This week Friday April 24th, from 11am- 12pm at Civic Hall, I’m pleased to be leading a discussion for 26 international visitors, organized through the U.S. State Department. Civic Hall members are invited to join, and I hope they’ll have a chance to meet & greet the visitors a bit around the space.
Our discussion is on the topic of best-practices in NGO management, and what lessons from our non-profit’s experience over the past eight years may apply to their own organizations. (In brief, we’re a tiny 501c3 that makes quite-popular-for-their-budgets websites for civic engagement, such as OpenCongress and now AskThem.)
To put it mildly, I don’t normally do programs in collaboration with U.S. government agencies – I’m more on the radical transparency, demanding full public access to open-data, and accountability-with-teeth angle. As it turns out, this intro to State Dep’t contacts was originally facilitated last October, by Andrew Rasiej, for a previous visit. And believe me, I’m on the record as extremely ‘not bullish’ on contemporary state of U.S. representative democracy, with flatlined voter turnout and cratered public trust in the federal government and so much local engagement trapped on closed networks such as Facebook. So, nothing too rosy here, and not on the civic-tech front either.
I imagine Civic Hall members might be most-interested in meeting the international visitors, rather than an overview of PPF in the U.S. NGO landscape and challenges with non-profit fundraising for open-source software for civic engagement, so hence this note. I double-checked and do have permission to post this list of attendees, again I took care to make sure there were not privacy & security concerns, the below is fine for public info. I’ll confirm same permissions for photos on day-of-event.
Questions & feedback welcome, grab me anytime. I’m sure I have tons to learn as well from everyone below and their programs, will be interested in listening.
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
Afghanistan                          Mr. HOSHANG
Executive Manager, Humanitarian Services Organization for Afghanistan (HSOA)
                                               Mr. Noorrahman RAHMANI
Afghanistan Country Director, Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
Bulgaria                                Ms. Antoaneta TZONEVA
Chairman of the Board of Institute for Public Environment Development
Ethiopia                                 Mr. Assefa JEMBERE
Executive Director, Center of Concern, 2005‑Present
Gaza Strip                             Mr. Usama ANTAR
Project Manager, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation, since April 2005
Jamaica                                 Mrs. Mitsi HALL‑JACKSON NEE HALL
President, Cane River United Producers
Kenya                                    Ms. Isabel OMONDI
Executive Officer, Africa Health & Community Program (AHCP); from 2005 to date
Laos                                       Ms. Kongseng PIENGPANYA
Program Coordinator, Protection and Empowerment for Women and Children Program
Latvia                                    Ms. Lolita BECA
Project manager, NGO Today for Tomorrow
Lebanon                                Mrs. Dima WEHBI EP. BACHIR AYOUB
Programs Manager, ALEF ‑ Act for Human Rights
Mexico                                   Mr. Jose RABAGO VITAL
Executive Director, National Center of Social Communication, A.C. (NGO), Mexico City
Mozambique                         Ms. Celma DE MENEZES
Founding Executive Director ‑ Fanelo Ya Mina Institute
Nepal                                     Mr. Bhakta BISHWAKARMA
National Chairperson, Nepal National Dalit Social Welfare Organization (NNDSWO)
Nigeria                                   Mr. Olusegun ODOFIN
Executive Director of Community Links, a non‑governmental organization
People’s Republic of China Ms. Jingyan LI
Director, Lingnan Partner Community Support Center
                                               Ms. Weiyan WANG
Services Support Coordinator, The Renewal Center
Poland                                   Mr. Piotr BYSTRIANIN
President of the Board, ‘Ocalenie’ (‘Salvage’) Foundation ‑Help to Refugees, Immigrants and Repatriates
Republic of Korea                Ms. Moon Hee JANG
Leader, Development Program Team, World Vision Korea (WVK)
Russia                                    Ms. Larisa GORSHKOVA
Program Coordinator, Charitable Foundation
Rwanda                                 Mr. Edouard MUNYAMALIZA
Chairman, Rwanda Civil Society Platform
Saudi Arabia                        Ms. Amal ALGRAFI
Operational Manager at AlWaleed bin Talal Foundations
Tunisia                                  Ms. Haifa BAACHAOUI
Project Manager, Tunisian Institutional Reform
                                               Ms. Azza SEBAI
Grants Manager with Development Alternatives
Turkey                                  Ms. Nebahat Seda OZTURK
Fundraising and Business Development Manager, ‘Muderris Training and Consultancy
Uganda                                  Ms. Ogole ABANG
Programs Manager and Ag. Advocacy Officer, Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), 2010 ‑ to date