An idea for a charity forum thingy

So, I'm posting this on a rather defunct blog I used to write, not 'cos I'm planning to restart it (although I might, thinking about it) but because I couldn't think of where else to put this so people could access it easily.

Here's the idea I'm trying to get my head around and am hoping to have other people help me turn it into something useful. First a bit of context...

Last week was unexpectedly inspirational. First off, the MyCharityConnects conference (including a quite splendid presentation by @TopsAtWarChild, @RyanTaylor and @Withoutayard). That was followed by my first creative meeting with War Child ad agency, john st (more later if I decide to restart this) and then the john st dinner, with a talk by Richard Florida on the seismic shift in the economy that we're currently living through (creativity is the new black, apparently). So there I was on Friday trying to process all this and an idea came to me based on some revelations/reminders during the week.

It occurred to me that charities tend to live in a permanent state of competitiveness, furiously guarding their ideas and strategies from the prying eyees of their peers. What MCC made clear is that if charities started collaborating more and helping each other with problems, we could all benefit and make our sector significantly more creative, productive and efficient. I know I have seen other people's campaigns and thought, 'that's great but if only they had done x or y, it would have been awesome.' And I'm pretty sure others have looked at War Child campaigns or fundraisers and thought the same.

At the same time, it became clear that there is a great pool of creative talent in Toronto (particularly among the tweeps) that like to contribute ideas and some time to help out charities and social causes, but don't want to tie themselves to any one organization. They just want to help out on cool stuff but also have their own job to do for most of the week.

So, I'd like to create a forum where charity people and creative people can get together and improve ideas and make things happen. This could be a monthly, informal tweetup, or it could be an online forum where charities could post problems or ideas that need a new set of brains to make fantastic. It might need nothing more than a hashtag. It doesn't, and shouldn't be, time-consuming - it just needs to be fun for all concerned.

I guess what I'm suggesting is that we take the energy from MCC and make it something ongoing and real. A place where creative people can make good ideas great and help out good causes in the process. It will probably take a shift in attitude from those orgs who want to join, and it will have to be based on trust (ie we won't steal each others ideas). It may need to be a personal thing - Tops rather than Topsatwarchild.

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking. a little half-baked but hopefully worth a beer or to to discuss. You in?