About NGO Post
NGO Post is the
people's platform
for sharing and
discussing various
social welfare initiatives. You contribute to NGO Post by sharing new
insightful
stories, highlighting the best ones from all submissions, and sharing
your ideas in follow-up discussions. And, NGO Post helps you in keeping
up to date with the latest developments, finding quality information
about
topics of your interest and establish collaborations with other
knowledgeable people around the globe.
Motivation Behind
NGO Post
NGO Post is more than the traditional news website or mailing list.
More than about news, it is about ideas that facilitate action. And
because it is you who bring in the stories and you who decide what gets
published, we expect the best, and only the best, to be on our
frontpage. This is the place to read about what people are doing to
make a difference to the world around them, to get inspired, to discuss
ideas and even connect with people who feel about and want to
contribute to certain causes. NGO Post is bridging the gap between
social work and technology: allowing anyone to contribute their input
in developmental work using internet.
NGO Post is all about mass journalism.
We
believe the user, that
is
you, is the
best reporter. And the best filter for separating good content from the
bad. So whether you are an NGO, a social worker, a social entrepreneur
or simply someone
interested in learning about existing problems and ongoing social work,
NGO Post is for you.
NGO Post is a project of Sewa Bharti Nidhi, a registered public
charitable trust in India.
Here is a quick introduction to the
team behind NGO Post.
How NGO Post Works
* A user finds an
interesting
story related to social work
and submits it to the website.
* Others users who find this story interesting and insightful can
promote it by "Liking" (voting).
* Bad stories or spams are "buried" by users and eventually removed.
* The stories with more likes (votes) come to the front page of the website
as
Popular Stories.
* All newly submitted stories are shown on
New Stories page,
to be liked
or buried by the users.
* Users interested in a story can followup on it in the discussions
page of each story.
* Stories are organized by categories, tags, related content, and
are
searchable.
* Users can make their profiles on the website for everyone to see,
to
promote interactions.
Click here
for a quick tour of the site.
Who can benefit from NGO Post
Are you a social worker, an
activist, a social entrepreneur or a researcher?
- Doing great work? Raise awareness about your projects and
build community
- Find volunteers and resources. Some of our readers may want
to help you!
- Find information about funding and grant announcements
reported on NGO Post
- Learn about what other people are doing globally. It helps
to stay up-to-date
- Get feedback and new ideas from a large community of
educated readers
Are you interested in
volunteering opportunities to make a positive impact?
- Find out about organizations working in your area of
interest
- Interact directly with social workers to see how you can
help them
- Talk to other volunteers in your area to gain from their
perspectives
- Already volunteering? Maximize your impact by sharing your
experiences
- Meet other people with similar interests. Working together
can be rewarding!
Are you a donor or a
service provider to non-profit organizations?
- Get a close view on the work of various organizations and
their following
- Find and connect with social workers in your area of
interest
- Make your offerings and services better known to the people
who need them
- Stay up-to-do with the latest developments and trends in
social sector
- Already working with an NGO? Build awareness about it to
maximize impact
Are you a conscious
citizen, who would like to learn and perhaps contribute?
- Learn about the various issues in society from multiple
points of view
- Find out and discuss about the solutions that various
organizations are trying
- Interact with experienced social workers to learn about
their experiences
- Want to contribute, but do not know how? Find the right
opportunity for yourself
- Join hands, and together we can all be building blocks for
a healthy and lovely society
Guidelines
for selecting
new
stories
What
to report
* Introduce a new interesting NGO (the focus should be on their
ideas
and activities, and not on mere publicity)
* An interesting idea or an approach for solving a social problem
* A new happening or development that will be relevant to a large
number of readers
What not to report:
* Advertisements
* Notice about events
(like a talk) that might become irrelevant soon. However we encourage
you to write stories on the ideas or learnings from such events.
How to report
* Before you submit, search the NGO post website to see if there is
an
overlapping news already. In that case, it is better to like the
original story, and add your content to the discussions of this story
* Write a sufficiently thorough
description. Add relevant videos/images/attachments if they are not
available at the link you are submitting
* Prepare a short summary (avoid video/images/attachments in this),
preferably different from the description.
* Make sure you select the appropriate category.
* Provide a link/reference to the story. This adds credibility as
well
as allows interested readers to follow up on the subject.
Comparison
with
other alternatives
| |
Communities on Networking
Websites (eg. Facebook) |
Traditional News Websites
(eg. GoodNewsIndia) |
Mailing Lists, Yahoogroups |
NGO
Post |
| Users
generate stories |
√ |
X |
√ |
√ |
| Users
select good stories |
X |
X |
X |
√ |
| Filtering
poor content |
X |
√ |
X |
√
|
| Follow
up discussions |
√ |
√ |
√ |
√ |
| Content
Categorization |
X |
√ |
X |
√ |
| User
Customizable View |
X |
X |
X |
√ |
| Content
Embedding (videos, images, doc, pdfs
etc) |
X |
√ |
X |
√ |
| Networking |
√ |
X |
X |
√ |
| Link to
related content |
X |
√ |
X |
√ |
FAQ
-
About NGO Post
Who
can contribute?
You don't have to be working wth an NGO to contribute to NGO Post.
Anyone who
has an insightful story can share it on NGO Post.
Besides contributing
content, is there
any
other way I can
help
NGO
Post?
The usefulness of NGO Post depends on the number of people who
contribute
information to the website. You can help us in reaching more people by
telling
about NGO Post to your friends, writing a blog about and providing
links from
your website to NGOPost. Spread the good word!
What if someone submits
irrelevant
stories?
We expect irrelevant stories to be automatically buried as a
consequence of user
ratings. There will be some censorship (though we try to keep it
minimal) of any
content that's inappropriate or completely unrelated to NGO Post's
theme.
Is NGO Post a commercial
website? Who
maintains it
and why?
No. NGO Post was started by
Parul and
Nitin and is currently
managed by a
team
of young students and professionals interested
in applying technology for social development. We do this for our
interest, and not for any financial motives. Feel free to provide us
feedback
here
or contact us by email (contact [at] ngopost [dot] org).
What about the privacy of
my
information?
We will not distribute the email ID or other information of our users
to anyone
else (
Privacy
Policy).
FAQ - Using NGO Post
What is RSS?
How do I subscribe
to
RSS
feeds?
This article gives a nice
overview of RSS.
You can subscribe to our RSS feeds through any RSS reader, such as
Google Reader, iGoogle, My Yahoo, Bloglines, Newsgator, Netvibes etc.
We provide RSS feeds for Popular Stories, New Stories, as well as for
each Category (see the Categories box on the right side panel).
How can I subscribe
to NGO Post
popular stories
by email?
At the
bottom of this
page, you will find
a box where you can enter
your email id to
subscribe to our Popular Stories by email. We will send you at most one
email every day with the popular stories of that day. If you are not
comfortable with RSS, then subscription by email might be a good
alternative for you.
What
is a
"Like"?
A Like is like a vote in favor of a story. It is a democratic
system where
users together have the power to decide which stories are most
insightful and
interesting, and the ones with the more number of likes are promoted to
the
front page of NGO Post. However, we may use some moderation if needed.
What is Bury?
Bury removes a story from your view, and adds as a negative like for
the story.
How do I add links
to other websites
in my
stories?
Using the <a> tags, like this:
<a
href="http://www.google.com">My Google Link</a>.
This
will
appear as
My
Google Link
in your story. Provide the website address within the quotes.
How do I put
videos in my stories?
Simply copy the "Embed" code from YouTube or any video site you are
using, and
paste it into the Description field of your story. The embed code may
look
something like this:
<object width="425" height="350"><param
name="movie"
value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TuNkrQ_26Bw"></param><param
name="wmode"
value="transparent"></param><embed
src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TuNkrQ_26Bw"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
wmode="transparent" width="425"
height="350"></embed></object>
How do I add documents
(Word/PDF/Powerpoint/MP3) to my stories?
We do not allow attachments. However, we provide a more elegant method:
embedding. First, you submit your document to a hosting site such as
Scribd,
SlideShare
etc, and then get the embed code for the document. Follow the same
procedure as described for embedding videos. This may sound a bit
tedious at first, but the viewers are much more likely to see your
document when displayed beautifully in the browser, instead of
downloading a big fat attachment.
How do I display images
in my
stories?
We do not allow attachments. If the image is available on a website,
follow two simple steps:
1. Copy the URL of the image (in Internet Explorer: right click on the
image and go to "Properties" at the bottom. In Firefox, right click on
the image and click on "Copy Image Location").
2. Add the following piece of code into the Description of your story
(paste the URL between the quotes):
<img
src=" ">
Make sure the image URL starts with http:// and ends with
.jpg/.gif/.png/.bmp etc. If the image is not available on a website,
you could upload the image
here,
and then copy the URL from "direct link to the image".
What are Tags?
Tags allow to label stories with relevant keywords, and proper tagging
helps in searching for stories later, as well as in finding related
posts.
What is Tags Cloud?
Tags cloud is a commonly used representation to describe what tags have
been used. Tags that are used more often are shown in larger size.
What is Live?
Live tells about the recent activity going on in the website.