Vote for a stronger nonprofit sector

Many of us watching the U.S. election are probably wishing we had the chance to vote. Unfortunately, without American citizenship our chances aren't great. The good news? Until October 12th, we have the chance to vote on ideas that will drive change and build a stronger nonprofit sector. All that it takes is a quick read of this blog, and a few clicks.

Here’s your mission should you choose to accept it:

The Opportunity:

Ontario is in the middle of a consultation to find the best ideas for their commitments to the Open Government Partnership. Ideas have already been submitted on themes ranging from enhancing accountability, public participation, access to data and innovation in Ontario. Now, they are asking the public to vote on the ideas that they want to see the government commit to working on.

We submitted an idea for the sector that builds on a previously successful commitment we obtained from the Federal government. We need your help to make this one successful too.

Our idea:

We think that the Ontario government should:

Develop a new standard for publishing grants and contributions data with input from open data experts, policy makers and non-profits to ensure that the information published is detailed and structured enough to be useful for a wide variety of stakeholders.

Why is this important?

One of our main objectives at Powered by Data is to create an enabling data environment for the nonprofit sector. This means making sure all stakeholders in the sector have access to the data they need to make informed decisions. But we are still missing key datasets to create that enabling environment. If adopted, our proposal will lead to more data being unlocked for the sector.

How to vote:

The way the voting is set up requires you to vote on one idea per theme. Each theme is on a different page. Our idea is on the 3rd page under the Public Participation section. It is the fourth one from the top:

As for the other proposals, there are too many to cover in detail here. So we created this online spreadsheet with annotations about those ideas that impact either the entire nonprofit sector as a whole, or sub-sectors like the environment or health. You can use that to guide your other choices while voting.

VOTING FINISHES ON OCTOBER 12th. SO GO VOTE NOW TO HELP STRENGTHEN ONTARIO’S NONPROFIT SECTOR.