I want to give a quick shout out to GovLoop and Adventures for the Cure. GovLoop, the “Facebook for Government,” wound down a great year with a charity contest that used crowdsourcing tech to allow members to nominate and vote for charities and to raise money by inviting friends and completing challenges. The contest ended up with more than 100 charities in the running, and 3,000 votes.
Thanks to new members and four stalwarts who completed the challenge, GovLoop donated $1,789 to Adventure for the Cure, a charity startup (also a cycling team!) created by two Gen Y govies that funds diabetes camps for kids in U.S. and Kenya. GovLoop members are also raising money for developing country entrepreneurs through our own Kiva lending team.
If your a government employee or contractor and haven’t yet joined GovLoop, hopefully 2010 will be your year. The community is also discussing opening up the site more to non-members, making it easier to share great news and share best practices from inside local, state and federal government.

~ Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of the Gov 2.0 Radio podcast. Follow him on Twitter @adrielhampton.