Michael Lenczner

A Consumers Guide to Grants Management Software (PDF) Updated Oct 2011

There’s a huge variety of grants management systems, ranging from options for small foundations at only a few thousand dollars a year, specialty options for niches like arts grantmaking or medical research foundations, and robust, completely configurable solutions for large foundations starting at $100,000 or more

Huge variety!? How dope is that? I had no idea.

The Role of Community Organizations in the Transformation of the Social Development Model in Québec – Christian Jetté at UdeM

ABSTRACT
Community organizations have played a major role in the delivery of social services in Québec since the 1970s. Their activities aimed to provide an alternative to the heteronomous, bureaucratic practices of the public sector. But their desire to move away from the public sector did not prevent them from demanding financial support from the state. Historically, these associations’ struggles have led to the establishment
of an original partnership and a funding mode whereby they could retain their organizations’ autonomy. This autonomy was the guarantee of both their specificity and their ability to innovate in terms of social practices. While this state recognition certainly remains in some respects ambivalent, it is nonetheless undeniable that these associations today constitute a significant component of the Québec model of social development.

RÉSUMÉ
Les organismes communautaires jouent un rôle important dans la prestation de services sociaux au Québec depuis les années 1970. Leurs activités se sont développées dans l’optique d’apporter une alternative aux pratiques hétéronomes et bureaucratiques du secteur public. Cette volonté de se distancier du secteur public ne les a toutefois pas empêchés de revendiquer le soutien financier de l’État. Historiquement, les luttes menées par ces associations se sont donc traduites par la mise en place d’un partenariat original et l’établissement d’une mode de financement qui leur permet de préserver l’autonomie de leur organisation. Cette autonomie est le gage de leur spécificité et de leur capacité d’innover sur le plan des pratiques sociales. Certes, cette reconnaissance étatique demeure à certains égards ambiguë. Néanmoins, il est indéniable que ces associations constituent aujourd’hui un élément important du modèle québécois du développement social

Keywords / Mots clés
Community organizations; state; social development model; innovation; funding / Organismes communautaires; État; Modèle de développement social; Innovation; Financement

Read it. True, increased management (the MBA-ing of social service delivery) is going to result in reduced innovation. However, this report is kinda one-sided. There is not sufficient understanding for why that increased management happened and what the results would be if they were removed.

Voluntary Sector Organizations and the State – Building New Relations by Rachel Laforet
Actually, I won’t be reading it since it cost $85. I’ll be reading the first chapter, since it’s available as a sample PDF.

I’ll have to read it before I hear her speak in Toronto. I’ve decided to take a roadtrip to TO for this conference and I’ll add in a few meetings with prospective clients.
The Recession and Beyond: Taking stock of evolving government-nonprofit relations. It’s a one-day conference before an American conference on the non-profit sector also happening in Toronto.

Alright, that’s about it. There’s other stuff that I could share that I’m even more excited about, but I don’t want to give away too many details since it fits into work plans.

So a small-ish gang of us is trying to promote open-data in Montreal. It’s been a long time since CivicAccess, I’ve worked with Apathy is Boring to deliver CitizenFactory and we figured it was time for something local. Lots of other cities have passed open-data motions and we thought that it was time Montreal gets on board. Hopefully I’ll be able to use lessons I’ve learned from ISF.

MontréalOuvert

Déclaration de mission

Nous sommes une initiative populaire qui a pour but de promouvoir l’accès ouvert aux données civiques de la région de Montréal.

Nous croyons que l’accès aux données et renseignements civiques augmente l’engagement citoyen, rend les services plus accessibles, et facilite l’innovation.

En créant cet espace virtuel, nous espérons initier et soutenir un dialogue entre parties prenantes pour le bénéfice de touTEs les MontréalaisES. Joignez-vous à nous!

Jonathan Brun, Jean-Noé and Sébastien Pierre are my colleagues in this. We’re all busy people, so it’s going to be a real team effort keeping things moving forward, but we’ve met with a lot of support so far.

Our first article, and we have our first conference appearance under our belt. Fingers crossed for the city to embrace this proposal for engaged citizenry and innovation.

The title is from an email Geneviève sent the volunteers list.

At Ile sans fil we’re finally making the decision to move away from WifiDog. It’s been a tough decision over the past two years deciding to move on because we’ve invested so much of ourselves into WifiDog. ISF originated the project and is responsible for nearly all of its development and success. It’s used all around the world and serves a lot of communities. However, I’m happy to see ISF and the rest of the Québec community wireless groups take on this new challenge.

—————————————————–
from Genevieve Bastien
to WiFiDog Captive Portal
date Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 4:27 PM
subject [isf-wifidog] Presenting AuthPuppy: a new generation authentication server

Hello all,

This is to announce that there’s a new puppy in town: AuthPuppy, led by the Quebec wireless communities and planned to be the successor of wifidog, under active development.

Wifidog is a great application, and has allowed to build great wireless organizations around the world. But as wireless communities matured and needs became more complex, we (the Alliance of Wireless communities of the province of Quebec) felt that wifidog wasn’t as scalable to those new needs as we could wish for.

Hence the need for AuthPuppy. Developed in php using the symfony framework, with a light core and plugin architecture, it will easily be fitted to anyone’s need.

The puppy is a few weeks old and not mature enough to be used in production yet, but he is ready to show his face to the world! We plan an alpha release for the end of the month. AuthPuppy is only the auth server and the gateways will work with it as well as with wifidog.

The source code is hosted on launchpad : https://launchpad.net/authpuppy
We have a wiki: http://authpuppy.org/wiki
You can reach the developer team (and ask to join in!) at : [email]
We’ll have a mailing list soon. The puppy even has his own twitter account! http://twitter.com/authpuppy

To join the development effort, read http://authpuppy.org/wiki/index.php/Getting_Started and get started with the puppy! We need help with everything: programming plugins, making the interface nicer, helping with the core, etc.
If you have any suggestions, comments, questions, you may use launchpad.

Wifidog is still alive of course. AuthPuppy is a parallel project that we think will answer the growing needs of our communities better.

Thank you,

–
Geneviève Bastien
_______________________________________________
WiFiDog mailing list
WiFiDog@listes.ilesansfil.org
http://listes.ilesansfil.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wifidog

Yeah -designers. I’ve been in the IT world for …9 years now. And I’ve been project managing web projects off-and-on since 2003 (ah, wifidog). I’ve found designers before, and I’ve worked on branding and logo’s for Ile sans fil and a few other projects. But this is the first time that I feel like I’m really learning the right way to do things. Not that I wasn’t doing them properly before, but it’s at a whole different level now than where I was at.

For our product, since it is a SaaS (Software as a Service) we need different design skills for 1) the logo, 2) the landing page + website, 3) the actual application and probably in our case, 4) another graphic designer / web designer to add some polish to the application design. That doesn’t include some help on testing / usability which doesn’t involve *doing* any actual design, just making corrections and suggestions to improve usability and flow. Each of these designer roles requires differing expertise. Branding vs. Photoshop mastery vs. UI / UX (and data visualization being a sub-expertise (arguably) of UX). I’ve compared the different online contract/competition sites for logos, checked out the outsourcers, prepared design briefs, and this is still the beginning.

Same thing with going after money from funders. I’ve worked on many grants before and I’ve had different meetings with funders. But I’m starting to spend that extra time and energy to hone in on what the funder really wants and needs to know (what they want to hear). We had to “pitch” to qualify for some government assistance for entrepreneurs yesterday. It wasn’t that hard a pitch in that a large percentage of applicants probably end up qualifying, but we did have to work to fit in the 10 minute time and still have it be strong. It helps to be sharing an office with a VC. I won’t be working on that skill a lot right now, because we’re bootstrapping but I’m sure I’ll use it more in the future.

The other area where I’ve been able to polish my skills has been in software project management. Everyone in the office knows more than me about the process of software development and the different ways of managing development. We’re very happy with the software we’re using to PM. It’s called PivotalTracker, it’s free (surprisingly) and it’s great. I’m having a lot of fun doing the product development side of PM as well as being responsible for some of the regular management side of it (velocity + budget). I’ve always liked working with developers, though.

In the near future, I’m really excited to learn the the proper processes and tools for the sales side of a business. Connecting information from the client database (CRM), the analytics from our website, and directly soliciting customer feedback in order to 1) find the right subset of our market that will be the best match for our product (to drive early sales) and 2) to gather the appropriate information in order to improve on the features that our users are most excited about. We’ve still got a bit of time before that, but it’s going to be fun. Speaking of which, Dave McClure is coming to Montreal soon (Startup Metrics for Pirates).

I just re-read this. I’m officially turning into a startup-nerd. I suspected as much when I was talking about sales funnels over drinks last night (sigh).

I’m just putting these here because they’re not yet on our website (the new website is going into beta this week!). I truly enjoy working with COCo and have found the last three years involvement with the team there with incredibly worthwhile. If you are interested or know someone in Montreal that we should be talking to, please let me know.

For the “Walking the Talk” Frances Ravensbergen award, please also see below.

—————————
COCo is Looking for New Board Members this March!

We will be electing several new Board Members at our upcoming Annual General Meeting in March and we are currently accepting nominations. If you or someone you know may be interested in running for the COCo Board please call us to let us know. Please call (514) 849-5599 and ask for Spencer or email [spencerm at coco dash net dot org.

We are looking for Board Members who have participated in COCo's programs or services and have experience volunteering or working with Quebec community groups. We seek representation from many different communities on our Board. In particular we hope to nominate Board members that are well connected with the ethno-cultural community groups we serve.

Skills, Experiences, and Resources we are looking for in new Board Members:

You don't have to have any formal training or a specific background to be on the COCo Board. However we are hoping to bring more of the following skills, experiences, and resources to the Board: Connections with ethno-cultural community organizations, connections with the Francophone Community Sector, connections and experience with off-island communities and community organizations, financial management skills or experience acting as a treasurer, significant experience and history with the Quebec or Montreal community sector.

What it means to be part of the COCo Board of Directors:
Approximately 8 - 12 hours of Board work per month including Board meetings every two months
Acting in a general organizational oversight role
Participating in semi-annual organization-wide planning retreats
Participating in COCo committees and activities that interest you
Working on expanding the COCo membership base

If you are interested or you know somebody else that you think would make a great COCo Board Member please call (514) 849-5599 and ask for Spencer or email [spencerm at coco dash net dot org]

Call for nominations for the second annual Frances Ravensbergen Award for Walking the Talk!

COCo’s AGM is quickly approaching and it is time for us to choose the next recipient of the Award for Walking the Talk that was established last year to honour one of our own, Frances Ravensbergen and her relentless commitment to consistently practice what she preaches.

COCo is making a yearly commitment to seek out others in our communities who chose to live out their social change values on a daily basis. This award will be given out to a new recipient, at our AGM on Wednesday March 31, 2010 at the MAI café (3680 Jeanne-Mance). The Frances Ravensbergen Award for Walking the Talk offers award recipients $1000 to donate to community endeavors as they see fit.

Last year, Frances decided to split the award between Jobra Centre (working on poverty reduction in Park Extension)and The Welfare Rights Committee (working out of St Columba House). This year we hope to include Frances and another COCo team member, as well as representatives from these groups, on a committee to choose this year’s award winner.

That’s where you come in! Who do you look to for inspiration in your community? Who do you know that lives out their social change values, consistently and enthusiastically ‘walking the talk’? We are looking for nominations!

Please send your nomination with the following information in writing, in French or English to [spencerm at coco dash net dot org] before Friday, February 26, 2010:

Your name and contact information

The nominees name and contact information

Answer the question: What makes this person a good candidate for the Frances Ravensbergen Award for Walking the Talk?

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

COCo est à la recherche de membres pour son nouveau conseil d’administration! Assemblée générale fin mars!

Lors de notre prochaine assemblée générale annuelle qui se déroulera en mars, nous élirons plusieurs membres pour notre conseil d’administration. Nous sommes donc en ce moment en processus de recrutement. Si vous ou une personne de votre entourage désirez rejoindre les rangs du conseil d’administration du COCo, veuillez nous l’indiquer. Vous pouvez téléphoner au (514) 849-5599 et demander Spencer ou lui faire parvenir un courriel à : [spencerm arobas coco tiret net point org].

Nous sommes à la recherche de membres ayant participé à des programmes ou services du COCo et qui aurraient une expérience en travail bénévole ou dans des groupes communautaires québécois. Nous désirons aussi recruter des membres qui aurraient des liens avec les groupes communautaires ethno-culturels que nous desservons.

Compétences, Expériences et Ressources de nos nouveaux membres :

Il n’est pas nécessaire de posséder une formation formelle ou des expériences particulières pour faire partie du conseil d’administration du COCo. Nous souhaitons cependant recruter des membres qui nous pourraient nous apporter : des relations avec les organisations communautaires ethno-culturelles, avec le secteur communautaire francophone, des relations et des expériences avec des les communautés et des organismes de l’extérieur de Montréal, des compétences en gestion financière, des compétences ou une expérience en tant que trésorier, une expérience significative avec le secteur communautaire du Québec ou de Montréal.

En quoi consiste le travail d’un membre du conseil d’administration du COCo :
Approximativement 8 à 12 heures de travail par mois – incluant lors des réunions qui se déroulent à chaque 2 mois
Assumer le rôle de superviseur de l’organisation en générale
Participer 2 fois par an à des séances de planification globale
Participer aux comités du COCo ainsi qu’aux activités qui vous intéressent
Travailler à augmenter le nombre d’adhérents au COCo
Si cela vous intéresse ou si vous connaissez quelqu’un qui voudrait devenir un membre actif du conseil d’administration du COCo, veuillez téléphoner au (514) 849-5599 et demander Spencer ou faites parvenir un courriel à : [spencerm arobas coco tiret net point org].

Appel aux candidatures pour la bourse Frances Ravensbergen ‘Walking the Talk’!

L’Assemblée générale du COCo arrive bientôt et il est donc temps pour nous de choisir le(la) prochain(ne) récipiendaire de la bourse ‘Walking the Talk’ que nous avons créé l’an passé pour honorer l’une des notre, Frances Ravensbergen et la manière engagée dont elle vie ses valeures.

Le COCo s’engage à une recherche annuelle pour trouver ceux dans notre communauté qui vivent pareillement leurs valeures de changement social. Cette bourse sera donné à un(e) récipiendaire lors de notre assemblé générale qui se déroulera le 31 mars, 2010 au café du MAI (3680 Jeanne Mance). La bourse Frances Ravensbergen ‘Walking the Talk’ offre à un(e) récipiendaire $1000 qui est distribué comme bon leur semble à des causes communautaires.

L’an passé, Frances à décidé de répartir le don entre le Centre Jobra (qui travaille sur la réduction de la pauvreté dans le Park Extension) et le Welfare Rights Committee (en provenance du St Columba House). Cette année, Frances, et une autre membre de l’équipe du COCo se joindront à des représentants de ces deux organismes pour choisir le(la) récipiendaire de cette année.

C’est donc pourquoi nous vous contactons. Qui considérez-vous comme étant une inspiration dans votre communauté? Connaissez-vous quelqu’un qui vous ébahi par ses contributions fréquentes à la justice sociale? Si oui, nous sommes à la recherche de candidatures!

Envoyez vos candidatures par écrit, en français ou en anglais, à: [spencerm arobas coco dash net point org] d’ici à vendredi le 26 février, 2010:

Votre nom et vos coordonées
Le nom et les coordonées de la personne que vous nominez
Répondez à la question: Pourquoi est-ce que cette personne est un(e) bon(ne) canditat(e) à la bourse Frances Ravensbergen ‘Walking the Talk’?

The writing on Said The Gramophone is the best I read most days. I’m sharing this one not because of the writing but because it’s about Kate McGarrigle. I’ve been worrying a lot about death (not dying) in the last few months and it’s sad that she’s gone.

The youtube video is beautiful as well (bottom of the post). I’ve seen both Martha and Rufus perform (or maybe I only imagine I’ve seen Rufus perform).

Last night I attended the premiere of Avenue Zéro.

Asian girls are being enslaved in suburban massage parlours; domestic workers toil like slaves in suburban homes; girls in a Montreal subway station are being lured into prostitution; Vancouver gangs are recruiting Honduran boys to sell drugs. Human trafficking is a reality today, and it’s happening closer to home than you might think. Featuring candid interviews with victims, witnesses, and perpetrators, Avenue Zero paints a spellbinding portrait of a dark and sinister trade flourishing in the shadows of the law. A Virage Production. In French and English with French subtitles. A discussion will follow the screening with the filmmaker, Guy Bianchi, Detective Lieutenant with SPVM, Lynn Dion, Batshaw Youth and Family Centres and Louise Dionne, Spokesperson for the CATHII (The Comité d’action contre le trafic humain interne et international).

Screenings continue from January 22 to 31 !

I’m don’t have much knowledge in the area of human trafficking or sex work, although I’m pretty well-read in sexual assault and child abuse. It was an interesting film that I imagine didn’t under or overstate the reality of what is happening in Canada. I’m used to social justice advocates sometimes having to overstate their case in order to be taken seriously, but this film seemed content to show some of the horrible reality and let the workers and survivors tell their own stories.

It made me wonder on what the impact of decriminalizing sex-work (and drugs, for that matter) would have on the sex-work side of human trafficking (I’m just finishing Gabor’s Maté’s book on addiction which espouses more decriminalization and an approach of harm-reduction). I was very surprised that no one raised that issue so I asked it – mentioning first that I wasn’t an expert and I didn’t have an formed opinion about it. Turns out that only groups present were abolitionist groups – those trying to eliminate prostitution, and nobody spoke about whether another approach would make a difference. I wonder what Stella‘s take would have been. I don’t know quite enough about them to assume that it would be different on this particular point, but it would have been nice to have that question debated properly so at least I would have understood the issue more.

Article in LaPresse about the film.

(I looked around to see if I could spot anybody from my old organization SACOMSS (Sexual Assault Centre of McGill Students’ Society) but the only young anglo’s I saw were part of Missing Justice, an org I’ve only heard of that works against violence against Indigenous women in Quebec. I was happy to meet them.)

This site broke somehow and it took me a bit of time to ask Yannick to fix it up. One+ month to ask, <30 minutes for him to fix it. It's nice to work with developers.
I also finally got the spam filter set up, so I just approved a few comments that people had made a while back. Sorry about that.

The exciting news of yesterday (besides really realizing just how much fun using the API on our CRM really could be for our sales/marketing strategy) is that Evan and the Status.net / Identi.ca team are moving into our building! I had no idea until I saw Evan walk by our window yesterday and turn in our door.
I haven’t hung out much with him in the last three years, so hopefully this will be an opportunity for the two teams to spend some fun time together. Daniel’s also a fan and friend (MSU is an investor). It’s possible that Yannick has sworn a blood oath against him because of an anti-Python/Ruby comment that Evan may or may not have made, but that’s another story. ;)
I just need to get Sylvain and Sebastien to move here and I’ll have my web-insight stimulation dream-team from 2004.

Apathy is Boring / L’apathie c’est plate is looking for two new board members (v. français).

I’ve been with AisB for three years now as a board member. They are a wonderful organization doing very important work and I’m proud to be involved with them.

I’m on twitter user mlenczner

I feel guilty for not setting up my identi.ca service first. Add to todo list. I’m trying hard not to yak shave today and it’s not quite working. Proof : now I’m off to the local printers to print off a government form so that I can fill it out and give it to the agency _in person_ in order to be able to set up a meeting to qualify for a entrepreneurship support service program… :/