I used to work for a wonderful nonprofit tech project called NetSquared – great people doing awesome work. They’re about to have the second annual NetSquared conference and here’s the text of an email they sent out – check it out and help them help awesome nonprofit groups if you can. Billy Bicket, the author of the email below and a very smart man, tells me that this year is going to be very different than nonprofit events in the past. I think you’ll agree.

You already know that we are going to do it again.
NetSquared Year Two (N2Y2) is set for Cisco on May 29 and 30. Last year
was a great conversation. This year, it’s all about action.

We will be bringing together the resources – money, talent, and
committed individuals – to accelerate 20 social benefit technology
projects. Those 20 projects will have a chance to compete for cash from
the NetSquared Innovation Fund, which will be awarded at the conference,
following a NetSquared community vote.

There’s a lot to making those two sentences happen. We all have plenty
of to dos – some are ours and some are yours.

Our own Billy Bicket has spent the last 30 days working with key
advisors (find the N2Y2 Advocates, to date, and Advisors here
http://www.netsquared.org/2007/partner/advocates) to hone the guidelines
for those 20 projects. When projects are nominated they are posted here
http://www.netsquared.org/projects.

Now, we’re turning the process over to you. We’re looking for a total of
20 Featured Projects. You (or the project itself) can submit nominations
here. On 4/6, we’re closing the nominations; and on 4/9, we’ll start the
voting. On 4/16 we’ll announce the winners. Two reps from each of the 20
Featured Projects will receive an all-expense paid trip to NetSquared.

And that’s just for starters. At NetSquared the Projects will make their
pitches to developers, funders, helpers, thinkers and disseminators.
Every project should receive a big boost and a few will get a nice
dollop of cash on top of it.

So, that’s what you are going to be working on – nominating and then
selecting the projects. Here is what we’re working on back at NetSquared
World HQ: Getting the conference paid for, bringing in the resources to
put dollars into that Innovation Fund, and making sure that conference
is filled with a mix of resource-full folks who want to come together
and make a difference.

So, specifically, please:

1. Nominate a project (which probably means getting the project
sufficiently jazzed to nominate itself [we’ve kept it pretty simple and
non-time-intensive. Cut and paste message for you to send to your
friends and favorites, below)

2. Review the nominated projects as they are entered, so that you can be
an informed voter in the first week of April.

3. Please stay tuned (patiently) about public ticket distribution. Our
motto this year is “no attendees; only participants”. We are working on
outreach to assure that the various needed constituencies are ‘in the
room’. After that, we expect that we will have approximately 50 tickets
open. We will be posting a simple form on the website in April, whereby
those interested in participating can tell us more about how they plan
to contribute to the success of the conference.

4. Are you willing to be listed as an Advocate again this year? Please
drop me a line and it shall be so.