St. Louis has lots of organizations at the community level. There are lots of opportunities to provide input on all sorts of community initiatives. However, if you want to have a positive impact on the results, you need to apply your efforts in the most effective way possible.
With the internet, print newsletters, and countless other means of community organizing and public communication, where would you start if you were trying to influence change or policy in the community?
3 comments:
Talk to your alderman. That's the most important thing you can do.
Know your audience?
Here's what I decided to do:
I have become interested in alternative currency & money systems over the past year or so, and I was amazed with what I learned regarding the system that Grace Hill was using to empower it's local community members. Here's the link:
http://www.gracehill.org/neighborhoodservices/NS.L.MTDE.htm
So, I decided that I'd setup and promote a similar system for the greater St. Louis area.... So, back in January. I’ve started a non-profit service called the Saint Louis Community Exchange, presently accessible via http://saintlouis.lets.cc/
It's a world-wide exchange system with multiple local outlets that facilitate trading & bartering within a community. What's neat is that this isn't direct bartering; instead, you get to choose what you want from a growing list of goods and services, while offering anything that you can to the community at large. At the same time, everyone is encouraged to list their want-to-haves, so others can fulfill their needs.
It's a neat system and I'm looking to attract a large population of users. Getting the more people involved from the greater St. Louis community would be a great way to share common resources & skills while helping those with financial difficulties gain access to goods and services they would otherwise not have access to.
Also, I have a promotion going on where I'm giving 20 "Favors" (the unit of currency we use) to users who can bring in more members.
If Grace Hill residents could reasonably provide savings of almost $500k for each other, let's see what we could do for each other across the entire St. Louis Metro area.
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