Localizing Global Change: Issues and Opportunities

The momentum of community is rising. Please join us! ...for More and More. More and more people. More and more resources. More and more easy. More and more connected. More and more green. More and more power to do good things, in more and more local neighborhoods and organizations.

Three years ago, some of us convened a small but national conference on the future of philanthropy, technology and community action. Two years ago, more of us joined in to create a second and international conference which was also the first-ever omidyar.net members conference. Last year we did it again, and along the way these conversations have sparked half a dozen more conferences and action on at least four continents.

All the while, you've been busy doing what you do... hosting and attending green dinners, community gardening, blogging, digital inclusion, chicago conservation corps training, growing food, organizing block clubs and parties, depaving your yard and inviting neighbors, restoring a riverbank, planting native prairie in your local park, organizing your neighbors to work with the alderman or CAPS to get a camera, or get one taken out, recruiting volunteers, organizing safe routes to school, buying organic foods, experimenting with new tech ways to connect people, and with less tech ways of living, driving less, recycling more, ensuring all differently brained people are seen as human beings, seeing to it that the ADA laws are followed, all social activists are supported and nurtured, urban chicken egg farming and block clubs and traffic calming and peace parks and anything else people are "doing."... and noticing that more and more people are getting together for global community good.

We're focusing on "doing" this year. All good work. All kinds of local action. We are most actively inviting those we know who are "doing" in Chicago neighborhoods, but we welcome good people from everywhere. Bring your own local doing to share. We want to do more and more in all localities, and do it more together.

This year's conference will follow the same simple and active format as all the previous conferences. We'll gather for one big opening, create a working agenda that includes all of our most important issues and questions, meet with friends and colleagues to actively address everything on the agenda, document and publish our notes online, and head back out into all the things we are doing with more energy, more clarity and more connections.

The momentum of community is rising. Please join us! ...for more and more global good on the ground where you live.

WHEN?: July 19-22, 2007 ...music and barbecue on Thursday night, conference all day Friday and Saturday, finishing by noon on Sunday, with airport drop-offs or excursions for out-of-towners on Sunday afternoon.

WHERE?: TBA (Possibly in or around Waters School in Lincoln Square)

WHO SHOULD COME?: Anyone who wants to get more and more into community, technology, environment, and other social justice kinds of work and practice. Anyone who wants to make more and more connections between all these sorts of things. And anyone who wants to have more and more fun and friends in the process of community leadership.

WHAT TO BRING?: Food to eat/share, materials to show/share, ideas and questions, issues and projects that you care about and want to inform and be informed by others AND a total of $40 (scholarships may be available) to pay for basic costs of site and materials for all three days of meetings.

NOW WHAT?: Send an email to register@globalchicago.net (or any other address we like), make a payment at paypal (details forthcoming), forward this invitation to friends and colleagues, people you work with -- and people you want to work with. we'll send you details about places and times and be glad to answer any other questions. Stay tuned to http://www.globalchicago.net for more information.

...cuz people who do stuff need to know more people who do stuff.