Working with Marty Kearns of Green Media Toolshed and Allison Fine formerly of the E-Volve Foundation and Innonet, I interviewed many great folks, read a lot of excellent articles, and examined a number of online efforts. It was a most interesting exploration and you can read the results here:
Power to the Edges: Trends and Opportunities in Online Civic Engagement
The report also includes a companion discussion blog.
The biggest take-away for me was that in large part due to the Internet and other new digital technologies, citizens are participating in democracy and civic life in entirely new ways and that the old organizational models of engaging them are increasingly ineffective. And... that if nonprofits and their supporting foundations don't "get it," they are likely to continue to be throwing time and money down the drain and experiencing lackluster results at best.
The partners in this report-- PACE and the E-Volve Foundation-- are committed to this document being a first edition of a projected annual report or otherwise evolving document. Their intent is to engage a broad community of individuals -- mostly through web logs (blogs)-- and update the report over time-- especially given that uses of new technologies for civic engagement are changing rapidly.
