With Web of Change only a few weeks away, we're very excited to be hosting the largest and best organized conference yet.
I founded the conference 7 years ago, on the advice and guidance of my mentor Joel Solomon at Renewal Partners, who is also the board chair of Hollyhock, where Web of Change takes place. At the time Joel suggested I start a conference in the rainforest that connected leaders in social change and technology, I said "cool, but I only know 3 of them". That year, 28 folks made their way to Cortes Island (10 days after Sept 11 no doubt) for a mind-blowing experience and we've been gaining momentum and changing people's lives ever since.
Take Jodie Tonita and Phillip Smith, who showed up in year's 3 and 1 respectively. Both were working in the corporate world, with exciting work but for organizations they didn't really believe in. Both were interested in connecting their values with their careers but, other than volunteer work, didn't quite know how. Both came to Web of Change and literally transformed their lives, by getting connected to our community. Phillip soon thereafter started Community Bandwidth , and Jodie brought One Northwest to BC. They are now 2 of my best friends, Web of Change co-convenors, and real social change heros.
This year is set to be our best ever. We will be filling up Hollyhock (which, to keep the environment intimate and our footprints light on the land, can only hold a max of 90 people) with incredible participants from all over north america and the world. We've raised more sponsor dollars from visionary companies and foundations than ever before (which enables us to flow through over $14,000 in scholarship subsidies to nearly half our participants), and have produced a killer agenda focused on uncovering the leading trends in social technology and social change.
We have an incredible speaker's line up which includes Martin Gill , who managed the online department for the world's largest interactive event, Live8 last year. He also managed the MakePovertyHistory campaign, and has some amazing stories to tell about raising millions of dollars, collecting millions of signatures, and hosting offline events with heads of state, all powered by the web. He is coming all the way from the UK. Our other keynote is Madeline Stanionis , formerly President of San Francisco and DC based kick-ass online fundrasing firm DonorDigital , and recent author of the best selling book on raising money with email. Mad will be sharing her experiences and hilarious stories gleaned from 10 years working with the largest and most successful progressive US orgs. These two are not to be missed.
This is an exciting time of year when all our hard work culminates in another 5 days that will change people's lives and help us change the world, and ourselves. We still have a few spots left, if what we do speaks to you contact us soon to get on our waiting list. Or, check out our website and wiki after the event as we'll be posting some of the hightlights from the many sessions.
