Sia Karamalegos

Make a Mark began as an idea in 2014 — why don’t we take the traditional hack-a-thon structure and transform it into a design and development marathon to support nonprofit organizations? Ten years later, we are launching our official replication guide. The goal of this replication guide is to provide anyone with the collective knowledge of the Make a Mark community with the hope that anyone in any community can hold a make-a-thon, whether it be once, twice, or dozens of times. https://lnkd.in/gMSn2ziG

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I have often heard people say that nonprofit fundraising is similar to sales. While there may be some similarities, it occurs to me that a better analogy in the for-profit sector might be an entrepreneur seeking investment for their company. Here's why: 💠 Long-term Relationships: Just like entrepreneurs cultivate lasting relationships with investors, nonprofits must build enduring connections with donors, emphasizing trust and mutual goals. 💠 Shared Vision: Investors buy into the vision and potential impact of a startup. Similarly, donors invest in the transformative power of a nonprofit's mission, hoping to make a substantial difference in the community or sector. 💠 Strategic Alignment: Startups must align their strategies with investor expectations. Nonprofits, too, align their goals and activities with the interests and values of their supporters to ensure ongoing engagement. 💠 Growth and Impact: Just as investors support a startup's growth trajectory, nonprofit donors contribute to scaling the organization's impact, driving broader social change. In both scenarios, the fundamental element is not merely transactional; it’s about creating a meaningful partnership that aims to change the status quo. I think this is an interesting comparison, and frames nonprofit fundraising as an opportunity to forge impactful, visionary partnerships that drive real change. #NonprofitFundraising #SocialImpact #NonprofitSector #StrategicPartnerships

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I'm psyched to recommend a new book about building trust relationships with your project stakeholders! Fresh from their book launch in San Francisco, Melissa Appel and Bruce McCarthy present a few very core tips. - Understand who in your org holds power - Is your org sales-driven, financials-driven, engineering-driven, product-driven, design-driven ...? (Hah, those last two are pretty rare.) The answer lies in clues from the first point above. - Do you make time to understand what's going through the mind of your stakeholders? Do you have one-on-one sessions where you listen deeply to see the layers of their inner thinking, emotional reactions, and personal rules? Do you understand where these personal rules come from? - Do you give your stakeholders the chance to be humans? The chance to trust you in return? All these ideas are core to getting solutions produced that are of true value to the variety of people your org supports. You can't build it on your own. 😆💕 (👇link to book is in comments) #productstrategy #strategicresearch #productdesign

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What comes after democracy? It’s a tough question: As tech has made it easier to quickly understand information, it’s also made it harder to know what’s true. And we no longer need to just agree with the people in our town; we’re aware of far more people, many of whom disagree with us, and all of whom vote on things that will affect our rights and freedoms. But we need to find common ground to function as a species. Here’s a good example: The horrible events in Appalachia over the past few days have stranded hundreds of thousands. They’re undeniably linked to climate change: Warmer oceans mean bigger storms, and warmer air holds more moisture. Floods don’t care what your political positions are. At the same time, signaling that you’re for or against climate action is a way to say which team you’re on, and most humans fear social death as much as actual death. Anyone with a heart wants to help those suffering from Hurricane Helene. But many on the political left are saying “they had it coming” (even though many of the regions hit hardest have nothing to do with carbon-heavy energy sources like coal.) A rational system would say, “taxes paid by everyone will go to both helping these people, and working on long timescales to stop this from happening.” But even raising such questions is scandalous, because it’s become politicized. Cooperating as a society means balancing short-term and long-term goals; and finding ways to work collectively on real crises without curtailing the rights and freedoms of individuals who might disagree on topics like fairness, equity, and freedom. Clearly, current systems of representative democracy don’t work. Just look at this math: “Since 1789, when the United States Congress first convened under the Constitution, the number of citizens per congressional district has risen from an average of 33,000 in 1790 to over 700,000 as of 2018.” A member of Congress represents 22 times as many people today as they did when America was founded. (https://lnkd.in/enu5ee7z) We have amazing technologies for finding common positions, and coexisting with those with whom we don’t agree. From tools like pol.is to the work of the The Society Library to quadratic voting, there are better ways to organize humans. But the existing systems of government are entrenched—in part because the first job of any form of government must be to perpetuate itself and resist attacks. Updating representative democracy is hard. I absolutely love the work that the folks at the Plurality Institute are doing on this. If you find this interesting, there’s real, meaningful work to be done. Take a look at this position they’re hiring.

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The impact of AI on all of us is exciting. Thank you to AFP Alabama Chapter for the invitation to speak about the impact of AI on Fundraising Professionals. While there is a great deal of focus on privacy, the opportunity to streamline and be more effective might be the most transformative moment in the nonprofit sector. While explaining how AI works, I referenced the data and, then, this article popped up as soon as I returned to the office. Nonprofits will appreciate this article for many reasons including knowledge of the reliance on low wage jobs, the paypal/money transfer fees that impact workers and seeing this element of AI to better understand how it works. https://lnkd.in/e2e57nTp

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Question for you... What's been your favorite #AI, #nonprofit, or #nptech book of 2024? I’m putting together a wrap-up recommendation list and already have a dozen or so I love. But if your suggestions pile up, maybe it'll be “24 for 2024!”📚 And who knows, *maybe* my own, "Empower Your Nonprofit: Simple Ways to Co-Create with AI for Profound Impact" (out yesterday!) will make the cut... 😏 (You can check it out at >>> empoweryournonprofit.org ) Please leave your favorite(s) in the comments! And make sure you give those authors a great review online someplace if you can, so others know it's good stuff when they're on books sites looking for ideas... :) #empoweryournonprofit #thriveinai #AI4good #nptech #aibooks #nonprofit #AI #books #changetheworld Wiley Brian Neill Resourceful Nonprofit

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🐧 Just like how penguins gather the perfect pebbles 🪨🪨🪨 to win over their mates, I’ve spent more than a decade hunting down the best nuggets of wisdom on creativity, healing, and personal growth. Now, my brain is overflowing, and I can’t wait to share this treasure trove of pebbles with you! Let’s be thought partners! Join me on my new Substack, The Aha Architect 💡

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The demo video from these students are a mixture of sci-fi and Mission Impossible tech but through the literal lens of consumer tech. I think the demo raises awareness of what's possible today and the repositories of public data that's accessible and the implications of bad actors. #MetaGlasses #Meta #AI #XR #facialrecognition #search #LLM

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Podcasting Essentials: Essential Skills And Expert Insights From Mark Herschberg Want to learn the secrets of how I got to guest on hundreds of podcast episodes? Want to make the most of each episode (as a host or guest)? Listen as I speak with podcaster extraordinaire and talk about some of the secrets I cover in my Podcast Alchemy series. #podcast #podcasting #podcasthosting #BrainBump https://lnkd.in/emJRNvr3

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Today is the one year anniversary of announcing DevClarity! When they say startup life is "peak life", they aren't kidding. From launching our first MVP, landing our initial paying customers, and winning Alabama Launchpad to tackling a massive problem space with no funding (or salary) and getting rejected dozens of times, the past 12 months have been the biggest roller coaster I've ever been on. And yet I have zero regrets about my decision because starting a company has been BY FAR the greatest learning experience I've ever had. So much so that I've lately started telling people that I believe EVERYONE should start a company at some point. In the coming days, I will share some reflections from the past year. But there are two main takeaways that stand out to me: 1. Perseverance is the most important trait for an entrepreneur. More than intelligence, specific knowledge, boldness, or anything else. The entire game is to stay in the game. Everything can change with one conversation, one customer, one investor. But you have to stay in the game long enough for that to happen. Great things take time. Perseverance gives you the mental fortitude to allow yourself that time. 2. People are the most important aspect of a business. When we announced the launch of DevClarity, I said that in the course of a career, or a lifetime, when you meet special people, you bet on them. I continue to feel validated that Will Blackburn is one of those people and am glad that we continue to bet on each other and ourselves. It's hard to know what the next 12 months will hold, but I am open to the journey and excited for what's to come! - Peter

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I have been doing some really interesting work in the online community space & revisited my "10% Rule of Community Engagement" I came up with in the 2000s while working as a full time community manager. My theory was the amount of people who engage with online communities is a fraction of those who visit them. Engagement increases in (very rough) 10% sections of total visitors. I spent 2009-2013 working in the local government space & noticed a similar pattern for engagements with local councils. To summarise roughly 0.1% (or 1 in 1,000) are "Very Engaged" & often dominate discourse in online communities & local government. For added fun 10% of that 0.1% are "Constantly Engaged" & that's where things can get really crazy. A friend who works in local government recently mentioned they'd worked out that "X" number of people were dominating council engagement - it didn't surprise me that X times 1,000 was almost the population of that council. So, anecdotally, my 10% Rule still holds water. If you've made it this far, yes I'm involved in building an online community right now - for a topic that's close to my heart (which isn't mountain biking).

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I'm trying to fine-tune how we describe and explain open digital ecosystems. I want to create explainers that I can use regularly when introducing these ideas. I'd love feedback on our first introductory piece on cultivating an ecosystem mindset. The idea for this piece is to describe the links between digital transformation and data-enabled systems, the rise of digital public infrastructure, the role of regulations and standards, and how that is shifting organisations towards an ecosystem approach, especially in regulated industries like banking, health and supply chain traceability. https://lnkd.in/dHFvEBib

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You've conducted the interviews, what next? Great talking with Randy Silver and Lily Smith on the Mind the Product podcast this week. We talked about what to do after your interviews, when not to use the approach and the top mistakes people make. The interview is packed with case studies. If you're into growing your SaaS product - this one's for you. --> https://lnkd.in/g-KQzpyw Enjoy. #saas #jtbd #product #mindtheproduct

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Llama 3.1 Impact Grants ( up to $100,000) Recent breakthroughs in AI, and generative AI in particular, have captured the public’s imagination and demonstrated they have the potential to help communities create a new era of economic and social opportunity, and provide individuals, creators, and organizations new ways to express themselves and connect with people. Building off a legacy of open sourcing our products and tools to benefit the global community, we introduced Meta Llama 2 in July 2023 and have since introduced two updates – Llama 3 and Llama 3.1. These models demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on a wide range of industry benchmarks and offer new capabilities, including support across eight languages and a 405B parameter version —the world’s first frontier-level open source AI model. https://lnkd.in/dBfrhp6w

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If you enjoyed the piece on the “Myths of Generative AI,” you’re going to love this episode of Computer Says Maybe. Daniel Stone, who I talked to for that piece, researches framing around AI and why certain frames set us back in thinking critically about what it all means. And it’s worth following Alix Dunn whose podcasts and critical thinking are a breath of fresh air. Do check them out! #criticalai #ai #podcasts

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