When animal rescue worker Jessica Almeida moved from Los Angeles, CA, to Salt Lake City, UT, she discovered that small breeds are rare in Salt Lake City.  As Rescue and Transfer Coordinator for the Humane Society of Utah, she found vacant cages at the local UT shelters and long-waiting lists of families eager to adopt small dogs.

In contrast, the Los Angeles metro area euthanizes approximately 60,000 animals per year.  Robin Harmon, Adoption Manager of Best Friends Animal Society of Los Angeles, sees county shelters flooded with homeless “purse dogs,” or small breeds that have become popular fashion accessories thanks to Hollywood films and celebrity trends.

How could these organizations work together to achieve their shared goal of saving dogs from euthanasia? The answer: Pup My Ride, a van shuttle service from Best Friends Animal Society of Los Angeles to the Humane Society of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Joining the collaboration, The Jason Debus Heigl Foundation, provides funding for the shuttle services and celebrity star power.  The Foundation, was founded by actress Katherine Heigl and her mother, in memory of their son and brother, Jason, who died tragically young in a car accident. Jason loved animals and the foundation supports nonprofit animal rescue efforts and other animal rights programs.

Today, Pup My Ride transports 20-30 small dogs, twice a month.  With nearly 3,500 dogs saved by Pup My Ride in its first 2 years, Best Friends Animal Society is exploring national expansion of the program.  If you represent a shelter that has a shortage of small breed dogs for adoption, email RobinH@bestfriends.org or donate $5 by texting PUPPY to 90999.

We looked back to the way in which our team announced the Prize in 2008 in order to plan the 2011 Prize announcement.  We found that some of the print sources we used in 2008 are long gone and while others are still around, their print readership is now far surpassed by their online readership. Some blogs have also come and gone. Twitter wasn’t even on our radar in early 2008. In two short years, the Prize team has had to rethink and revamp our communications strategy. Luckily, we have great partners in the Williams Group who are helping us navigate those decisions.

More importantly – knowledge and interest in the sector regarding the use of collaboration has changed dramatically.  Lois Savage and Jerry Hirsch at Lodestar were true pioneers in understanding and promoting collaboration as a strategy that could yield bigger, better outcomes. Today, they are at the forefront of a movement.

As we worked with the Foundation Center who has built an amazing new resource on collaboration, we began to surface a  dozen foundations around the country who are fostering collaboration in their own communities. For example, there are nineteen funders in Cleveland who have launched a Human Services Strategic Restructuring Pilot, while in New Jersey, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation is nurturing collaboration among their grantees. Plus, Whitney Johnson at the Anschutz Family Foundation in Denver is playing a pivotal role in creating a Colorado Collaboration Prize, and the Foundation For The Carolinas has built the Community Catalyst Fund to support innovative partnerships, collaboration and strategic mergers.

How exciting is that?

We’ll be working with the Lodestar Foundation and AIM Alliance in reviewing and evaluating the applications for the 2011 Prize that will be accepted between June 1 and July 16.  I can’t wait to see what has been happening out in the sector since the last Prize process.

Like we found while conducting La Piana Consulting’s NonprofitNext research initiative and described in our Convergence report, today’s nonprofit sector leaders are finding innovative ways to achieve their missions through collaboration.  These futurists aren’t just looking at how to combine Organization A plus Organization B.  They are saying, “Why do we need to take on one model or the other or a blend of the two?  Let’s start with the question: how should we organize our programs and operations to have the greatest impact on our mission?”  They are essentially throwing out the old and looking – with great creativity and fearlessness – at entirely new ways to work.

As we approach the 2011 Prize, we have to ask what new ideas have great nonprofits come up with that will help inform the sector and drive the next round of innovation around collaboration?   I can’t wait to see the answer.

To learn more about Sustainability and how nonprofits are participating in this growing movement, we spoke with Holly Brunk, Membership and Services Coordinator at The Natural Step Network in Portland, Oregon. She remarked on how in many ways the Sustainability field illustrates emerging trends called out in Convergence, such as sector blurring and the use of networks. By its very nature, this work must engage all sectors in developing solutions to complex problems. Brunk described how the evolution of what began as a primarily ecology-based framework into a more comprehensive vision including economic and social components has helped broaden the dialogue and even bring together those who may have traditionally seen one another as adversaries. “Adding financial and social sustainability frameworks to what has traditionally been just environmental creates more spaces for bridging that gap and finding common values,” she added.

Such cross-sector bridging is the topic of an upcoming webinar presented by the Healthy Eating Active Living Convergence Partnership, a funder collaborative seeking policy change to realize the vision of “healthy people living in healthy places.” The May 25 webinar, Strategies for Multi-Field and Cross-Sector Collaborations, will focus on partnering across fields (from health to urban planning, transportation, food and sustainable agriculture, and community/economic development) to build thriving communities. Is your organization prepared to work with others toward a more Sustainable future?

As described in the New York Times, Ushahidi is being used by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an advocacy group dedicated to reducing accidents at Louisiana refineries, to collect and log reports of the effects of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  It relies on witnesses to self-report via tweets, texts, e-mails and online submissions spill-related damage.

In addition to logging the reports, Ushahidi provides organizations with a platform to create community and organize.   For instance, Snowmageddon: The Clean Up not only tracked snow-related problems (cars stuck, individuals in need of assistance, potholes, etc.) it encouraged individuals to report  Solutions (snowblower available, shovel to share, cleanup party).

Some of the projects that are using Ushahidi:

• Sudan Vote Monitor is a Sudanese civil society initiative that used SMS to monitor the elections in the Sudan.
• Chile Crisis Map is tracking the post-earthquake crisis response and recovery efforts in Chile.
• Haiti Crisis Map is tracking the post-earthquake crisis response and recovery efforts in Haiti.
• Wildlife Trackers is a citizen science project to track wildlife in Kenya.
• Connection GeoMap, managed by Survivors Connect seeks to create a space to share critical information about trafficking and anti-trafficking activity globally, promote transparency in our efforts, engage communities and learn best practices, current challenges and needs in our global effort.
• Atlanta Crime Maps tracks crime in the Atlanta metro area.
• Stop Stockouts is an initiative to track near real-time stockouts of medical supplies at pharmacies (in a medical store or health facility) in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia.
• The Computer Professionals’ Union in the Philippines created the initiative called TXTpower, an effort to keep an eye on the mobile phone companies by ordinary citizens.
• The Cuidemos el Voto mashup was an independent platform that helped to monitor the federal elections of 5 July 2009 in Mexico.
• Swineflu.Ushahidi.com is a site to track the Swine Flu reports coming in from official and unofficial sources.
• Vote Report India was a collaborative citizen-driven election monitoring platform for the 2009 Indian general elections.
• Peace Heroes: Unsung Peace Heroes is a campaign developed by Butterfly Works and Media Focus on Africa Foundation. The goal is to nominate people who helped do positive things during and after the post-election violence in Kenya. Kenyan heroes are ordinary people who did extraordinary things for their fellow citizens or their country.
• Congo (DRC): Deployment to the DRC Congo
• Kenya: The initial mashup, used to track reports of incidents of violence around Kenya.
• South Africa: Used to map xenophobic attacks perpetrated against non-South Africans.

(excerpted from http://www.ushahidi.com/platform)

For more information on the platform and how to get involved, visit http://www.ushahidi.com/.

True to her reputation as a thought leader, she has again redefined terms in a recent blog post profiling “Four ‘Now Generation’ Leaders to Watch in 2010.” Beyond introducing us to the first few of a cadre of accomplished and innovative young leaders she will be continuing to profile throughout the month, she offers a wake-up call to our characterization of the so-called “next generation” leader by reminding us: the future is now.

“In 2010, the oldest of Generation Y will be 30 years old. No longer the ‘baby’ in the workplace, our peers, our organizations, and our communities are looking at us with hearts filled with hope to see what we will do, where we will take the crooked places in our world and make them straight. 2010 demands not that young people get ‘ready to lead’ but actually lead.”

Much in the same way that it is faulty logic to talk about how to “get ready” for a more diverse nonprofit workforce – diversity is here; if anything, we just all need to catch up – the “next generation” train has left the station. Young people have already begun to commit themselves to leadership roles, taking the reins of nonprofit organizations, and founding their own to fill in the gaps and create a more vibrant and future-ready social sector.

As these young leaders deploy technology-enabled communications and networking, they will build a dynamic community of peer learning and support that is sure to advance the sector as a whole. I can’t wait to see how it unfolds, and where it takes nonprofits next.

Download the Podcast with Beth Kanter and Michael Hoffman (.mp3, 4.5 mb) and tell us what you think.

To what extent is trust likely to be an issue, and how can networks effectively overcome the resistance likely to arise from those concerns?