to know at www.biggreenchallenge.org.uk

Entries for the first stage of applications must be in by 29 February 2008. Are you up to the challenge?

And while we’re on human rights, a posting on judging Best Use of the Social Web by a Nonprofit comes up with some innovative uses in the field - the use of Twitter by activists to let people know whether they’ve been arrested or disappeared and “the courageous use of YouTube by award winning blogger Wael Abbas , whose videos captured the torture of victims at the hands of police”.

From internet.artizans , via Nick Booth.

Does Britain need an equivalent to ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom launching early 2008? I think the States has a greater need, and we have the likes of OpenDemocracy already, but any comments?

Here’s an excerpt from Nonprofit Online News aboutProPublica:

“I’m not surprised to learn that the project is backed by some of the very same grantmakers whose vision has opened up opportunities for nonprofits and the Internet. Investigative journalism is clearly at risk and while I am intrigued by the choice of a former Wall Street Journal editor as its leader, I have a lot of hope for ProPublica. They understand exactly what role they could play in the renewal of democracy in the United States.”

ProPublica - Journalism in the Public Interest:

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that will produce investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work will focus exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We will do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.

Thanks to a post on the Globalab blog, we’ve ended up with a number of links to sites which I’ve grouped under ‘Social Change 2.0′. That’s discussing using the web, social networking and other ‘Web 2.0′ type things to promote social change. See the Links page, right at the bottom.

And before I get round to writing this blog item, Gordon Brown makes ’social change’ a theme in his support for community and voluntary organisation campaigning, including to “encourage the use of multimedia for community and social action by creating the Awards for Social Technology”. More in this week’s VolResource newsletter, or perhaps view the (edited) Downing Street YouTube video of the PM’s speech.

Our post about the Village multiplayer online game has been picked up by another blog, audeamus.com, which has recently covered other such games. They all seem to have a third world/development theme - anyone know of online games covering voluntary sector type issues, which aren’t just glorified marketing videos?

Here’s some quotes and items from Audeamus’ earlier post (6th Nov):

Playing 4 Keeps (P4K) is an innovative youth media project that involves a team of Global Kids youth leaders at South Shore High School in Brooklyn, New York. These young people are learning to develop and produce socially conscious online games, while gaining skills in game design, digital media, leadership, and peer education.

They have developed Ayiti: The Cost of Life, with GameLab and help from Microsoft.

From World Bank’s PSD blog: The simply designed 3rd World Farmer is a serious game that “aims at simulating the real-world mechanisms that cause and sustain poverty in 3rd World countries”.

And on Pienso: Sim*Sweatshop is a new online serious game. In the game you are a sweatshop worker who gets paid $6.05 for a full days work. You work 12 hours per day. If you work hard and well you get all you pay. If not, you will be punished accordingly.

And from a comment on the World Bank blog: ICT4Peace blog has an item on Serious games and peacebuilding, which references a Wikipedia entry on Serious Games - many of those listed seem to be about training in more traditional areas, from a quick glance.

‘Kitchen table charities’ get a quick explanation in a short comment piece in The Observer: How to be a kitchen table heroine.

Via the Guardian’s Comment is Free pages, one reader says
“If you know of anyone setting up a network for kitchen table heroines then let me know!”

We’d welcome a discussion of that idea here!

Here’s our latest addition to ‘Podcasts for beneficiaries’ (see previous item).
St. John Ambulance has added to its existing podcast facility of first aid information in an audio format with a programme of releasing new additions every Wednesday throughout the summer. The first batch are on how to treat sunburn, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. http://www.sja.org.uk/news/default.asp?id=1115.

Best UK charity use of podcasting so far? Agree or disagree? Let us know via the comments facility here.

The New Media Awards, run by New Statesman magazine, this year has an accompanying blog covering “all things related to the convergence of politics and new media” and also looking at relevant projects.

A recent item looks at whether we are catching up with the US in using internet for political campaigning. http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/nma/nma2006/blog/.

From time to time there’s a highly relevant posting on the Neighbourhoods blog from Kevin Harris. A new one is ‘The problem of scale: neighbourhoods and participation’ where he discusses the relevance of a presentation by Anthony Kelly of Oxfam Australia:

“too much of our UK community sector is getting sucked into the delivery service paradigm; and that we get into confusions because we look to establish participation at the same scale as service delivery. We somehow assume that the same values, terms of engagement and democratic style should apply.”

More here.

New research on discussion forums run by public bodies is due to be published next month, according to E-Government Bulletin. This week they have an item anticipating this and, while there aren’t very many examples to chose from, does say that “one of the most impressive examples of best practice with online forums singled out for praise in the new research is Highland Council in Scotland’s sub-site entitled thinknet.”

It’s worth a look, although you could hardly call it the most active forum ever (and it probably requires cookies to work). We can talk.