[uf-discuss] hCard for nonprofits

[Dimitri Glazkov]

Hi Marnie,

Sorry for not replying earler. BarCampBirmingham ate my homework.

> Rather than having mulitple databases scattered around and spending
> staff time updating and verifying information, I think microformats
> can be used to mark up a nonprofits about page in a way that allows
> the data to be maintained in one place and displayed in many.

Sounds right along of the talk that Tantek gave at NetSquared.

> But I'm not sure how to represent the NTEE code.  Is the below correct:
> <div class="vcard">
>  <div class="adr">
>   <div class="org fn">
>    <div class="organization-name">CompuMentor</div>
>    <div class="street-address">435 Brannan St., Ste. 100</div>
>   <span class="locality">San Francisco</span>,
>   <abbr title="California" class="region">CA</abbr>
>   <span class="postal-code">94107</span>
>   <span class="category">T40—Voluntarism Promotion</span>,
> <span class="category">W50—Telephone, Telegraph and Telecommunication
> Services</span>,
> <span class="category">U41—Computer Science</span>
>  </div>
> </div>

This sounds about right, although it would be cool if there was an
authoritative source of NTEE codes, so that we could convert them to
tags:

<a rel="tag" href="some.gov.or.org.authoritative.source.of.ntee">U41--Computer
Science</a>

This would allow you to not worry about having to define sub-formats
for marking up category titles, I think.

> 2. Nonprofit also need to display the area in which they provide
> service. This might be limited by zip codes, counties, state or
> countries.  I'm not sure how this could be marked up. In the above
> example it is:
> Service Area: United States, Canada
>
> What would be the best way to represent that?

I think that's a separate hCard. I don't know how it fits into org hCard though.

> 3. While the NTEE describes the category and subcategory to which a
> nonprofit belongs, it might be useful for an organization to indicate
> that they are a registered nonprofit or nongovernmental organization.
> This, I could imagine, would help extend this internationally (the
> NTEE code is US) and might be what is searched for when figuring out
> the display-side of the problem.  So, should nonprofits identify that
> they are nonprofits? If so, should that just always be the first
> category or is there a better way to do this?

I also see this as a tag of some sort... I don't know for sure.

> 4. I think the benefits to nonprofits are greater solving multiple
> entry/multiple database problem above.  Do these sound like reasonable
> benefits to you all:
> * By using microformats, nonprofit organization can keep their about
> current and marked up appropriately and not spend time updating their
> entries in any I&R databases.  Individuals and organizations wishing
> to display service providers within one service type, region or a
> combination of both, can use microformats as the base for the data
> they display and be able to spend fewer resources keeping a database
> current.
> * Marked up data can allow nonprofits core information to by displayed
> in unexpected ways without any action on the part of the individual
> nonprofit.
> * The nonprofit controls the infomration about themselves and does not
> have to worry that others will get incorrect input information about
> the nonprofit.
> * Using tools such as the various greasemonkey scrpits, flock and
> firefox extensions, individuals can easily add information about a
> nonprofit to their address books.
> * Can map services to locations on a map which can be a nice display
> but also help to show locations lacking certain service types

This is a good summary, and I am sure there are more points that the
collective wisdom of uf-microformats can bring up.

:DG<