Time is Running Out: Apply or Nominate Someone by Wednesday, February 29th!

The NTEN community is made up of thousands of inspiring individuals who are working hard every day to make some change in the world.  It's why NTEN is here, and it's why we're fans of The CTK Foundation's "Heroes with a Heart" grant awards.

Applications for all Heroes with a Heart grant awards close Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 at midnight. Finalists will appear on the CTK Facebook page for public voting during April and winners will be announced on May 1, 2012. This award is open to registered nonprofits or charities of all types and sizes, worldwide.

Go to www.communitytech.net/foundation to nominate your Hero with a Heart today!

On the last day of the Nonprofit Technology Conference each year, we have an Awards Lunch and Community Celebration. NTEN gives two awards to NTEN Members, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, which we blogged about already.  The second award is the "NTEN Award," given this year to Peter Campbell, IT Director for Earthjustice.  Former NTEN Awardee John Merritt presented the award to Peter, and I'd like to share his words:

Each year, NTEN recognizes a member of this community who has furthered the work of the nonprofit technology field through dedication, innovation, and leadership.  This year, we are thrilled to honor Judy Hallman for her work with this award.

The award was presented to Judy at the 2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference by her friend and colleague Paula Jones, Director of Technology and Administration for the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits, whose words I'd like to share here:

While we’re grateful to all members of NTEN, there are, of course, those of you who go beyond the proverbial "call of duty" and impact the NTEN community by providing extra time, resources, and wisdom to assist NTEN's work in this sector. We call you rockstars here on this blog (a lot), but each spring, at NTEN's annual conference, we like to do more than that. We like to annoint a new crop of these nonprofit tech warriors with their very own set of aNTENnae, signifying their special contributions to this special community.

Today, at the 5th Annual NTEN Membership Reception and NTENny Awards at the 11NTC, we unveiled the 2011 NTENnies and their unique contributions to the NTEN community:

Most likely to . . .

Although I hate the idea of talking over lunch, I'm glad that two years ago, under former ED Katrin Verclas, we added the awards ceremony to our closing lunch at the NTC. It's a great way to spend our last bit of time together while highlighting some of the individuals and organizations shaping our sector.

Of course, we wish we could recognize ALL the deserving folks out there, but here are the highlights from this year:

Considering many of you are advocacy organizations, you might be interested in the Golden Dot Awards:

Golden Dot Awards recognize achievement in online politics. To be eligible, nominees must have used the Internet to try to influence the political process (i.e. for an electoral campaign, political party, official ballot, issue campaign, advocacy group, etc.) between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008. Nominees must have campaigned, organized, created political media, or conducted advocacy online.

Winners will be announced on Thursday, April 16, and the winners will be honored at the 2009 Politics Online Conference (April 20 - 21).

Vote here for the 2009 Golden Dot award winners.

I love the way they put it on their award information site:

Good deeds do get rewarded! If you know someone who’s been toiling in the open source vineyards, developing software that’s helping nonprofits succeed, check out the Tides Foundation Pizzigati Prize, a $10,000 annual award for outstanding contributions to software in the public interest.

The competition, judged by a panel of national leaders in public interest computing, is now entering its third year. The application deadline for this year’s prize: March 2nd, 2009.

You can find out more and apply or nominate someone online here.

The award winner will be announced at April 28th at the 2009 NTC. (By the way, the early bird deadline for the conference is this Saturday!)

You know we like to shower our NTEN members with awards and brag about their leadership in the nonprofit technology community. We also get choked up when we hear our members are being recognized by the wider nonprofit and social advocacy communities.

That's why I'm very happy to congratulate Julie Chapman, Executive Director of NPower, Greater DC Region, who was honored earlier this month by the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation with the 2008 Meyer Foundation Exponent Award.

And still more awards! From the press release:

The deadline for nominations for the 2008 Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration (MATC Awards) is April 14, 2008. The MATC Awards consist of up to ten $50,000 or $100,000 prizes, which a receiving institution can use in a variety of ways to continue its technology leadership. The awards honor not-for-profit institutions that have demonstrated exemplary leadership in the development of open source software for one or more of the constituencies served by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: the arts and humanities in higher education; research libraries, museums; performing arts organizations; and conservation biology.

You can find more information at http://matc.mellon.org.

The Case Foundation-sponsored "Make It Your Own Awards" just announced the 20 finalists.  In a sign that I'm not the only NPTechie who likes watching basketball, they even have a "Final Four" theme.

> Vote for your favorites

According to Rich D'Amato of the Case Foundation, "Make It Your Own is another of the Case Foundation's efforts to introduce the use of new technologies to NPOs, to do so by incentivizing the use of the technologies with grants, and to make the participation easy for them and for their supporters."

The 20 finalists have already won $10,000; the 4 finalists will receive additional funding.  And, in a cool, NCAA-pool-style twist, the first 10 voters who correctly identify the Final Four will receive $2,500 for their favorite charity.  They've even incentivized the vote!

The Flash-based site running the vote is pretty cool in itself, so go check it out and vote for your favorites today.  Voting will be open until April 22nd, 2008.