Social Entrepreneur API interim report, July 2009
Social Actions prepared this interim report for the Social Entrepreneur API in mid-July. It describes the project's process and progress in anticipation of last week's public launch, announced at SOCAP09. The full report is posted to the Social Entrepreneur API Google group pages (http://groups.google.com/group/social-entrepreneur-api).
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR API
Interim Report, July 16, 2009
About Social Actions
Social Actions is a non-profit committed to making it easier for people to find and share opportunities to make a difference. Our team helps nonprofits, foundations, and companies engage and activate people to take action on the issues they care about.
About the Social Entrepreneur API
The Social Entrepreneur API (Application Programming Interface) is the first open database of publicly available information about social entrepreneurs who have won fellowships or awards from esteemed organizations like Ashoka, Civic Ventures, the Draper Richards Foundation, Echoing Green, ideablob, PopTech, the Schwab Foundation, the Skoll Foundation, and TED.
The Social Entrepreneur API will serve as a resource for philanthropists, investors, press, and fellow entrepreneurs. These groups will be able to use the open database to find social entrepreneurs based on factors such as fellowship/funding program, social entrepreneur name, organization, award date, keyword, location, cause area, and population served.
Update summary
Process: We dramatically underestimated the time required to engage the initial participating organizations in this project. Fortunately, developing the initial taxonomy/schema proceeded smoothly. We attribute this to 1) the participants having developed a shared commitment to the Social Entrepreneur API during that engagement process, 2) not requiring any changes to the organization’s record-keeping in order to submit data, and 3) encouraging submissions via XML feed or spreadsheet, according to each participating organization’s available developer resources.
Scheduled launch: The Social Entrepreneur API is scheduled to launch on August 31st with a minimum of five participating organizations: Social Edge (Skoll Fellows), PopTech, the Draper Richards Foundation, Civic Ventures (Purpose Prize Fellows), and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. ideablob will most likely participate, provided they find a new financial sponsor to continue their initiative. [Note: ideablob is participating, and anticipates finding a new sponsor before year-end.]
Governance/sustainability: To date, Social Actions’ team has logged well over 80 hours to get the project to this point, which at our rate of $125/hr equates to an investment of more than $10,000. We anticipate the Social Entrepreneur API will require $2,500 per month to maintain, including staff time, reporting, support, and hosting.
Review of proposal responsibilities
1. Host an invite-only online discussion and a series of conference calls with leaders in social entrepreneurship and key staff at the participating websites.
Ongoing: The series of conference calls has been well-attended by participating organizations since its inception on February 27, 2009. [Note: a list of attendees is provided in the full interim report, link above.]
An invite-only Google group discussion forum was created on February 4 (http://groups.google.com/group/social-entrepreneur-api). Participating organizations have so far elected to conduct most communication by email, but the forum has been heavily used to post conference call notes, schedule/calendar details, XML schema details, factsheet and FAQ summaries, and additional resources.
2. Interview participants and funders on the desired outcomes and use cases for the open database of opportunities to support social entrepreneurs.
Ongoing: Social Actions has conducted one-on-one interviews with the following confirmed and potential participating organizations:
Ashoka: Tom Dawkins
Civic Ventures (Purpose Prize): Alexandra Kent
Draper Richards Foundation: Anne Marie Burgoyne
Echoing Green: Lara Galinsky, Anthony Showalter
ideablob: Darren Sudman
PopTech: Louis Juska, Andrew Zolli
Schwab Foundation: Parag Gupta
Social Edge (Skoll Fellows): Jill Finlayson
Throughout, a strong interest in the Social Entrepreneur API as a resource for drawing attention and funding to social entrepreneurs, as well as peer-to-peer collaboration among them, were cited as reasons to participate.
The two potential participating organizations that have yet to join the project, Ashoka and Echoing Green, shared two reasons for their hesitancy: 1) undefined ongoing governance and sustainability plan, and 2) undefined cost/benefit ratio between the time required to participate and the anticipated positive impact on their programs. We expect both programs will join the Social Entrepreneur API when the sustainability plan is in place and/or the API has launched and participation would be of clear, demonstrable benefit to their Fellows.
3. Enhance and deploy the existing open source software that powers Social Actions to meet the specific needs of this initiative.
Pending: Jason Mott of the Ronin Tech Collective will log hours through the end of July to deploy the existing open source code-base for the purpose of aggregating information about social entrepreneurs. He has estimated this task will require 20 hours.
4. Setup a long-term and affordable web server to host the open database of opportunities to support social entrepreneurs.
Pending: Social Actions’ existing server will accommodate the Social Entrepreneur API in the short-term and possibly long-term, depending on how conversations about sustainability and governance evolve.
5. Provide full documentation on how the open database functions, can be accessed, and should be maintained.
Pending: Target date: prior to the August 31st public launch.
6. Work with participating websites to create initial widgets, web applications, and search engines that draw on the open database.
Ongoing: Social Actions has engaged a number of organizations interested in drawing on the open database. We have initiated a beta test process for several of these organizations to test and create case studies of the Social Entrepreneur API use prior to its public launch, including the following:
Business Catapult: Greg Berry
Change.org: Nathaniel Whittemore
Dowser: Emily Spivack, Manuel Rosaldo
Fast Forward Fund: Diana Ayton-Shenker
Foundation Source: Sharon Schneider, Jamie Buck
PureProject: Ryan Fix
Social Capital Markets: Paula Sen
Social Capital Media: Amy Benziger
RJK Wealth Management/Time to Impact: Richard Krasney
StartingBloc: Taryn Miller-Stevens
TakePart (Participant Media): Patrick Kearney
Benchmarks
Achieved
May 13th: Public announcement; launch of http://www.socialentrepreneurapi.org.
June 5th: Participating organizations collectively determined XML schema.
June 30th: Participating organizations submitted data.
July 10th: Social Actions provided feedback/requests for data revisions.
July 17th: Participating organizations submit revised data.
Pending
July 31st: Social Entrepreneur API ready for beta testers. [Note: achieved]
August 31st: Social Entrepreneur API ready for public beta. [Note: achieved]
For more information
http://www.socialentrepreneurapi.org
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR API
Interim Report, July 16, 2009
About Social Actions
Social Actions is a non-profit committed to making it easier for people to find and share opportunities to make a difference. Our team helps nonprofits, foundations, and companies engage and activate people to take action on the issues they care about.
About the Social Entrepreneur API
The Social Entrepreneur API (Application Programming Interface) is the first open database of publicly available information about social entrepreneurs who have won fellowships or awards from esteemed organizations like Ashoka, Civic Ventures, the Draper Richards Foundation, Echoing Green, ideablob, PopTech, the Schwab Foundation, the Skoll Foundation, and TED.
The Social Entrepreneur API will serve as a resource for philanthropists, investors, press, and fellow entrepreneurs. These groups will be able to use the open database to find social entrepreneurs based on factors such as fellowship/funding program, social entrepreneur name, organization, award date, keyword, location, cause area, and population served.
Update summary
Process: We dramatically underestimated the time required to engage the initial participating organizations in this project. Fortunately, developing the initial taxonomy/schema proceeded smoothly. We attribute this to 1) the participants having developed a shared commitment to the Social Entrepreneur API during that engagement process, 2) not requiring any changes to the organization’s record-keeping in order to submit data, and 3) encouraging submissions via XML feed or spreadsheet, according to each participating organization’s available developer resources.
Scheduled launch: The Social Entrepreneur API is scheduled to launch on August 31st with a minimum of five participating organizations: Social Edge (Skoll Fellows), PopTech, the Draper Richards Foundation, Civic Ventures (Purpose Prize Fellows), and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. ideablob will most likely participate, provided they find a new financial sponsor to continue their initiative. [Note: ideablob is participating, and anticipates finding a new sponsor before year-end.]
Governance/sustainability: To date, Social Actions’ team has logged well over 80 hours to get the project to this point, which at our rate of $125/hr equates to an investment of more than $10,000. We anticipate the Social Entrepreneur API will require $2,500 per month to maintain, including staff time, reporting, support, and hosting.
Review of proposal responsibilities
1. Host an invite-only online discussion and a series of conference calls with leaders in social entrepreneurship and key staff at the participating websites.
Ongoing: The series of conference calls has been well-attended by participating organizations since its inception on February 27, 2009. [Note: a list of attendees is provided in the full interim report, link above.]
An invite-only Google group discussion forum was created on February 4 (http://groups.google.com/group/social-entrepreneur-api). Participating organizations have so far elected to conduct most communication by email, but the forum has been heavily used to post conference call notes, schedule/calendar details, XML schema details, factsheet and FAQ summaries, and additional resources.
2. Interview participants and funders on the desired outcomes and use cases for the open database of opportunities to support social entrepreneurs.
Ongoing: Social Actions has conducted one-on-one interviews with the following confirmed and potential participating organizations:
Ashoka: Tom Dawkins
Civic Ventures (Purpose Prize): Alexandra Kent
Draper Richards Foundation: Anne Marie Burgoyne
Echoing Green: Lara Galinsky, Anthony Showalter
ideablob: Darren Sudman
PopTech: Louis Juska, Andrew Zolli
Schwab Foundation: Parag Gupta
Social Edge (Skoll Fellows): Jill Finlayson
Throughout, a strong interest in the Social Entrepreneur API as a resource for drawing attention and funding to social entrepreneurs, as well as peer-to-peer collaboration among them, were cited as reasons to participate.
The two potential participating organizations that have yet to join the project, Ashoka and Echoing Green, shared two reasons for their hesitancy: 1) undefined ongoing governance and sustainability plan, and 2) undefined cost/benefit ratio between the time required to participate and the anticipated positive impact on their programs. We expect both programs will join the Social Entrepreneur API when the sustainability plan is in place and/or the API has launched and participation would be of clear, demonstrable benefit to their Fellows.
3. Enhance and deploy the existing open source software that powers Social Actions to meet the specific needs of this initiative.
Pending: Jason Mott of the Ronin Tech Collective will log hours through the end of July to deploy the existing open source code-base for the purpose of aggregating information about social entrepreneurs. He has estimated this task will require 20 hours.
4. Setup a long-term and affordable web server to host the open database of opportunities to support social entrepreneurs.
Pending: Social Actions’ existing server will accommodate the Social Entrepreneur API in the short-term and possibly long-term, depending on how conversations about sustainability and governance evolve.
5. Provide full documentation on how the open database functions, can be accessed, and should be maintained.
Pending: Target date: prior to the August 31st public launch.
6. Work with participating websites to create initial widgets, web applications, and search engines that draw on the open database.
Ongoing: Social Actions has engaged a number of organizations interested in drawing on the open database. We have initiated a beta test process for several of these organizations to test and create case studies of the Social Entrepreneur API use prior to its public launch, including the following:
Business Catapult: Greg Berry
Change.org: Nathaniel Whittemore
Dowser: Emily Spivack, Manuel Rosaldo
Fast Forward Fund: Diana Ayton-Shenker
Foundation Source: Sharon Schneider, Jamie Buck
PureProject: Ryan Fix
Social Capital Markets: Paula Sen
Social Capital Media: Amy Benziger
RJK Wealth Management/Time to Impact: Richard Krasney
StartingBloc: Taryn Miller-Stevens
TakePart (Participant Media): Patrick Kearney
Benchmarks
Achieved
May 13th: Public announcement; launch of http://www.socialentrepreneurapi.org.
June 5th: Participating organizations collectively determined XML schema.
June 30th: Participating organizations submitted data.
July 10th: Social Actions provided feedback/requests for data revisions.
July 17th: Participating organizations submit revised data.
Pending
July 31st: Social Entrepreneur API ready for beta testers. [Note: achieved]
August 31st: Social Entrepreneur API ready for public beta. [Note: achieved]
For more information
http://www.socialentrepreneurapi.org
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Social Actions
Vision
A world formed by acts of generosity, empathy, and creativity.
Mission
To make it easier for people to find and share opportunities to make a difference.
Method
Openness, inclusivity, collaboration, and innovation at every opportunity.
Learn more
A world formed by acts of generosity, empathy, and creativity.
Mission
To make it easier for people to find and share opportunities to make a difference.
Method
Openness, inclusivity, collaboration, and innovation at every opportunity.
Learn more
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