KaiserEDU.org invites undergraduate and graduate-level students in all disciplines to submit an original essay for the website's annual competition. Students are asked to submit entries by March 17, 2008 in response to the following topic:
Topic:
The date is November 24th, 2008. You have just started a job as an analyst working on the President-elect's health care transition team. The director of the transition team has asked you to draft a memo to flesh out the health priorities for the new Administration on a major health policy issue. Select an issue area and a candidate (from the list below) and identify the major policies or strategies that the Administration could develop to advance this issue. Make sure to include evidence and analysis to support your recommendations. Your priorities and strategies should be consistent with the proposals forwarded by the candidates in the campaign. You should also address the challenges in implementing your recommendations, such as budgetary and political considerations, delivery system issues, and how different stakeholders and constituencies would perceive the proposals. Your memo should not exceed 800 words.
Issue Areas:
* Controlling Healthcare Costs
* Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities
* Expanding Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Efforts
* Improving Women's Health
* Improving the Quality of Health Care
Presidential Candidates (as of 1/22/2008):
Democrats
- Hillary Clinton
- John Edwards
- Mike Gravel
- Dennis Kucinich
- Barack Obama
Republicans
- Rudy Giuliani
- Mike Huckabee
- Alan Keyes
- John McCain
- Ron Paul
- Mitt Romney
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
KaiserEDU.org Essay Contest
Monday, February 25, 2008
Film Your Issue Short Film Competition
FYI - Film Your Issue is an unprecedented, ambitious outreach to young Americans to engage them in the public dialogue about pressing issues of importance, locally or nationally.
We want to know what young people think, we want to empower the next generation of leaders to understand how their single voices can influence the public debate, and — as hoakey as it sounds — to understand the power of democracy — where every voice counts.
We want your passion, ingenuity, creativity, originality. We want to hear your heart, and see your talent in action.
Official Rules and Timeline
Length - Issue films should be no less than 30 seconds and no more than 120 seconds in length. We will accept a brief credit roll at the end, for a maximum five seconds beyond the 120 second limit.
Format - Live-action or animated.
Deadline - April 14, 2008
Who Can Participate - Anyone age 14 to 24 at the time of film submission. Certain prizes have age and citizenship requirement. Please check individual Awards and Prizes for eligibility.
Style and Content - This is important: we want mini-movies rather than dry Public Service Announcements. We encourage narrative — meaning a storyline. We’re not looking for lots of talking heads and scrolling text of facts and stats to tell the story. Show us dramatically rather than telling us.
Make us laugh, weep, gasp, grin.
And: Be Yourself. Share your issue. Be passionate. Be original. If it looks and sounds like something we’ve all seen for years, our eyes glaze over. Originality excites us more than whether it looks like prime-time.
Copyright and Broadcast Standards
You can’t use copyrighted music unless you have permission unless you have both publishing and licensing rights. (See copyright page). Original music, vocals and instrumentation, are encouraged.
Pay-cable is more liberal than network television. However Starz reserves the right to exclude any winning film from broadcast if it violates broadcast standards of decency, excessive profanity or copyright infringement.
Submission Format - All major media formats including:
* Video: .mpg, .mp4, .mov, .flv, .avi, .wmv
* Audio: .mp3, .wav
* Bitrate should be 400Kbs minimum
* Resolution: 320 by 240 minimum
* Maximum upload size is 100MB
When and how to submit - Film entries will be accepted after February 25, 2008. To be eligible for the competition, you must register at www.myspace.com/filmyourissue. Your film entries should also be uploaded at www.myspace.com/filmyourissue. You will also be given the option to have your film posted on Think MTV.
We also encourage you to post your film on your own on as many sites as possible, both for your own visibility and to promote the FYI competition. Use tags pertaining to the film's issue(s), as well as "Film Your Issue," "FYI" and so forth.
The sooner you create and upload your film, the sooner your film will get promotion and international visibility: Following February 25, the Associated Press will pick entries over the next six weeks to distribute to its 1,800 Online Video media outlets.
So the faster you submit, the more exposure your film can get.
Submission Deadline - April 14, 2008
The Voting Period - The voting period runs from approximately April 21 to May 4, 2008. From all entries received by the submission deadline, the FYI editorial team will select approximately three dozen films to continue to the public and Jury voting. All films submitted will be reviewed by the participating organizations for the joint awards selected by The United Nations DPI, The Humane Society of the United States, USA TODAY, NRDC, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation/ Strong American Schools, NAACP, Human Rights Campaign, P.O.V. Series.
Beginning on or about April 21, 2008, the semi-finalists will be submitted to the VIP Judges and FYI ThinkTank, which will select the FYI 2008 Jury Prize winner.
The semi-finalists will also be posted on a voting platform on MySpace Impact, where the public will have two weeks to view and vote on the finalists. The top-rated film will receive the FYI – MySpace Impact Audience 2008 Favorite Award.
Films posted on the Think MTV site will also be rated during a one-week period, and the filmmaker of the top-rated film will be profiled on MTV News.
Additionally, The United Nations DPI, The Humane Society of the United States, USA TODAY, NRDC, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation/ Strong American Schools, NAACP, Human Rights Campaign and P.O.V. Series will each pick one film from all submissions for the Award and prizing in its respective category.
All organizations reserve the right to decline naming a winner should none of the entries effectively articulate the suggested issues.
All winners will be announced on or around May 6, 2008.
Official Sponsor:
FYI - FILM YOUR ISSUE
1920 N. Alexandria Avenue, #3
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Sunday, February 17, 2008
NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR 2008 PURPOSE PRIZE
Every day nearly 8,000 baby boomers turn 60. Since 2006, anticipating this huge demographic shift and what it could mean for our country, Civic Ventures has been awarding The Purpose Prize–– five $100,000 and ten $10,000 investments in Americans over 60 whose creativity, talent and experience is transforming the way our nation addresses critical social problems. Dozens of other innovators received national recognition for their work. Now nominations are being accepted for the 2008 Purpose Prize. To nominate someone or apply yourself, visit www.purposeprize.org. The application deadline is March 1, 2008. The prizes will be announced in the fall of 2008.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
echoDonations.org™ Releases Web 2.0 Widget for Facebook, MySpace
Local Nonprofit Launches New Viral Marketing Tool
CINCINNATI, OH, January 28, 2008 – Today echoDonations.org™ announced the launch of its first Internet widget; a tool used to share information among millions of people who use the Internet in their daily lives. Demonstrating the capability to reach over 300 million sets of eyes, the widget provides a way for echoDonations.org™ to spread its message around the world.
Everyday more than 300 million people interact with each other online through over twenty social media websites. Facebook alone has over 60 million registered users, with numbers constantly swelling. “The widget is an incredible tool for online sharing,” according to the widget’s creator Ryan Rosensweig, Director of Web Marketing and Design at echoDonations.org™. “I believe that a new wave of viral marketing will develop quickly among nonprofit organizations as they seek new ways to share their mission with the world.”
As a sharing tool, the widget has been added to www.echoDonations.org, as well as other social media websites, such as MySpace, Facebook, and LiveJournal. Once added to a webpage, the widget has the capability to link to other sites and can be shared with other people who have accounts with a social media website or their own webpage.
The widget is a program in itself, which allows for advanced communication in a very simple, concise way. Its physical appearance resembles a button or badge on a computer screen, and contains a simple, clean message in the graphic.
Widgets are designed to spread messages as far and wide as the Internet will allow. Anyone who finds echo’s widget online can “click it,” “donate,”“grab it,” or “share it.” By “clicking” the widget, the user is linked to echoDonation.org and has the option of reading their blog. Secondly, the widget has a feature that allows its user to “donate now,” a button that links directly to echo’s donation page. Thirdly, by choosing the option on the widget to “grab it,” users can take the widget themselves and add it to their own website. Lastly, the user can “share it,” or invite others to add it to their website.
The widget provides a highly broad form of marketing, which is greatly needed in the expansive Internet world of today. No longer are marketers competing by word of mouth and billboards. Today, they must find new ways to reach out and captivate their audience.
About echodonations.org™
echoDonations.org™, the nation’s leading online charitable mutual fund, is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping charities start or grow their online fundraising programs by offering loyalty building cash rewards for donors to give more. More information is available at www.echoDonations.org.
CONTACTS:
echoDonations.org™, Michelle Matthews, 513.276.4332, ext 105.
michelle@echodonations.org
