CatComm Announcement: Omidyar Network Community Award!

This week CatComm received word that the Omidyar Network has granted us a $10,000 community award in support of our Casa community networking hub and website's Community Solutions Database in 2006!

Here is our posting on the Omidyar Network's site...

Posted to: Local Global group on the Omidyar Network site by Theresa Williamson, Fri, 16 Dec 2005

For the original post & responses, visit: http://www.omidyar.net/group/localglobal/news/22/

Hello All!

I am just thrilled right now to be writing with some wonderful news: I've received word from Susan Megy that Catalytic Communities has been chosen to receive a $10,000 community award from the Omidyar Network to support our Casa in Rio and the Community Solutions Database on our site at http://www.catcomm.org! Woo hoo!!!!

Now bare with me as I have many, many people to thank, all of whom have made this year for Catalytic Communities, and for me!

Thank you to Onetters Jean Russell, Michael Maranda, Norbert Mayer-Wittmann, Brandon Sanders, Rose Vines, Anne Marie Bellavance, Ted Ernst, Mark Grimes, David Bale, Julie Caldwell, Christina Jordan, Michael Herman, Sally Duros, Greg Murray, and Sue Braiden for being catalysts in this process!!! Thank you also to Lenore Cowen, John "Eyeclectic", and Antony Wachira for your support and interest in this work over the past months!!

Daniel Bassill, Tom Steinberg, Chris Macrae, Ellison Horne, Gabriel Grant, and Justin Bellew have shared your complementary efforts with me this year -- all of you are undertaking projects with fantastic opportunities for collaboration with CatComm's work, and I can't wait to explore these ties more thoroughly in 2006!

In addition to the Onet Community, there has been something ultraspecial about the reception CatComm has been given by the Omidyar Network staff. The three staff members I've met, Thomas Kriese, Susan Megy, and Dena Jones, have been encouraging in a way that I have seldom experienced elsewhere, and are helping to change my perception of what is possible as we slowly and carefully undertake this important work of changing the world, one community at a time...

I can't stop there, however!! 2005 has been a pivotal year in my life, having gone through immense changes in my internal and external, personal and professional life. As such, I find myself reflecting as the year comes to an end, and realizing what an immense role Onet has had in the transition I've experienced since mid-year, which not coincidentally was when (A) the most difficult period in my life began taking a turn towards recovery, and (B) I found myself in Chicago amidst an amazing, supportive group of people...

In these few short months on Onet I have found like-minded people, from all walks of life, ready to brainstorm and provide significant insights on just about any topic CatComm could hope for as we strengthen our work, several of which have taken CatComm on as their own, something I dreamt about before... I have found friends, a few of whom I know I will be close to for the rest of my life... I have realized the power of online communities in a way that, even with the work we are doing!, I had not dreamt of being possible before... and now this?! What an amazing way to complete 2005, with the vouch of support from the Onet Community that is this Award.

There is something so special about this network, I can't stop telling the world about it! And now to have this work recognized in this way, too! Wow, I couldn't feel more realized. Thank you, everyone.