There are two ways to use the new Resources Wiki.  You can search and read it to find resources that may be of help to you, and you can also edit it, adding new pages or correcting existing entries.  That’s because a “wiki” is a shared web-document that offers editing power to its readers.

• Reading the Wiki

Our Resources Wiki is an encyclopedia of social entrepreneurship. 

As a reader, you can take two main approaches to finding the resources you need within the Resources Wiki. 

If you point your mouse at the "Resources" tab below the Social Edge logo at the top of any page in our new site, a drop-down menu will allow you to choose a particular section of the Wiki – “Concerns, Problems and Solutions” for specific topics such as human rights, homelessness, or hunger and famine, “Tech Resources” for pointers about the use of computers in the field, useful software, the charitable recycling of old computers and so on.

On your first visit, your best bet may be to click on that Resources tab, rather than using the drop down menu – this will give you a brief description of each section of the wiki, and allow you to familiarize yourself with its overall structure.

That, in a nutshell, is the most direct way to access material on a specific resource or topic – but many of our entries could have been places under a variety of headings, and even if you find an appropriate heading or sub-heading to read, it’s also worth using keywords and the search function to catch other items, which may have been filed in other parts of the encyclopedia, and which also touch on your area of interest.

Thus “Technology Grant News,” which covers upcoming grant announcements and news about computers and technology from the government, technology funders, trade associations and private foundations, is filed under the “Technical News for Social Entrepreneurs” sub-heading of the “Tech Resources” folder – but if you looked under “Funding” you’d miss it. 

So the most effective way to use the Resource Wiki is to search first using the category headings under the “Resources” tab, and then using appropriate keywords – describing the area of the world you’re dealing with, problem your facing, etc. – with the search function, to pick up on additional resources.


• Editing the Wiki

Our Resources Wiki is a reader-edited encyclopedia.

By “reader-edited” we mean that it is built along similar lines to Wikipedia, the well-known online encyclopedia. Like all encyclopedias, it aims to provide a wide coverage of people, organizations, ideas and things of interest within its topic area – in this case, the convergence of for-profit and non-profit approaches to improving -- or perhaps even “healing” -- the world we live in. 

But like Wikipedia, it does this not by paying a bunch of experts to write “definitive” articles, which in some areas are frequently outdated by the time they are published, but by inviting volunteers – Social Edge members in this case – to contribute articles on their own organizations, the social entrepreneurs they admire, or books and other resources that may have inspired them.

Anyone who is logged in as a Social Edge member can edit the Resources Wiki, adding new entries or correcting existing ones. Your enthusiasm, editing and new entries are what will take this project from seed form to fruition. And the encyclopedia is still in its beginning stages, so there is plenty for us all to do.


Questions? Comments? Join in the conversation!