IT3S - Instituto de Fomento à Tecnologia do Tercei

The Mootiro community’s first workshop, moderated by IT3S - Instituto de Fomento a Tecnologia do Terceiro Setor, took place on October 20th and 21st at the Ação Educativa headquarters in São Paulo, Brazil. The workshop’s 30 participants, members of 18 nonprofit organizations took part in intense sessions, with the purpose of constructing the activity of the now functional Mootiro network.

We have had a fruitful event, where we have managed to:

define expectations (regarding IT3S and the workshop in general, the Mootiro tool and the paradigm shifts in the construction of knowledge) present IT3S’s work methodology, define the types of projects for which the Mootiro tool will be useful define the roles in the network assemble the phases of a project generate functionalities for our software learn more about useful organizational tools (MootiroForm and Redmine) discuss about the functioning of the Mootiro network elect community moderators learn how other networks work and how Mootiro has supported them (i.e. RBCB and Rede Andi Brasil).

 

It was an innovative experience for everyone involved, as we had the chance to witness the birth of a community where ideas will be shared in a collaborative manner.

This point was proven even from the workshop’s first exercise, where the participants were divided into 3 random groups and were asked to generate a list of expectations with regards to the event. It was no surprise to see that a great deal of the the final result consisted of common points from all the lists: creating a collaborative network for the nonprofit sector, developing an useful tool for Nonprofits, creating strong bonds between the members of the network etc.

Even more commonalities emerged when our participants generated the phases of a project, which were categorized into 4 steps: conception, planning, execution and monitoring, assessment and accountability. This exercise was particularly useful for us in IT3S, as it gave us an insight into the working methods of other entities involved in the nonprofit sector and therefore showed us a little bit of what they need.

The real revelations, though, came when all the people present started to generate functionalities for the Mootiro Project Management tool. Putting themselves in the shoes of a person involved in a Nonprofit, the participants explained what they would like to do with such a tool and to what end. Again, this was very important for us in IT3S, as we managed to further understand the needs of our partners.

In the true spirit of a collaborative entity, the Mootiro community will use tools designed for the sharing of information. Our own device, MootiroForm, combined with communication facilitators, such as Google Docs and Redmine, will be used to gather and disseminate knowledge between the members. We are going to innovate our organizations from within in order to bring a real change to the third sector.