Internet Strategist to Share Secrets of Online Organizing With Baltimore Groups

BALTIMORE—Senior Internet strategist Rob Stuart will discuss how Baltimore non-profits can use the Internet to become more effective at an Open Society Institute-Baltimore forum on Thursday, April 22.

A Summer 2003 Nielsen-NetRatings survey found that the number of people who went online in the last 30 days is fast approaching the number of registered U.S. voters. Stuart has spent years working with non-profit organizations to help them take advantage of the potential of this digital revolution. At the forum, he will be sharing lessons from his work with national political and advocacy organizations, including MoveOn.org, Environment2004, Oceana, and the Council for a Livable World.

"We want to go beyond making groups more efficient by using technology to enhance their traditional communications strategies," says Stuart, a senior vice president of @dvocacy, Inc., an online political advertising company and the president of E-Volve Foundation, the company's philanthropic arm. "We are going to be talking about how Baltimore groups can develop new forms of organizing and new types of communications through technology and the Internet."

According to Stuart, who is currently working with Progressive Maryland to help them better communicate with thousands of state residents, the public is growing less receptive to older organizing and fundraising strategies like direct mail or phone campaigns. New Internet communication strategies will allow non-profit groups to facilitate self-organizing and empower more local groups and citizens to engage in social issues on their own terms.

"The Internet presents amazing potential for increasing the speed, scale, and affordability of advocacy work," said Diana Morris, director of OSI-Baltimore. "By learning from leaders like Rob Stuart, Baltimore advocates can better mobilize our community to face the challenges of the 21st century."

This event is part of Forging Open Society: Generating Ideas, Partnerships and Solutions, forums convened by OSI-Baltimore to encourage community leaders with diverse perspectives to craft solutions to challenges facing the Baltimore region.