Mark your calendars! Citizen Effect’s CitizenGulf project will become a National Day of Action on August 25th, in alignment with the week of the fifth anniversary of Katrina. The benefit — to be promoted by Gulf Coast Benefit — seeks to help fishing families find a new, more sustainable future by providing education resources for their children.

You Can Help Many

Catholic Charities of New Orleans is the beneficiary of all CitizenGulf National Day of Action donations. Catholic Charities of New Orleans is the beneficiary of all CitizenGulf National Day of Action donations. Citizen Effect will send 100% of donations, less credit card fees, directly to Catholic Charities to support education programs for fishing families

There are three things citizens like you can do to help:

1) Attend or host your local event

2) Donate

3) Support Gulf Coast Benefit’s Pepsi Refresh project.

Donations can be given directly through the main CitizenGulf project page.

A Day of Action Means Jazz, Blues, Zydeco, and More

Events will be meet-ups at places that can accommodate the following: People, hurricanes, New Orleans themed music (i.e. jazz, blues, zydeco) and a local green or environmental expert who can say a few things about the oil spill’s impact on the marine environment and the Gulf Coast economies associated with it. Registration will be $10.

Social Media Club has signed on as a CitizenGulf project partner and will help Gulf Coast Benefit promote the CitizenGulf events. Cities that have already signed on to host events include Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York and Washington, DC. A full list of cities and details on how to register and participate will be available on the Gulf Coast Benefit web site no later than August 1.

We Are Actively Seeking Event Hosts, Sponsors and Attendees.

We are actively seeking hosts and sponsors to lead official events in many cities, organize Social Media Club local events and host unofficial awareness meetings. Email us at for more details.

Gulf Coast Benefit’s Pepsi Refresh project will be our third action, and will be open for voting on August 2 (stay tuned for updates). The week of the national day of action, Citizen Effect will also offer CitizenGulf opportunities for individuals to engage in their own citizen grassroots projects throughout the fall to benefit fishing families; education, healthcare, food, etc.

In addition to Zoetica’s support, additional promotion partners for the national day of action include Andy Sternberg, El Studio, Live Your Talk, Sloane Berrent, Taylor Davidson. Thank you so much for everything you and our caring supporters have done to support CitizenGulf. The project is now yours!

Allison Fine

Allison is the co-author of The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change, with Zoetica Founder Beth Kanter, a new book set to be published by Wiley & Sons this summer (You can pre-order on Amazon).

Along with Zoetica’s partners, Beth Kanter, Kami Huyse and Geoff Livingston, Fine will serve Zoetica clients with a depth of online communications knowledge. Like the rest of the team, she will work virtually from her office in New York.

Allison is no stranger to consulting. She spent twelve years running Innovation Network, a consultancy that provided planning and evaluation services to nonprofits and foundations. Since 2005, she has consulted with foundations and nonprofits on social media strategy and research. Her impressive client list includes the Case Foundation, the Overbrook Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the League of Women Voters, the Ad Council, Personal Democracy Forum, the Whitman Institute, and Citizens for Active Civic Engagement.

She is also the author of the award-winning book Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age (Wiley & Sons, 2006). Fine is a Senior Fellow on the Democracy Team at Demos: A Network for Change and Action in New York City. In 2008, she published a paper on young people and activism commissioned by the Case Foundation called Social Citizens(beta), and edited a collection of essays, Rebooting America, about transformative ways to reinvent 21st century democracy using new media tools. 

Allision also hosts a monthly podcast for the Chronicle of Philanthropy called Social Good and authors A. Fine Blog. Her articles have been published in the Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, and she is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post, Personal Democracy Forum, Alternet and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

And if all that weren’t enough, Allison promises to head the Zoetica snack committee and she likes chocolate. She will fit right in. Now, we are off to create our mascot and fight song! Allison, you are on!

Find Allision online:
Website: http://www.allisonfine.com
Blog: http://afine2.wordpress.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/afine

You can also check out the official press release (which will self destruct in 30 days, after which you can just click on the thumbnail)

Zoetica CEO Beth Kanter returned from India this week, and will be working out of the Bay Area this week. You can read about her reflections on India’s NGOs and corporate social responsibility movement here.