Meyer Memorial Trust has launched Connectipedia.org, a great place to go to connect with the who's, what's, and where's of working for the commons good.

Grass Commons' open source wiki technology called Wagn (www.wagn.org) is the engine behind the newly launched information sharing site, Connectipedia. A project of Oregon's largest private foundation, Meyer Memorial Trust, Connectipedia (www.connectipedia.org) houses a web community that shares knowledge to support work for the common good – that is, foundations that fund good work, non-profit organizations serving the public benefit, civic groups, and public agencies with the same goals.

Ward Cunningham, the inventor of the wiki, spoke at the June 10 Connectipedia launch, calling Wagn “the freshest contribution to wiki since I coined the term 13 years ago. Wagn lets you express fairly complex relationships in a way that's simple, but powerful.”

Wikis allow online community members to create, edit, and link documents on the web, all while browsing. While blogs tend to celebrate individual opinions, wikis tend to celebrate community contributions and refinement. The best-known wiki is Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), a Web-based encyclopedia of knowledge that is developed and managed by volunteer members from around the world.

Marie Deatherage, Director of Communication & Learning at Meyer Memorial Trust, sees organizing information as vital to using resources well. “Connectipedia uses interactive Web tools that allow anyone to contribute and edit information, creating an ever improving and increasing body of collective wisdom, much like Wikipedia. Connectipedia is not a repository for original research or report writing, but it connects users to those who do research, publish reports, collect data, report findings, etc.”

Wagn's innovation is helping communities organize information more flexibly with a wiki-like approach to database-like structures. But Wagn feels much more like a website than a database; its simple web interface saves users from having to learn complicated syntax or terminology. It does so by breaking information into “cards,” which can be formatted, queried, and even included in other cards.

Ethan McCutchen, one of Wagn's creators, explains, “Wagn grew out of a project called Hooze.org, a website for sharing research about companies' social and environmental impacts. To make the research useful to shoppers as they shop, we needed a design that kept things succinct, personalizable, and highly organized — not usually wikis' strong suits. We wanted to be able to gather comprehensive information about candy bars without having to plop an encyclopedia in consumers' laps to read before they get their sugar fix. That's where the card idea came from: crisp, concise, tidy, and easy for groups of people to organize on the fly. Structure the Wiki Way.”

McCutchen and Grass Commons co-founder Lewis Hoffman hope Wagn will make it possible for web communities to build websites that would previously have required advanced coding skills. It's well on its way; different wagns are already being used for topics as diverse as community currencies, green schools, software development, and, of course, company impacts.

Company cards from the very first Wagn site, Hooze.org, will soon be available to web shoppers as they browse for products on participating sites, such as OsoEco.com, a new social networking site for green shoppers developed by the same team. Both sites work from the assumption that communities of committed individuals can build bodies of knowledge together that a few experts could never manage.

Meyer Memorial Trust, Wagn's biggest funder, took the same stance. “Rather than create a tool only our staff and trustees can use, we decided to build something that could be used by anyone doing good work in Oregon,” said Meyer's CEO Doug Stamm. “In addition to providing efficiencies for our staff, we hope it will make it easier for all foundations and non-profits to share what they know and find what they need.”

About Grass Commons

Grass Commons is a 501(c)3 public education charity whose mission is to make ethical purchasing easy. Grass Commons builds open source technologies to connect people researching products and companies with people using that information to build a more sustainable economy and a better world. To make a donation or to learn more please visit www.grasscommons.org.

About Meyer Memorial Trust

Meyer Memorial Trust is Oregon's largest private foundation, with assets of approximately $700 million. It has awarded more than $450 million to area non-profits since it began operating in 1982. MMT was established by Fred G. Meyer's will. It represents Fred G. Meyer's personal philanthropy and has no relationship with Fred Meyer Inc. Visit www.mmt.org to learn more.