Craig Newmark

Hey there, are you feeling squirrelly? Many of you know my love for squirrels and birds. I've decided to team up with @common_squirrel and @NWF to raise money for #Squirrels4Good.

I'm...

Charity Navigator is estimated to be influencing billions of dollars (between 5 and 10 billion at last count) of charitable gifts each year provided by over 3 million unique visitors (generating roughly 5 million visits). That is a big deal. No other charity rating organization that we are aware of,...

Folks, think you have the right to vote? Maybe not so much. I've been working with some good folks focusing on Voter Suppression issues that are happening across the country. There are some bad actors who are trying to pass legislation that will keep eligible people from voting.

Recently, the folks at the Harvard Berkman Center and the MIT Media Lab had a really good conference and hackathon addressing Truthiness in Digital Media. Truthiness in the Stephen Colbert sense, where people just make up stuff which they want to be true. A lot of good...

 
Phoebe's babies have fledged, and I miss them already.

for more, check out Phoebe's page or her Facebook fan page.
 

Folks, as you may know, I've been doing a lot of work with good orgs who are doing fact-checking work, and voter protection. As the nation gears up for the general election in November, and news outlets increasingly cover campaign stops and primary results, my craigconnects team asked the polling...

(Folks, I rarely quote press releases like this, but the folks at FlackCheck.org, sister site of FactCheck.org, might have something brilliant here. They do have a great record of independent, nonpartisan fact checking. I'll personally request your help with this, once it gets going.)

For Immediate Release: February...

Okay, I've lived in SF for a long time, not far from twenty years. Have gotten tired of hearing outsiders talk "San Francisco values" without having a clue.

Here's my take, getting to the gist of things in all my simplemindedness. After observing real behavior, I'd say the real SF...

Hey, people in Veterans Affairs and elsewhere are working with folks in private industry to help vets get jobs. They're doing some genuinely innovative work.

Key to this is the Blue Button effort, which now allows vets to download their service record including skills codes. That record can be...

Hey, I've worked with Aneesh for a coupla years, and bear witness that he's the real deal, and has done a lot for the country, serving citizens well and providing a good return for the taxpayer dollar.

With the wars overseas winding down, the need to help vets and military families is increasing, as attention to their needs shrinks.

Vets need jobs, and that's high priority. So do their spouses, and they all need a hand dealing with everyday challenges that are magnified when troops are deployed...

Hey, this article: Antipiracy Bills Put on Hold in Congress (subscription link) was kind enough to quote me.

Here's the original, for our mutual amusement:

We, The Internet, have had a serious grassroots victory for democracy. Now is the time for us to turn...

Okay, I've worked with Peter for a couple years, and just saw a very positive article which understates his performance and results for vets. For those years, I've seen remarkable work including real innovation, like employee and vendor innovation, and increasing use of social media.

People have asked me about the whole SOPA thing, how bad a law it could be.

Sure, SOPA and PIPA are really destructive, potentially damaging U.S. competitiveness and genuinely killing jobs. However, there's some good news associated with the reaction to the bad law, news that we're missing.

Looks like the Internet is winning a battle against some really bad potential law.

To me, "the Internet" means the people who use it; the systems, not so important.

The bad law: SOPA and PROTECT-IP, which supposedly address real needs, but in practice, are means by which bad actors (with lots of...

Okay, I'm not in the news business, and I'm not going to tell anyone how to do their job. However, it'd be good to have news reporting that I could trust again, and there's evidence that fact-checking is an idea whose time has come.

Hey, you've already seen our support for DonorsChoose.org, where you can help kids in school by supporting their teachers' projects. The deal is that teachers often have to fund projects or even buy supplies from their way-too-low salaries. You can help out with small contributions. They have a...

Recently, Jeff Jarvis at the City University of NY held an event on restoring fact-checking to the news business. He did a really good job getting a bunch of players in this arena to play well together.

Special thanks also the to the Tow-Knight Center for...

Hey folks, I recently donated some web gear to The Women's Building in San Francisco to help out with their free computer lab. Not everyone has the means to use technology, and I think that it's important that it's as accessible as possible. Here's what Tatjana, Development Director of The...

So, a few weeks ago, the craigconnects team researched how the top 50 nonprofits do social media. We decided to dig a little deeper to find how nonprofits by area of focus use social media and what kind of an impact that they were having in the social...