Soapbox Engage Blog

Our good friends at Aspiration are always up to something exciting, and this time, they've outdone themselves again. Since Gunner has a much better way of putting these events to words than I can, below is a great copy/paste from their email announcement, which I think sums up the event nicely.

What we're looking forward to is what I consider a cross of management and development skill sets, since this will be more focused on systems than the Advocacy Developers conferences, and more output driven than the tried project management summit in NYC last year. I highly recommend that those in our NPO/NGO community that are pushing forward non-profit software solutions to come join us!

And now, a few words from Aspiration about the event.

The 2007 Nonprofit Software Development Summit will be a first-of-its-kind convening to bring together the range of developers, technologists, managers, eRiders, integrators, users and other practitioners who self-identify under the umbrella of "nonprofit software development". The event will provide an opportunity both to gather as a community and to take stock of the field, while building connections and capacity.

Event partners working with Aspiration to design the agenda and sessions include Blue Oxen Associates, Brattleboro Technology Collective, CivicSpace, CiviCRM, DotOrganize, Drupal, Full Throttle, Fund for the City of New York, Idealware, Nonprofit Open Source Initiative (NOSI), ONE/Northwest, OpenID, PICnet, Project Zero, Radical Designs, Salesforce.com Foundation and Zac Mutrux Consulting.

More partners are being added every day, and we welcome your involvement in the planning!

The Summit will be hosted in the Oakland, California from February 21st to 23rd, 2007. Additional code sprints and collaborations will be scheduled in the 2 days following the event.

The Summit will have as its primary goals the following:

• To convene and strengthen connections between the networks of stakeholders in the nonprofit software spectrum, providing a fun and creative environment for celebrating successes and leadership in the field.
• To share skills and knowledge in a highly collaborative, peer-to-peer fashion.
• To map and discuss what is available and what is missing across the nonprofit software landscape in specific software "verticals", and to posit solutions for addressing the gaps.
• To offer a point of entry for software developers interested in offering their skills to nonprofit sector.

The agenda will take a concrete and hands-on approach to topics and challenges, focusing on transferring skills and process knowledge in interactive and fun ways. Panels and slideware will be in short supply, supplanted by participant-driven collaborations and small-group formats.

Complete details including a preliminary agenda and background are now available, and you are welcome to add your agenda thoughts to the event wiki.

Register now.

We looking forward to seeing many of you in February!