*** Democracies Online Newswire - http://www.e-democracy.org/do *** In December and January, DO-WIRE was relatively quiet because I was working with a number of fellow E-Democracy volunteers to launch some new and improved initiatives. Take some time to check them out. Each effort has volunteer or two behind them and most often I am not directly involved. In fact, if you'd like volunteer check out our new list of ways to get involved <http://www.e-democracy.org/volunteer.html>. :-) Some highlights: 1. Session Topics - http://www.e-democracy.org/capitol/ Five new moderated e-mail lists for information exchange on top legislative issues. 4 of the 5 are now open. Be sure to visit the message archives to get a sense of what we are doing here. At least 1/3 of the subscribers to these lists are legislators or legislative or government staff and many others are directly involved in the policy debate. These online spaces place open online interactivity in the middle of real policy making. They complement the in-person process and the news cycle. They save the time it takes to be more informed and involved. (Normal) Citizens will not waste their time participating if they think it doesn't matter, so we build forums that strive to matter in the real world. When the legislative session is over I hope to shift them into collaborative spaces for public policy information importing (i.e. the sharing of useful policy materials online from external sources) to inform policy development in Minnesota. 2. Minneapolis - http://www.e-democracy.org/mpls Be sure the check out the detailed 2001 Mayoral and city council election links page maintained by David Brauer, the list manager of the Minneapolis Issues Forum. This forum has become the number one public agenda setting space in local Minneapolis politics. If you are a researcher help prove this theory right or wrong by doing some deep research. Every city in Minnesota, the world for that matter, should have on online public commons. Build one for your community. we'll help with advice and lessons. Check out the lessons from the Winona forum: http://onlinedemocracy.winona.org/startup.html 3. St. Paul - http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul With an open race for Mayor this year, this forum is beginning to take off. It now has close to 200 members (Mpls is at 450) and with direct links from the City Council's and Mayor's web pages it now has a virtual connection to official governance. Help me find other local issues e-mail discussion forums (or web forums that seem to work) around world where the local elected officials have a direct link. We are also working with the local League of Women Voters of St. Paul and about 10 volunteers to craft a online Candidate Conversation early in Mayoral election process. It is quite exciting to work from E-Democracy's six years of E-Debate experience and my insights from the Web White & Blue's Rolling Cyber Debates to create useful candidate online exchange. If you do online civic events right, you can add a lot of new and valuable information to the election environment. We do these early in the process when there is still a scarcity of information. That is when the Internet can make the most difference. Note: Our election 2001 efforts will be available from: http://www.e-democracy.org/2001 4. E-Democracy Legislative Study Group - http://www.e-democracy.org/study Let us Internet-enable representative democracy. What laws on governance in your city, state/province, or nation should be changed to take advantage of the Internet era. Should public meetings be announced online for example? Should this be required in law or something units of government do voluntarily? Should there be a public domain database of all elected and appointed officials? Etc.. Check out our message archive for our growing exchange. Of the 60 people on this list, about half are legislative staff, executive branch staff, or legislators. Members of the group may independently draft legislation. E-Democracy as a non-profit may only educate on these issues and not lobby the legislature for specific changes. 5. Pledge Drive - http://www.e-democracy.org/donate.html Below is a public message sent to our 2500 address organizational e-mail announcement list. For the first time in six years we are seeking to create some ongoing staff support for our volunteer-based organization and perhaps seek planning grants to take on some national/international aspects. One step at a time. I'll be back to DO-WIRE on this in the future, but if you like the DO-WIRE e-mail list consider the needs of E- Democracy below. As a Minnesota-based non-profit we have limits on seeking charitable donations out of state, so the post below is for informational purposes. I am told the last bit of the message below is the most powerful. Read on. Steven Clift Board Chair, Minnesota E-Democracy Democracies Online Newswire ------- Forwarded message follows ------- From: Steven Clift <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: E-Democracy Pre-Pledge Drive - Matching Fund Opportunity Date sent: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 17:01:56 -0600 =========================================================== Minnesota E-Democracy - http://www.e-democracy.org =========================================================== February 21, 2001 Minnesota E-Democracy Update *** Special Request *** E-Democracy is considering our first online pledge drive since we were established in 1994. If you believe in our mission and our citizen-based non-profit, non-partisan approach and have lots of money, please make a substantial contribution to our Pledge Drive Matching Fund. We seek a handful of donors (individuals and organizations) to establish a combined matching fund of around $10,000. We will then seek smaller individual donations (under $500) during our Pledge Drive to leverage that fund (more on that at a later date). Donations to E-Democracy are tax-deductible. Send your pledges or questions to Steven Clift, Board Chair of Minnesota E-Democracy, via e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or call 1-612-822-8667. We will use these funds to secure our future and firmly establish our volunteer-based, low-cost model for online citizen participation and interactivity "that matters" in real democracy. If you need more detail on our current plans to pledge, let us know. Once we establish our base, we may seek planning and program grants for major multi-year proposals and partnerships in order to develop next generation activities in Minnesota as well as significant national activities that extend our successful interactive model across the United States and beyond. Why expand E-Democracy now? Isn't it too late? The new political .coms are folding, the large media and portals sites survive on reduced post-election resources, and large national non-profits find sustainability a challenge. E-Democracy stands out as one of the few grass roots "of" the Internet civic participation efforts that is sustainable and still expanding. We know that our current scalability is quite limited. We want to change that fact. Help us restore the hope for the Internet and democracy based on what works by supporting our Matching Fund. We helped launch the e-democracy hype-wagon frenzy when we created the world's first election-oriented web site back in 1994. From the start we said that this was an experiment, something that needed to built over a lifetime. No one (or at least the media didn't) would listen and expectations were raised to such an extreme that the raised hopes for real democratic change now seem lost. They aren't. E-democracy isn't instant democracy. The Internet is not inherently democratic. In many ways existing political interests are using the Internet in ways that will reduce average citizen participation while fostering the activism on the extremes. Let's not allow "default=nochange" to become cemented. E-Democracy has shown how to place online interactivity into the heart of real politics, where public opinion can be generated, where citizens can play an agenda setting role, and where government leaders can participate as citizens and adapt without being drowned by good versus evil one-way online advocacy that so many promote. To us the choice is clear, accept "as is" politics on the Internet or work to change politics as it converges with the information age to what "it could be." Time is running out. Citizen expectations are being set. Existing interests are solidifying their online activities to ensure their power based on the politics of exclusion and partisanship. Do not give up. It is not too late. We can change democracy to make it more participatory, effective, and representative. We can use the Internet as tool to help improve the lives of our families and neighbors and our communities, nations and the world as a whole. We can be E-Citizens, we can influence existing democratic and media institutions to do good online work, we can look back fifty years from now and be proud of the fact that we made a difference. Send your pledges or questions to Steven Clift, Board Chair of Minnesota E-Democracy, via e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or call 1-612-822-8667. ---------------------------------------------------------- Join Minnesota E-Democracy! Please forward this message. E-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Text area: subscribe mn-democracy To sign off, write: unsubscribe mn-democracy - instead. Or visit: http://www.e-democracy.org/signoff/ ========================================================== ------- End of forwarded message ------- ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - - ICQ: 13789183 *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To unsubscribe instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please forward this post to others and encourage *** *** them to subscribe to the free DO-WIRE service. ***
