www.gamersofaction.org/BrainSeeds
Brain Seeds is a user-content-driven weekly quiz that allows players to educate others about issues that they are passionate about.
To encourage participation, each weekly quiz will have TWO PRIZES:
1) one for the player with the highest score that week
2) one that goes to a randomly selected quiz participantThe game is FREE to play because we want to reach as many people as possible and give them a chance to pass on their passion and knowledge.
Since all the questions in the weekly quizzes are supplied by fellow players, Brain Seeds plants “seeds” of information in the hopes that those seeds will grow to (1) motivate quiz-takers to learn more about a particular topic and (2) help players develop an interest in creating positive social change.
For example, Sophia might read a question about the number of women forced into sexual slavery that sparks her interest and participation in organizations such as Free the Slaves (http://www.freetheslaves.net).
She can then submit more questions about modern day slavery and what we can do to end it. This can, in turn, motivate David, who may become involved with Behind the Label (http://www.behindthelabel.org) to help fight sweat shop labor abuses in the United States and abroad.
With many diverse players and many issues of injustice, inequality and suffering to address, players can use Brain Seeds to share their passion and knowledge with other community members.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Gamers of Action » Brain Seeds
Mark Thoma, Economist Who Pushed For Jobs Bills, Gives Up
Mark Thoma, an economics professor at the University of Oregon who has long urged Congress to take aggressive steps to reduce unemployment, announced today on his influential blog that he is giving up.
"I've been pushing hard for more help for labor markets for quite awhile," he wrote, "but it's probably time for me to give up and accept that we are going to have a slower recovery than we could have had with more aggressive fiscal policy."
Thoma told HuffPost that what drove him over the edge was a blog post yesterday by Harvard economist Jeff Frankel, declaring the recession over.
With that excuse, "Congress is not going to provide anything more than token help from here forward," Thoma wrote.
Thoma is one of several economists who called for aggressive fiscal policy early and often to get us out of the recession. "Fiscal policy creates demand directly, it does not rely upon incentives and the hope that people will respond to them. When the crisis hit, we needed fiscal policy right away," he wrote.
Congress did finally pass a stimulus bill last February, but that was too little too late, says Thoma.
And now, even if a slow recovery is underway, more stimulus funds could speed it up. "Instead of getting back to full employment by, say, 2013, we could get there sooner if we act now." Thoma drew a picture:
Story continues below
"Why settle for the blue line recovery when the green line is possible?" he asked.
But no. "I'll still complain -- there's no reason to let policymakers off the hook -- but it's time to give up the hope that anything more will be done to help the unemployed find jobs."
Fellow economic blogger Brad DeLong noted Thoma's post approvingly: "He is, of course, right," DeLong wrote. "There is right now a stunning disconnect between an Obama administration that says that unemployment is and will for a long time remain unacceptably high and an Obama administration that is not pushing for policies to boost jobs on the scale needed in a continent-spanning economy."
Job-creation advocates have long been saying that the Obama administration and Congress just don't get it.
Over at his Eschaton blog, economist Duncan Black also chimed in: "I blame the Obama administration to a great degree, as they never made the case for what their fantasy stimulus would actually look like."
Not everyone is giving up, mind you.
Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, sent out an e-mail blast this afternoon, urging citizens to encourage their members of Congress to vote for the Local Jobs For America Act, introduced by House Education and Labor Committee chairman Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), which would provide $100 billion to state and local governments to help them create or save one million jobs in education, public safety, childcare, health care and transportation.
But Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum wrote that Thoma is actually being too optimistic. An appropriately forceful Congressional response to the crisis -- before or during -- was never in the cards. "There was just too much political resistance from an implacable cabal of Republican ideologues, misguided deficit hawks, and weak-kneed Democrats," Drum wrote.
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Saturday, April 3, 2010
Infighting, injustice at Chicago State :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Mary Mitchell
Infighting, injustice at Chicago State
Clash between cultural icon, controversial president is tragic
BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times ColumnistIt is painful to watch two powerful black men fight publicly. In just about every instance, it is the community that loses.
This latest clash between Haki Madhubuti, a giant in the literary world, and Wayne Watson, the president of Chicago State University, is no different.
On Friday, during his remarks opening the 20th annual Gwendolyn Brooks Conference, Madhubuti will say farewell to Chicago State, an institution he has shared his international fame with for more than two decades.
"You don't want to leave a position after 26 years without honor. I'm being forced to leave. It is not right," he told me.
Citing legal concerns, Watson declined to discuss details of Madhubuti's departure. But Watson denied that Madhubuti was being forced out.
"Not true. That is his decision. I am only asking him to teach," Watson said.
Since Watson arrived, Madhubuti, who was the "University Distinguished Professor" and "Emeritus of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center," was busted down to professor of English, a change that will result in a nearly 50 percent reduction in salary.
At the same time, Madhubuti is being asked to teach four classes a semester.
In an article that appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Watson boasted that he "cracked down on a star professor who had been allowed to teach just one course a year while drawing a full salary."
"What is Watson's goal other than cutting him down, other than humiliating him?" asked a CSU faculty member who fears retaliation. "Watson has been coming at Haki since October. He has messed with his money and his status."
Best-known for his fiery yet lyrical black protest poems, Madhubuti had managed to stay out of political brawls until now.
But on June 22, 2009, he was compelled to write an open letter to Chicago State in which he criticized the process by which Watson was selected.
'I can't work with him'His was hardly a revolutionary attack.
Thirteen members of the 15-member search committee had been so put off by the process, they resigned in protest.
"I knew something was going to happen if I wrote the letter, but I didn't know he would push me to seek an early retirement," Madhubuti said. "I can't work with him. I am not going to stand here and let him use this university like he used the City Colleges."
Watson, of course, can make a great argument for wanting Madhubuti to teach more classes.
On Wednesday, security guards were escorting off the campus the first wave of laid-off faculty and staff.
In times like these, it is easy to justify asking the remaining employees to carry a heavier load.
But let's get serious.
Haki Madhubuti isn't any old body. He is a cultural icon.
He is the founder of Third World Press, a black-owned publishing house that has published works by established black writers as well as up-and-coming authors since 1967.
Before Chicago education experts figured out charter schools, Madhubuti and his wife founded the Institute of Positive Education/New Concept School to turn the dream of black empowerment into a reality.
His expertise in the field of education led to the development of the Betty Shabazz International Charter School, Barbara A. Sizemore Middle School and the DuSable Leadership Academy.
Because of Madhubuti's vision, the legacy of renowned poet Gwendolyn Brooks -- the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize in poetry -- will forever be linked to this South Side university.
Every year, black writers and those who aspire to walk in their footsteps gather on the campus of Chicago State for the Gwendolyn Brooks Writers Conference to hone their craft.
This year, poet Nikki Giovanni is the featured artist, but under the circumstances, the conference will also be a celebration of Madhubuti's achievements.
Madhubuti certainly could have taught elsewhere.
The fact that he chose to stay at a university that struggles against great odds to engage low-income urban youth in higher education is a testament of his lifelong mission.
This unceremonious parting of the ways could prove to be a devastating loss to the university in the future.
Today, it just makes me sad.
No one can do as much harm to black people as other black people.
Video Gambling in Bars Holds Promise of Handsome Revenues / Chicago News Cooperative
A video poker machine waits for a customer at a local bar in downtown Chicago March 30, 2010.
Jose More/Chicago News CooperativeOn Chicago’s gritty far southeast corner, which in the past few decades has seen factories rust and grandiose plans for a Lake Calumet airport fizzle, a couple of dozen neighborhood bar and restaurant owners gathered at the Knights of Columbus hall on a late winter evening to learn about the latest big-ticket plan: video gambling.
Alderman John Pope (10th Ward) told them he believed that a “large majority” of City Council members would soon join him in voting to lift the ban on gambling in Chicago, placing the city in a state program that will allow as many as five video gambling terminals in any business that has a license to sell liquor for on-site consumption.“We’re interested in putting people to work; we’re interested in putting money in people’s pockets; and, honestly, we’re interested in legalizing what is happening already,” said Mr. Pope, referring to illegal gambling that takes place in many Chicago bars.
Illinois officials estimate that video gambling, legalized last summer by legislators and Gov. Patrick J. Quinn, will generate more than $1 billion a year in total revenues from at least 45,000 new machines across the state. The video gambling revenues will be taxed at 30 percent.
That would mean hundreds of millions of dollars for the financially struggling state, making it the most important source of money for Illinois’s first major spending spree on public works in a decade, officials predict. Proponents promise a long list of construction projects, like school and park fieldhouse renovations, new streetlights and rapid transit improvements.
But a deeper look reveals that the state will receive a far less lucrative deal from gambling than did other states that have adopted similar video gambling plans. The new gambling initiative is a richer deal for Illinois’s politically connected video gambling industry than for similar operators in other states. Moreover, state regulators say it will be nearly impossible for them to police the new form of gambling as closely as they scrutinize the state’s casinos.
Concerns about the regulation of gambling have festered since the days of Al Capone and could make the passage of a Chicago video machine ordinance far less certain than Mr. Pope predicted. Mayor Richard M. Daley has not yet publicly endorsed the issue, and if Chicago does not approve video gambling, the state’s potential new source of revenue would decrease sharply.
If video gambling does become a reality, the vast majority — 70 percent — of revenues from the new machines will be divided evenly between the liquor license holders and the companies licensed by the state to own and operate the new gambling terminals.
The state’s share from video gambling is set at 25 percent, and 5 percent of total gambling-machine revenues are left for municipalities. Even at that low rate, Illinois projects a potential $534 million a year in tax revenue.
Illinois’s share of video gambling revenue is in stark contrast to the situation for the state’s nine casinos, and a 10th planned in Des Plaines. The casinos must turn over in taxes as much as 50 percent of what they earn.
The new video betting legislation in Illinois is also far more lucrative for the gaming industry than in other states with similar laws. In South Dakota and West Virginia, the state gets 50 percent of what is earned at video gambling terminals in liquor-licensed establishments. In Oregon, where the state owns and operates the machines, the share jumps to 73 percent.
“Why are they giving this away for so little?” said Bridget Gainer, a Cook County commissioner who supported a measure banning video gambling in the unincorporated parts of the county. “In a rush to please the industry, we got stuck with a terrible deal.”
In forging the deal in Springfield, the gambling industry benefited from lobbyists with close connections to government leaders. One lobbyist, Joseph Berrios, is chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party and a close ally of Michael J. Madigan, the Illinois House speaker. Another is Tom Cullen, who worked for Mr. Madigan for 12 years, according to the organization’s Web site.
Video Gaming Technologies, a major manufacturer in Tennessee, also employs clout-heavy lobbyists: the firm of Michael Kasper, lawyer and treasurer for Mr. Madigan’s state Democratic Party organization. Mr. Kasper’s firm also includes David Dring, the former spokesman for Tom Cross, the Illinois House Republican leader.
The legislation received bipartisan support in both chambers of the General Assembly, and Governor Quinn signed it into law in July.
Even as the state is preparing to allow installation of gambling machines by the end of the year, regulators say they lack the resources to properly police the new form of gambling, as well as the manpower to scrutinize the machine makers, the terminal operators and the thousands of businesses that could agree to install the machines. The Illinois Gaming Board said it would have to at least double its staff of 150 to do what is required.
“You have to understand, it’s a completely different industry,” Aaron Jaffe, the board chairman, said after a board meeting this week.
“In a casino,” Mr. Jaffe said, “everything is confined in one area. We have our state police there. We have our revenue agents there. We have video cameras all over the place. With video poker, there are about 15,000 liquor licenses in the state.”
The law legalizing video gambling came together so quickly that Mr. Jaffe said he had “no idea” whether the state’s financial projections were accurate.
The revenue numbers hinge on whether Chicago is involved. Without its participation, state fiscal analysts say, the amount the state gets from the machines could plummet as much as $177.7 million. They had estimated that, with Chicago on board, video poker would produce $287.5 million to $534.2 million a year for Illinois.
More than 70 municipalities, most in the Chicago suburbs, have prohibited the machines.
To stem the tide of municipalities that opt out, and to make certain that Chicago opts in, business and labor leaders have joined forces and recruited the public relations and political consulting firm of Greg Goldner, a former campaign manager and aide to Mayor Daley. In November, Mr. Goldner formed a public advocacy group and gave it a populist-sounding name: Back to Work Illinois. The group’s initial budget of up to $700,000 is financed entirely by a Las Vegas-based trade group for video terminal makers and the state association of machine operators, Mr. Goldner said.
He said his company had contacted more than 40 of Chicago’s 50 aldermen and sent materials about video gambling to Mayor Daley’s office.
Despite the lobbying efforts, many aldermen remain uncommitted.
“I’m not sure these sources are where we want to go as a city,” said Alderman Thomas Tunney, whose 44th Ward includes the bar district around Wrigley Field. “At what point does the drive for revenue supersede other issues?”
The state long has allowed video game machines for amusement only, but that restriction is frequently flouted. As Mr. Gardner tried to drum up support at the meeting with tavern owners last month, he warned that anybody caught with a machine illegally paying out winnings will be banned from the new legal form of video gambling.
Mingling in the crowd was Anthony Abruzzo, whose new company, Midwest Gaming Technologies, plans to install and maintain video gambling machines. Mr. Abruzzo said he heard about the meeting from Sam Panayotovich, a former state legislator who works for Mr. Berrios’s Springfield lobbying firm.
“We saw the bright future that this could hold,” he said.
This entry was posted on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 3:00 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Forrest Claypool runs for assessor, defies bosses :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Carol Marin
Forrest Claypool runs for assessor, defies bosses
BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times ColumnistForrest Claypool is about to take the biggest risk of his political career. On Tuesday, this columnist has learned, he will declare war on his own Democratic Party and announce that he is running � as an independent � for assessor of Cook County in November against Joseph Berrios.
�I didn�t expect to be a candidate,� Claypool said by phone Thursday. �But I was angered and surprised someone like Joe Berrios with record low turnout could slip in with 39 percent of the vote . . . carried over the finish line by ward bosses.�
Forrest Claypool will declare his candidacy for assessor of Cook County as an independent on Tuesday. Claypool has decided to defy his own party by running against Democrat Joseph Berrios.(Scott Stewart/Sun-Times)
Carol Marin
This will be the kind of contest where you�ll want to grab a bag of potato chips and a Coke, pull up a chair and watch like a marquee boxing match.
It will be ugly but meaningful.
Claypool has an established record of reform as the onetime head of the Chicago Park District who cut patronage jobs, bucking House Speaker Mike Madigan.
As a first-time candidate for the county board in 2002, he beat Ted Lechowicz, the triple-pension-dipping candidate endorsed by Claypool�s former boss, Mayor Daley. Claypool twice served as Daley�s chief of staff.
Joe Berrios is not a reform guy. A former legislator who did Madigan�s bidding in the House, he�s a lobbyist who pitches his clients� special interests to old legislative pals such as Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton.
At the same time, as a commissioner on the county Board of Review, Berrios hears tax appeal cases brought by Madigan and Cullerton�s law firms, which specialize in reducing assessments for big-ticket clients.
Berrios, Madigan, Cullerton. What a perfect storm of personal and political self-interest.
All of this was well-known in February, when every newspaper on the planet editorialized against Berrios and another dismal candidate, Bob Shaw, in favor of reform-minded Raymond Figueroa.
Didn�t matter.
Figueroa came in last.
Berrios won the primary. And he�s going to win again in November against nominal opposition from Republican Sharon Strobeck-Eckersall and Robert Grota, the Green Party candidate.
Unless.
Unless Claypool can turn this train wreck of an election around.
It�s a long shot.
First, he needs to gather at least 25,000 petition signatures. And he face expensive challenges from the county and state Democratic Party � chaired by, guess who, Berrios and Madigan � to keep him off the ballot.
Next, he�s going to have to convince skeptical voters that not only is he serious about this race but that they�d better be, too, if they care about who really decides their tax bills.
When the owner of a great big skyscraper on Michigan Avenue � often one of those Madigan or Cullerton law-firm clients � gets a super-size, multimillion-dollar tax break, you know who makes up the difference?
The rest of us.
Jim Houlihan, the retiring assessor, has done a good job of battling Madigan and Berrios.
Houlihan has fought them and tried to keep the 7 percent tax cap in place. But the cap is expiring, opening homeowners to a gobsmacking increase later this year.
That�s why, Houlihan alleged last week, Madigan and Berrios were trying to delay sending those property tax bills to voters until after the November election � so the voters wouldn�t take their fury to the polls.
You could argue that for Forrest Claypool, 52, this is one of those now-or-never scenarios. Last year, to the aggravation of his progressive supporters and funders, he decided at the 11th hour not to oppose Todd Stroger for president of the Cook County Board in the primary, opting for the private sector. Alderman Toni Preckwinkle won the nomination he had long hoped for.
But I would argue that the job of assessor � with the vast money and power that office commands � is every bit as crucial to the future, the reputation and the taxpayers of Cook County.
Welcome to the race, Commissioner Claypool. It's the fight worth fighting.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Nonprofits: Time to Get Mobile - Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media - frogloop
Updated: January 16, 2009
83% of adults have cell phones or smartphones. 35% of users have accessed the Internet via their phone, according to a December 2009 report by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. So in times of natural disasters like the catastrophic earthquake that hit Haiti and affected more then two million people, can a mobile strategy help raise money in times of crisis?
Just three hours after the earthquake devastated Haiti, the American Red Cross launched a “text to donate” campaign where individuals in the US can text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross to support Haiti relief efforts. The carriers are allowing individuals to donate $10 up to three times, and
100% of the donations will go to the American Red Cross. In the first 24 hours, the American Red Cross had raised an estimated $800K via the “text to donate” campaign. By day two, they raised $5 million via mobile, which accounted for 14% of the total $35 million they raised in the last 48 hours. Approximately 50% of the donations were contributed online, according to the organizations press release.
The biggest barrier nonprofits face in raising money via “text to donate” campaigns is the price tag associated with setting up unique shortcode campaigns through a mobile app vendor who not only works with nonprofits but with mobile carriers like AT&T. According to the mobile vendor mGive’s website, “New shortcodes are leased through the Common Short Code Administration. Leases are a minimum of three months and must be paid upfront. The cost is $1,000 per month for a vanity code and $500 per month for a random code.”
Nonprofits Should Also Know:
- Mobile vendors will charge a one-time setup fee ranging from $3,000 to $10,000 for unique shortcodes and up to $1,500 for shared shortcodes.
- Nonprofits are legally permitted to collect donations only ranging between $5 and $10. The donation will appear on the donors cell phone bill.
- Currently there is no mechanism to implement recurring donations but vendors are working to change this, said Jed Alpert, Founder of Mobile Commons, a mobile vendor who works with several nonprofits.
- Constituents can’t donate more then 5x monthly.
- It can take up to 90 days for a donor's gift to reach your nonprofit.
“Historically, carriers try to use texting as a means to raise revenue. So they ask for a share to use their network. It’s the cost of doing business. When you see Bono asking you text to join the U2 fan group campaign or the like at a concert, there is a transactional fee, and cents per text," said Geoff Livingston who recently launched Zoetica, a communications firm that specializes in word-of-mouth marketing.
“Increasingly, especially with major events like Haiti, carriers waive these fees for the halo effect of social marketing. However, as the American Red Cross it's easier to get this done, than say, the Earthquake Foundation with $2 million a year in funding. Charities may experience a hard time with carriers,” said Livingston.
Nonprofits can bypass carrier fees and collect 100% of donations by applying to the Mobile Giving Foundation nonprofit program. Nonprofits are required to go through an application process to qualify. Once approved, nonprofits must commit to work with one of the mobile vendors that the foundation has partnered with.
How to Setup a Text to Donate Campaign
There are two basic routes nonprofits can take to setup a “text to donate” campaign.
Create a Proprietary Shortcode:
Shortcodes are 5 or 6 digit codes used to route text messages from mobile phones to mobile messaging applications. Creating a unique shortcode can take several weeks and is the most expensive option. However, it does give nonprofits the opportunity to brand themselves around a code as well as launch different types of fundraising appeals and action alerts. Nonprofits don’t share the shortcode with any other groups.
Shared ShortCode:
A cheaper route is to use a shortcode where the keyword is unique but the shortcode is shared with other groups. However, shortcodes can be problematic. For example, if donors mistype the keyword, the donation will not go through. Mobile vendors like Mobile Commons have tried to address these issues by designing their app to pick up common misspellings. They also do not allow close keywords in separate campaigns.
Marketing a Mobile Fundraiser
Though the American Red Cross campaign has made mobile fundraising history, it’s important to remember that the $10M raised via mobile is unique. People rally together in times of natural disasters and American Red Cross staff coordinated and executed a strong multi-channel marketing plan within three hours after the earthquake hit Haiti.
If your nonprofit is thinking of launching a mobile fundraising campaign, it’s critical that you develop a multi-channel marketing and outreach plan to spread the word and maximize donations. For example:
- Start with emailing your online activists and donors and place your shortcode and keyword front and center. Include a “Forward to a Friend” link and a “Share This” app on the landing page so people can promote it to social networks too. Reinforce this in a follow up thank you email as well.
- Leverage social networks. Tweet the “text to donate” campaign. Ask followers to pass it on. Post it to your Facebook Fanpage and any other social networks your organization is active on. Report back on key milestones. The American Red Cross has done a terrific job in the last 72 hours of reporting how much money they are raising via mobile, the work they are doing on the ground, etc.
- Paid advertising such as banner ads, keywords and text ads are excellent and fast ways to promote your campaign to millions of people and grow your list at the same time.
- Follow up with your donors. Tell them about the progress you have made towards reaching your fundraising goals. Explain how their money is being spent. Share some personal stories by people who have been impacted by their donations.
Stay-tuned for our upcoming article exploring the issues around nonprofits collecting cell phone numbers in the marketing battle to reach constituents everywhere.
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