USCRI Asks You to "Stand With a Refugee"

USCRI has launched a "Stand with a Refugee" campaign to raise awareness about the 17 million refugees who have fled war and persecution around the world. Their team tells us that "As the Obama Administration plans to implement a new foreign policy, we are trying to build a coalition of informed people who care about refugees and will tell the Administration to pass legislation that protects their human rights."

The video below is part of that effort along with a pledge accessible at their website.

For nearly 100 years the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants has acted to address the needs and rights of persons in forced or voluntary migration worldwide by advancing fair and humane public policy, facilitating and providing direct professional services, and promoting the full participation of migrants in community life.

Echoing Green Launches "Spark Social Change" T-Shirt Contest

Our friends over at Echoing Green, the organization devoted to scouting and funding new talent in the social entrepreneurship realm, have launched a cool, new t-shirt design contest, using Crowdspring as their platform.

The winning t-shirt will be sold on Echoing Green's website, and the money will go toward supporting their "core programmatic model of identifying and supporting promising social entrepreneurs with bold solutions." Anyone can sign up and anyone can vote.

A panel of fashion-industry expert judges will help award the prize ($250), including Echoing Green supporter Joon Ma, from Louis Vuitton, and 2007 Echoing Green Fellow Adam Bucko of the Reciprocity Foundation.

All entries are due March 31st @ 4pm EST.

Social Change Through Social Media at 2009 SXSW Festival

Everyone is talking about the SXSW Festival, coming up next week in Austin. It is, after all, the place Twitter launched two years ago, and a Mecca for the digerati.

So how do social justice and SXSW intersect? Here's a look:

Plutopia 2009: Co-founded by Worldchanging and The Futures Lab, Plutopia uses music, art and performance to encourage attendees to imagine an infinite number of possible future utopias. This year's theme is 'Living Systems,' and will feature entertainment from local, national and international performers and speakers from the fields of futurism, technology, sustainability, media and art. Plutopia will take place on Monday, March 16, 2009 from 6 p.m. to midnight at Palmer Events Center in Austin.

Social Media Nonprofit ROI Poetry Slam: Representatives from the National Wildlife Federation, Humane Society, American Cancer Society and others will present five-minute poems or stories about how their organization has successfully implemented a social media strategy experiment and how they considered the ROI. That happens March 14, 2009 at 5 p.m.

Convio Clicks Session: A roundtable discussion about how nonprofit organizations and grassroots activists can embrace new media for fundraising, outreach and empowering supporters. Participating in the panel will be Convio's Vinay Bhagat, leading nonprofit industry bloggers Beth Kanter and Holly Ross, and a former member of Obama's social media strategy team, Scott Goodstein. Takes place March 15 at 4 p.m.

Social Media for Social Good: Hosted by communications powerhouse PorterNovelli, this event will take place on March 16 at 11:30 a.m.

VIDEO: Scenes from the "Climate Justice" Rally in D.C. March 2, 2009

From afterdowningstreet.org: "A huge and spirited rally demanding 'Climate Justice,' was held in Washington, D.C., on March 2, 2009. This video reflects some of the crowd scenes from that event; interviews with activists Anne Havemann of Chesapeake Climate Action; and Kate Lally of Baltimore's Rising Tide; and a speech from Washington, D.C. Council Member, the Hon. Tom Wells (Ward 6). For background on the rally, click here."