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Caravan Studios Update for TechSoup Global Staff
Caravan Studios employs a methodology focused on technology interventions to create impactful applications for resilient cities and civic engagement. They have successfully fundraised for various projects, with notable metrics on donor contributions and app downloads. Future possibilities include developing apps to help users navigate misinformation, access safe routes, and improve service matching in social services.
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Caravan Studios Update for TechSoup Global Staff
- 1. Caravan Studios Bein the Know
- 3. 1. Methodology 2.Products 3. Knowledge Areas 4. Fundraising
- 4.
- 5. Generate Identify opportunities for technology interventions.
- 6. Design Create prototypes for quick feedback.
- 7. Select Choose the tools with the largest potential impact.
- 8. Build Develop selected projects with funding, pro bono corporate efforts, and volunteerism.
- 9. Use Get realworld feedback through use.
- 10.
- 14.
- 15. Resilient Cities Emergency Shelter and Services Civic Engagement
- 16. Resilient Cities •4Bells Emergency Shelter and Services • SafeNight • Range Civic Engagement • Range • 4Bells
- 17.
- 18. Deals • Pending– 3 worth $1,064,111 • Won – 7 worth $1,459,333 • Lost – 14 worth $1,162,000
- 19.
- 20. APPENDIX A: SOMESTATS
- 21. General Caravan CaravanStudios Twitter 1,311 followers https://twitter.com /caravanstudios Caravan Studios Newsletter 80 subscribers http://tinyletter.co m/caravanstudios/
- 22. SafeNight SafeNight Downloads 158 N/A SafeNight Twitter 201 https://twitter.com /safenightapp SafeNight Update List 51 http://tinyletter.co m/safenight Registered users 65 N/A Total donors 12 N/A Total Donations $1,092 N/A Number of 19 N/A Donations
- 23. Range Range Downloads423 N/A Range Update List 151 http://tinyletter.co m/safenight Number of meal sites at peak 42,682 Week of 7/4/2014
- 24. APPENDIX B: SOMEPUBLICITY
- 32. APPENDIX C: RELEVANTLINKS
- 33. Websites: • CaravanStudios: http://www.caravanstudios.org • SafeNight: http://www.safenightapp.org • Range: http://www.rangeapp.org • 4Bells: http://www.4bells.org Social Media: • Caravan Studios Twitter: https://twitter.com/caravanstudios • SafeNight Twitter: https://twitter.com/safenightapp • Caravan Studios Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CaravanStudiosNonprofit • SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/caravanstudios • Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/caravanstudios/ • Storify: https://storify.com/caravanstudios Other: • Wiki: http://caravanstudios.wikispaces.com (out of date) • MindMixer: http://caravanstudios.mindmixer.com • HackerHelper: http://hackerhelper.org • Range Data Set: https://mondara.socrata.com/dataset/WhyHunger/63t9-jxjt • GitHub: https://github.com/CaravanStudios
- 34. APPENDIX D: FOUREXIT STRATEGIES
- 35. 1. If theapp was simply a bad choice, did not work, or created some perverse outcomes we would remove it from circulation. It is possible we would still make the code available. 2. If the app worked well, had a big impact and needed a specific governance model and organization around it we might spin it off into its own organization. This could, conceivably, happen with SafeNight. 3. If the app worked well and there were organizations who could manage it effectively, we could turn it over to a 3rd party organization. This could happen with Range. 4. If the app worked well, had a revenue attached to it, and meet the needs of many nonprofit organizations we could operate it as a revenue generating business. 4Bells has the most potential for this.
- 36. APPENDIX E: THENEXT SET OF POSSIBILITIES
- 37. Reality Check: Atwitter account is sending out information in an environment that is contentious (say: Ukraine). How can we help users determine whether or not it is a propaganda account? 1 (Human Rights)
- 38. Hacked: A trustedtwitter account is suddenly sending out surprising and controversial information. How can we help people determine whether or not the account has been hacked? 2 (Human Rights)
- 39. Safe Routes: Humanrights defenders and others need to quickly navigate out of an area – avoiding checkpoints and often without access to connectivity. How can we provide them a safe route map that allows the use of identifiable landmarks to help navigate? 3 (Human Rights)
- 40. Summer Lunch Site:Public libraries and faith-based organizations both have the potential to offer up funded summer meals. How can we help them determine if they are a good candidate for a site or not? 4 (Youth Hunger)
- 41. Hail Mary: Individualsget on Twitter and send out a plea for help. How do we route those to someone who can answer? 5 (Social Services)
- 42. Wilson: Matching upa recipient to services is hard. It’s combines funding, capacity and current availability. Can we use an ask-and-answer model to better refer individuals to services? 6 (Social Services)
- 43. Ring Fence: Peoplesearch for services at their end points – home, school, job. However, they may pass many service providers every day. How can we use technologies like geo-fencing to alert them to a nearby relevant service? 7 (Social Services)
- 44. Caravan Studios isa division of TechSoup Global, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. We build apps to increase the public good. We are @caravanstudios on twitter.
Editor's Notes
- #6 Sample event deck: http://www.slideshare.net/caravanstudios/dc-nonprofit-generator
- #7 Photo credit: https://twitter.com/spjika/status/340866501005422592
- #8 Photo credit: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/us/cost-of-flood-insurance-rises-along-with-worries.html?_r=0
- #10 Caravan Twitter Followers as of August 25, 2014: 1,311 Caravan Newsletter Signups as of August 25, 2014: 80
- #12 Downloads as of August 22, 2014: 158 Newsletter signups as of August 25, 2014: 51 SafeNight website: http://www.safenightapp.org SafeNight demo deck: http://www.slideshare.net/caravanstudios/safenight-demo-deck Related: Reimagine: Opportunity Challenge final submission: http://www.slideshare.net/caravanstudios/safesheltercollaborative-caravanstudios-polarisprojectproposalnarrativemarch2014redacted
- #13 Downloads as of Aug 22: 423 Newsletter signups: 151 Range website: http://www.RangeApp.org Range demo deck: http://www.slideshare.net/caravanstudios/range-help-youth-find-the-nearest-place-to-get-a-summer-meal
- #14 Newsletter signups as of August 25, 2014: 2
- #26 http://www.slj.com/2014/07/programs/libraries-needed-to-host-summer-meal-programs-heres-how-to-help/
- #29 http://playboysfw.kinja.com/what-the-governments-comprehensive-study-of-sex-work-g-1547320029
- #30 http://www.getlittlebird.com/2014/07/caravan-studios-used-little-bird-land-funding-important-mobile-app/
- #31 http://www.husita.org/caravan-studios-wins-husita-best-human-services-app/
- #32 http://breadnm.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-smart-phone-search-for-summer-meal.html
- #38 Analogs: Commun.it | SocialBro | These are all tools that help us analyze twitter networks to see who we should be following, to see how we can grow out reputation, to follow more people and better. What if we built something that used the same basic technology but did it in reverse. It gave us ideas that an account isn’t credible. We’d want to link to a couple of those services, the Twitter API. It could be as a browser add-on so we would want to find information about that. Not sure of all the necessary technical assets but we can probably ask and get more help to fill this out.
- #39 Ame basic info as in previous. Analogs: Commun.it | SocialBro | These are all tools that help us analyze twitter networks to see who we should be following, to see how we can grow out reputation, to follow more people and better. What if we built something that used the same basic technology but did it in reverse. It gave us ideas that an account isn’t credible. We’d want to link to a couple of those services, the Twitter API. It could be as a browser add-on so we would want to find information about that. Not sure of all the necessary technical assets but we can probably ask and get more help to fill this out.
- #40 Analog: Mindsmack makes a map that does something similar in malls. The iBeacon technology has some elements but that could be too easily messed with. Hikers use maps that are made to orient when you don’t have cell connectivity. It could be that these aren’t maps but that they use text prompts and entries to help you navigate (rather than a digital version of a paper map). We probably need to dig around in ESRI to see if they have anyting that can help. Could be interesting to understand how Ushahidi thinks of this problem (writing this up could even be a reason to reach out to Ushahidi). Not sure what APIs would help here. Probably need to add in more contrainsts. Users get pinged to update the data when they are connected to wifi. Some way to say wehre hotspots are. I rally do wonder if there could be a way to create a customer Ushahidi version that would fill some fo this function. This could also help post disaster (navigate to a safe place) or to navigate to safe, clean water. Again, I suspect Ushahidi can be a resource here. An important point is that this is also providing directions to people.
- #41 I think we know the details on this. We’ll have to look up the criteria for having a public site and then find that where that data is. It may be that we have to build out the sources for all 50 states because it could be that they aren’t on a single site. I
- #42 So we need the twitter API again. Look at things like Twylerta (I think I spelled that correctly) so that we can get alerts on terms. It may be they have an API or they have an alert model that can be used – even a dashboard. We need to understand how it could be hooked into something like Skype and also see if there are any hotline services that this could be attached to – sending the tweet to a hotline provider as a text message for example). This will require some digging. Mark Hovarth talked about this a bit in a Nonprofit Quarterly article: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/24371-homeless-people-and-nonprofits-increasing-use-of-social-media-and-mobile-technology-to-connect.html We should reference that. Plus, the idea definitely came from him.
- #43 We wrote this up in a Google grant and you can get the text of that from Catherine (probably from me too but I can find it right now for some reason). This is really another use case for 4Bells almost – I think we need more writing to get at the description and then also things like 211.org to find the service providers to ask.
- #44 Here’s a great analog for this: http://civic.mit.edu/blog/erhardt/thinking-about-design-with-geo-fences We need to dig in and find more tech for geo-fencing. It could use 211.org data or 1deg.org (I think that’s it, they were one of the 100K winners from Google). Again, this one is going to take some research and some describing.