IWith.org

Announces

Iwith.org is a non profit organisation whose mission consists of promoting information and communication technologies as a tool of solidarity and society progress.

At present Iwith.org, helps non profit organizations from four continents to communicate and work better over the Internet with the best Ab.core technological solutions .

Ab.core includes a platform of Internet services, that allow organisations to manage their Web and their projects without the need of technical knowledge, and thus create and administer users, contents, news, photos, bulletins, courses, projects, etc.

Iwith.org announces this iniciative, so that more organisations over the world can benefit from the Ab.core program and easily manage their presence on the Internet.

Participating organizations

The grant is addressed to small organizations with few resources that are obtaining with their work a positive and measurable impact on the improvement of people´s lives, society progress, eradication of poverty, support to infancy, decrease of the digital breach, emergencies or environment.

Proposals will have to be submitted via the official form properly completed before 15th January 2007. They will include a description of the organisation / project with their budget and targets.

Eligibility Criteria

Organisations that wish to apply for the grant must meet the following requirements:

Non Profit Organisations legally constituted in accordance with the legislation of their country.
They do not promote, practise or defend discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, age, disability or any other condition.
They have at least one person (volunteer or employee) in charge of updating the website´s contents (technical or HTML knowledge is not needed).
They have an annual budget lower than 200.000 € / 250.000 $
They have a maximum of three employees (equivalent to 120 weekly hours of paid work)

The grant

Each of the chosen projects will be exhibited in Iwith.org´s Showroom * in order for cybernauts and specially Iwith.org´s stakeholders to:

Know them
Vote for them
Support them with a positive message
Or eventually contribute with a donation

The jury will select three projects, which will benefit from Ab.core program, including everything that is necessary to have a professional web and easily update it during three years:

Need analysis concerning the use of Internet.
Option to buy and/or transfer a domain name.
Web design
Ab.core communication pack and basic services
Email accounts management
Services configuration (news, events, bulletins, etc.)
Templates for updates
Users' configuration and permissions
Publication of initial contents
Managers and users training
Maintenance and support until 31st December 2009

In return, successful organisations will have to contribute with:

Writing, correcting and managing the contents, texts and images they want to publish in their website.
People in charge of the website maintenance
Sufficient computer equipment and Internet connection

As a result of the need analysis and when the jury finds it necessary, Iwith.org will contribute with technological resources to manage virtual communities and schools, online training and virtual offices.

Resolution

The jury´s evaluation criteria will be based on:

Positive and measurable impact on people´s lives improvement, society progress, eradication of poverty, support to infancy, decrease of the digital breach, emergencies or environment
Quality of proposals submitted
Clear information on the organisation´s budget and good management
Votes, support and donations received through the showroom

Web projects that benefit from a donation as a result of being advertised in the showroom, will be excluded from the group of finalists in order to give a chance to every organisation.

The proposals selection and the jury decision concerning the grant awarding will be inappealable.

The deadline to submit proposals is 15th January 2007.

The jury will communicate the proposals selected on 1st February 2007 through Iwith.org´s Newsletter.

Barcelona and Nyon, 9th November 2006.

* Showroom is a tool that allows NGOs to show their projects on their website with detailed information on what they do, their budgets, pictures, ... so that Internet users donate, vote or endorse a specific project.

* The jury has considered that an initial budget of 100.000 € was too restrictive for organisations of some countries or geographical areas. This is why we have decided to extend the grant to organizations with an anual bugdet that doesn´t exceed 200.000 € /250.000 $. In order to avoid unfair disadvantage among organizations of different countries, the jury will give special attention to those organisations whose anual budget is proportional to their size and the socioeconomic conditions of the country where they are based.