OpenAustralia.org, ANTaR & little and LOUD

As I’ve mentioned previously Zumio’s charter is to donate 1% of net profit to organisations doing good things in the community.

OpenAustralia.org

For the July-September 2008 period I chose OpenAustralia.org.

OpenAustralia.org is a volunteer run organisation that makes the workings of our Parliament more transparent, by transforming the (inaccessible) Hansard transcripts of Parliament into a more accessible (both technically and socially) form.

Ever since I first heard about OpenAustralia.org, when I met Matthew Landauer at Jelly Sydney) I’ve been excited by the project – I see it as a really important part of our Democracy and am dumbfounded why this isn’t something the Government already does.

OpenAustralia.org is not yet established as a charitable organisation as yet, so I hope the funds can go some way to helping them achieve that goal.

(You can follow OpenAustralia.org on their blog or via Twitter.

ANTaR

For the October-December 2008 period I chose to support ANTaR (Australians for Native Title and Reconcilation). My friend Priscilla has been working there for some time and I’ve been impressed with their grassroots advocacy work, more recently around Indigenous health.

little and LOUD

On a related note, my wife and I, along with members of our families, don’t do gift giving for each other at Christmas; instead we collectively donate our funds to a chosen organisation instead. This year, we chose little and LOUD, a charity co-run by Rhoda Lazo – a friend and colleague who I met when we both worked at Digital Eskimo.

little and LOUD is “… inspired by children and their natural ability to creatively express themselves in a way that communicates beyond borders and spans all backgrounds, cultures and ages. This is how Little and LOUD began and how it continues to this day.”

They are currently running a project with Fote Primary School in the Solomon Islands. While not directly Zumio-related, I wanted to give little and LOUD’s work a shout-out here as I’m a fan of what they do.