Three great community-building sites

In: Community

4 Aug 2010

Here at CommuniTeach, we are all about finding new ways for people to connect with their neighbors. Our favorite way to do so is by creating opportunities for people to teach and learn from each other for free, but we wanted to take a moment to recognize a few other great websites with similar goals.

1) A Space Apart - This cool Chicago based startup enables people to communicate with both the local business they are frequenting and their fellow patrons. You can ask questions to others, post your thoughts, or request a coffee refill. Once you realize how friendly and helpful everyone is in your space, you’re just a teeny tiny step away from real in-person interaction with the java drinker next to you.

2) Neighborgoods - CommuniFounder Ben and I have been a fan of this site for a while. It’s kind of like a CommuniTeach for stuff. You post what you have to share and what you need and can search within your zip code to find your perfect product soulmate. They offer both free sharing (yay best thing ever) and renting (slightly less then the best thing ever but still pretty good). The site started in LA but just launched nationally a few months ago, which is neat.

3) Freecycle - If you have something you don’t need anymore, you can give it away for free to someone who needs it using Freecycle. No money, no glory, just good old fashioned environmentally friendly kindness. It doesn’t seem as community focused as the other two sites, and all postings go through message boards and listserv emails. But what it lacks in social network bells and whistles it makes up for in being useful and huge, with over 7 million users worldwide.

Got another favorite community site that helps people connect with neighbors in real life? Post it in the comments. We’d love to learn about more of our community building website brethren.

Learn to knit, crochet, and cook…for free

In: Event

1 Aug 2010
Hi Pittsburgh CommuniTeachers!
We have some great Social LearnIts in the works! Click to RSVP for these free classes from your neighbors:

And we have a bunch more coming up as well. RSVP and you’ll be notified when dates and locations are finalized:

Questions? Feel free to hit reply.

Thanks!

Ben

CommuniTeach

One year of CommuniTeach

In: Funding| Social Enterprise| Updates

18 Jul 2010

In the past 12 months, CommuniTeach…

…was awarded a Sprout Fund grant to help improve the lives of young people in Pittsburgh

…teamed up with a fantastic group of Chicagoans to organize Learnapalooza, an amazing festival with 77 free community classes and over 350 participants

…was featured on TV! Jared Hoffa extolled CommuniTeach’s virtues and demonstrated how to use our website on MomTech, part of WCIU’s You & Me in the Morning. WCIU is a Chicago-based television station.

…had a fantastic writeup in the Pittsburgh City Paper

…organized Social LearnIts in vegetarian Indian cooking, swing dancing, guitar, yoga, knitting, pool playing, beer brewing and more

…received $1000, free office space, and amazing mentors through our selection as a Scalewell grantee

…and much more!

All and all, it was a great year. But the best is yet to come. Ben and I are excited to keep the momentum going as we expand CommuniTeach and work towards a world where vibrant free learning communities exist everywhere.

So stay tuned…should be fun.

My Quest to win Ideablob

In: Funding| Social Enterprise

31 Aug 2009

As some of you know, CommuniTeach is currently a finalist for the Ideablob competition. Whoever has the most votes by tonight at 12:59 CST will receive $10,000 to fund their idea. We are currently in third place, and every vote counts. Please spend thirty seconds voting for us at http://www.ideablob.com/ideas/6091-CommuniTeach-learning-platform

Below is our journey so far…it’s full of hope and woe. Want to make sure it has a happy ending? Vote for us on Ideablob RIGHT NOW.

Day 1-3! The third sprint begins, and CommuniTeach is off! I tell 20 of my friends to vote and they all do!  More friends told to vote. More votes. 99% percentile! We rule!

Day 4: Soft Maps is actually pretty cool. I want to vote for them NO WAIT. Gah!

Day 7: At precisely midnight we see that CommuniTeach is in the Ideablob finals! I’m amazing! Wait err I mean the CommuniTeach idea is amazing NO WAIT IT’S TOTALLY ME! Yeah ok, no, CommuniTeach. Gotcha.

Day 8: In the finals! All hail us! All hail us! Oh dear, we spent all of Day 8 hailing us, and not telling people to vote. We have only 50 votes, and Boycott Marriage Act has 200. Neat idea actually, but not CommuniTeach! We’re in 6th place. Grrrrr.

Day 9: I stumble across a post written my new friend and change.org rockstar Nathaniel Whittemore. Saweet! I talked to him on the phone about Ideablob two days ago! He must be telling people to vote for CommuniTeach!

Day 9, (10 minutes later). I read his post…it’s telling people to vote for Boycott Marriage Act. Blast.

Day 9, later that day: Who cares about the blogs. CommuniFounder Ben and I come up with perfect strategy to win Ideablob – make hilarious viral youtube videos that millions watch!  At the bar, a random patron teaches us how to swing dance so we can film it for the video. This is what CommuniTeach is all about! I love CommuniTeach!

Day 10: First video is up! Second one too! Millions of voters, here we come!

Day 10 (later that night): 200 viewers is not the same as 200 million. blast. Still, up to 4th place. Reaching the limit of how many times I can IM my friends telling them to vote before they hate me. Oops, just passed the limit. Oh dear.

Day 11-12 Emailing out all your friends, family, relevant blogs, and everyone else in the world while also juggling a 65+ hour a week job can’t be as tricky as it sounds. I can easily work 8am to 10pm chugging away at my job.Then go 10pm to 4am doing CommuniPromotion. Simple right?

Day 13 Spend the day storming UIC dorms. Freshman love us! We’re king and queen of the world (while maintaining a platonic CommuniRelationship). All of them will vote! RAs promise to email out other RAs. We move up to 3rd place. I develop weird hacking cough thing, as well as involuntary shivering. I need sleep.

Day 14:  We spend the day at the Bucktown Arts Festival meeting strangers and telling them about CommuniTeach. Get more votes, but still behind the leaders. I consider getting married to spite Boycott of Marriage, but then decide against it. And what on earth is a Kitabu? Oh, it’s a cool sustainable development model. Shoot. Still, CommuniTeach!

Day 15: It’s 4am, and I’m still at the Pumping Station One hackerspace, developing voter strategies during their hackaton. I <3 hackers. They’re so intense and passionate about creating things. Much like me, except with real practical skills. I join their space.  They let me email zillions of hackerspaces.

Day 16 (today): Last day of the competition. My dad emails entire office.  Ben emails all hackerspaces. I write this blog post at 4am, and then curl under blankets…I am so sick. Balancing 65+ hours of work with CommuniPromotion is exactly as difficult as it sounds.

CommuniTeach, even though thou art killing me, I love thee so. And giving up just isn’t very socially entrepreneurial. We are obviously going to win. But  even if we don’t, we’ll keep on building CommuniTeach so that people everywhere can start learning great skills from all the amazing people in their communities for free. CommuniTeach! Rah!

Want to help plan a Chicago Learnapalooza? First planning session this Sunday at 12:30pm!

In: Event| Group LearnIt

18 Aug 2009

Last week, I had a great conversation with Rosalyn Lemieux, social entrepreneur extraordinaire, about her work founding and running  LearnapaloozaDC. A Learnapalooza is, as you can perhaps guess, is an all day learning event where community members attend to a variety of community taught classes, learn cool stuff, and have a great time while doing so. Rosalyn and her volunteer team organized two DC Learnapalooza events, one in 2007 and one in 2008. Thousands of DC members were able to teach and learn classes like How to Knit to Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Giant Pandas.  Neat, right?

Community building…teaching and learning…free and awesome…Learnapalooza sounds right up CommuniTeach’s alley, yes? We agree, and that’s why we’ve decided to explore the possibility of planning a Learnapalooza in Chicago *cue streamers and squeals of happiness and joy*.

The first planning session is going to be this Sunday at 12:30pm, at the Map Room in Wicker Park/Bucktown, at 1949 N Hoyne Street . It will be a pretty casual and open discussion for everyone who has any interest in sharing their thoughts on what should be an incredibly fun and rewarding event. Everything’s on the table, from the date (do we push for winter or wait until spring?) to what mini committees there should be (teacher recruitment? PR? Sponsorship?), to snack policies for future meetings.

RSVP by writing a message in the comments section of this post, and email me at sarah@communiteach.com if you have any questions or thoughts. I look forward to hearing your advice on ways to make Learnapalooza Chicago the greatest Palooza of our time. Get excited!

Good Capital: A little return, a lot of good

In: Social Enterprise

17 Jul 2009

Life as a social venture start-up like CommuniTeach can be tricky, particularly when you’re contemplating your need for capital while in a non-profit/L3C/for-profit identity crisis. On the non-profit side, traditional grants and foundations don’t exactly jive with your social entrepreneurship sensibilities and desire for unique models of revenue generation and financial sustainability. But the idea of going  to a venture capital fund, or anyone really, and easily articulate that yes, you see their point about high returns, but no you don’t think maximizing your profits is the most important thing compared to the social return on investment is…rather painful to contemplate as well. Perhaps you will get incredibly lucky and snag and Echoing Green or Ashoka fellowship and use that support and prestige as a launching pad for your organization…but until then, you sometimes feel rather stuck.

Luckily, a few innovative venture capital style vehicles are trying to step up and fill that space of providing capital to social ventures that provide a substantial social return on investment while at least considering the financial return or revenue generation aspect as well. One such organization that I recently came across is Good Capital.   According to their website,  “Good Capital is an investment firm that increases the flow of capital to innovative ventures creating market-based solutions to inequality and poverty. Using a high engagement model, we invest in the most promising social enterprises and give them the tools and guidance they need to succeed.”

Sounds good, yes? What’s even more interesting is that Good Capital is apparently open to funding both non- and for-profit entities. For non-profits, it appears they offer some sort of low interest venture debt and additional non-financial support, while in the case of for-profit entities offer venture capital with the expectation of less then market rate returns but extremely high social impact. They also charge a management fee, which at least partly supports the additional advisors and consulting support Good Capital provides to the ventures they fund.

Good Capital, and other funds like it, will play a critical role as the social enterprise space continues to mature. By providing social enterprises with access to the critical capital and support structures they need to scale up their initatives without compromising their social mission, these new funds are ensuring that social entrepreneurship will continue to flourish and grow in the coming years.

Cocktail-Mixing Group LearnIt this Saturday at 9:00pm in Pittsburgh!

In: Group LearnIt

13 Jul 2009

Ever wanted to learn how to mix a killer cocktail?

This Saturday, July 18, at 9:00pm, is your chance, at the first ever Pittsburgh CommuniTeach event! It will be a Group LearnIt on how to mix alcoholic beverages, with instruction from a real live retired bartender, Aarthi!

You can also learn some rock piano from Ben Paul. It will be a rocking time.

$5 donation is suggested to cover alcohol expenses.

It will be at a private house in Shadyside, so I will email you the location once you RSVP.

Please RSVP by writing a message in the comments section letting me know if you’re interested in teaching or learning. I will follow up with you to give you more details.

Excited to see all of you this Saturday at 9:00pm! It is sure to be a fun night.

Five tips for traveling on a budget

In: Uncategorized

9 Jul 2009

Several people on CommuniTeach have expressed an interest in learning how to travel cheaply. Traveling on the cheap happens to be one of my specialties, and I’m happy to share a few of my tricks.

1. Before you go anywhere, join that city’s Couchsurfing network. Couchsurfing is an incredible network of travelers all around the world that are happy to show you around the city, make recommendations for a great night out, and even give you a couch to sleep on for the night. It’s not about the free couch so much as the cultural exchange that makes this network truly special…but the free couch is nice too.

2. If couchsurfing isn’t your thing for beds, hostel it up. Find the cheapest place with good reviews on hostelworld and book a bed in a shared room. It’s safe, fun, and you’ll make great friends. When I was traveling Europe, I stayed in a combination of cheap hotels and hostels. The cheap hotels were…terrible. No amenities, no friendly travelers, no television, no food.  By contrast, the awesome Hostel Mostel I stayed at in Bulgaria that was something like $12 a night including breakfast, beer, and a spaghetti dinner. Amazing. As one caveat - never stay anywhere that has any record of bed bugs.

3. When negotiating, pick a very very low price. But then stick with it. Be firm. Be repetitive. If they turn you down, just move on. Don’t start to inch up and meet them halfway or the process will be endless and you’ll end up paying more than you should. I discovered this three months into my travels in India. For my fourth month, I got nearly everything I wanted for ridiculously cheap.

4. Eat street food. It’s delicious and super cheap. You will probably get sick from it at some point, but suck it up. Buy cipro before you go.

5. Ok, not gonna lie. I can’t think of a good 5th tip at the moment. But top 4 sounded lame, so I rolled with it.

Feel free to send me a LearnIt request if you want to hear more about how to travel cheaply, including a 5th tip that I shall try to think up. Also, feel free to suggest your own traveling tips.

Cheers!

Cooking Breakfast Foods Group LearnIt this Sunday at 1:30pm in Chicago!

In: Group LearnIt

9 Jul 2009

Know how to cook french toast? Interested in mastering the glory that is quiche? Just want to have a great time and perhaps a mimosa on a Sunday afternoon?

Well, you’re in luck. This weekend, CommuniTeach will be having our first Group LearnIt for Cooking Breakfast Foods! The Cooking Breakfast Foods LearnIt will be this Sunday, July 12th, at 1:30pm. It will be at a private house in River North, so I will email you the location once you RSVP.

Please RSVP by writing a message in the comments section letting me know if you’re interested in teaching or learning. I will follow up with you to give you more details and get a list of what ingredients to purchase if you are cooking.

Looking forward to seeing all of you this Sunday at 1:30pm! It should be lots of fun!

MIT World shares all lectures with the public. Cool!

In: Uncategorized

5 Jul 2009

I just come across this great website that shares all major presentations and speeches at MIT with the masses. According to the site, “These free, on-demand videos, available 24/7 to viewers worldwide, reflect and extend MIT’s educational mission—to provide the best education in science, technology, and related fields—to engaged learners anytime, anywhere”.  Topics range from creativity to environmental sustainability to US-Iraq relations. I haven’t had time yet to check out a lot of the podcasts, but they seem great.

This is the kind of project that every university should provide. There are such incredible learning resources on college campuses, but often it is only the select few (aka university students, educators, and wealthy people) that get to absorb and access the most innovative ideas. Sharing lectures online is an important step towards providing educational opportunities and inspiration to everyone who wants to learn.

Kudos to MIT for being so rockin’.

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