Ontario Nonprofit Network

The Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN) is a network of networks that helps to build communication and coordination amongst nonprofit organizations working for the public benefit in Ontario. ONN brings together people and groups that want to work together to strengthen the nonprofit sector.

The work is action focused creating opportunities for the emergence of new ideas flexibly responding to opportunities and needs as they arise.

ONN's theory of change is that when the sector is better connected (the network) we will start to discover the needs and opportunities for collaboration (in constellations or communities of practice) that will lead to the sector being able to take action to affect changes that will benefit nonprofits in Ontario.

We started working with ONN in November 2008 after the initial development and design had been completed by designguru. Since then we've refined some of the workflow and design details and built out some of the engagement elements. The network has limited funding so most of the engagement with the sector takes places through the website and email. The new engagement elements include:

  • The use of organic groups to organize the "Initiatives." This was a great fit for what they were looking for and I was pleased to be working with OG again.
  • The "button". This was fun little widget we invented to raise awareness of the importance of the nonprofit sector as a whole.
  • Membership Listing I used webform and webform report to provide a simple interface to the existing bettermail membership signup form that automatically generated an editable membership listing.
Archived