We've just made a video to promote our entry in the America's Giving competition - please forward it to friends and colleagues, and put it up on your blogs and websites!

And donate $10 today! Only two weeks left...

We've just produced a new video, which celebrates all the Green Maps that were published in 2007. The Wall of Maps in the Green Map office is rapidly filling!

Feel free to share this video on your own blog, Facebook, or MySpace pages!

And remember, there's only two weeks left on the Global Giving Challenge - we're in with a really good chance of winning $50,000 - so please pass it around your friends and networks to encourage people to donate!
More details about the challenge in our blog
You can donate at http://givingchallenge.globalgiving.com/dy/registry/ag.html?regid=899&cmd=prevfund

Global Green Map – Going Live in 2008!

"“If the best greening resource in the world is just around the corner, but no one knows about it, what good can it do?”
-Yelitza Espinosa, Pereira, Colombia Mapmaker

Project Description

It's an exciting time at Green Map: we've just started work on our latest project - the Global Green Map. GGM is an interactive open world map that will connect people of all backgrounds with local resources and best practices for sustainable living. Scheduled to go live in mid-2008, this multi-lingual Google Map-based compendium will display the full range of green living, nature, social and cultural sites already appearing on hundreds of published Green Maps alongside those contributed by global content partners and the wider public.read more »

I’m planning to develop an online tool that makes it really easy for any Green Mapmaker to build an online Green Map. A lot of people have been asking for something like this, so I want to make sure that it’s as useful as possible.

This is a big project, so I think there will be three stages:

• 1) Mapmakers can set up an online Green Map which is available on our website at a subdomain (e.g. newyork.greenmapearth.org)
• 2) Mapmakers set up their online map on our site, but can then copy and paste special code to their website to insert their online Green Map into their own website
• 3) Mapmakers who have experience of web development can build the whole thing on their own website and own database, so they don’t need to use Green Map’s website at all.

Number 3 is really a separate project, and a lot of great work has been done on this already by Cork Green Map (www.corkgreenmap.org). read more »

Google have a fantastic grants program for non-profits in certain countries:

http://www.google.com/grants/index.html
USA, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK

Any Mapmakers in these countries who are non-profits can apply, but it's a pretty slow process.

Though this grant program Google has given Green Map lots of free Google Adwords (the ads that show up down the side when you search for stuff on Google) and we can use these to bring people to GreenMap.org. So Tom (the other Tom), Annie & Kali have all been putting together some great Adwords and in just a few days have increased the number of people coming to the website by over 100 a day!read more »

I have just updated the website to make it much easier and quicker to add a Green Map to your account.

1. Log in to your account
2. Click on 'My Maps' in the blue menu on the left hand side
3. Click 'Add a Map'
4. Fill in the basic details for the map - Title, themes, set the location, provide a brief introduction and a longer overview, say whether it is published or not, enter the date the project was started, and upload an image. Click Submit, and your Green Map is online!

5. Now you can add more detail. When viewing the map click the orange 'edit' button at the top of the page
6. You can now go through the long form adding information. It's good to save regularly by clicking 'submit'.read more »

I set up the website so that the public can comment on blogs and photo albums and a few other things on the site. Until now if they weren't a registered mapmaker their comment had to be approved by me before it showed up on the site, which could take a couple of days if they commented at the weekend.

But from today their comment will show up immediately, but they must first type the letters and numbers that are shown (a captcha - more info about captcha at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha).

So let me know how this goes - if people have problems with the captcha, or if you notice spam comments on the website.read more »

If you have contributed financially to the Green Map network people now know this when they look at your profile - supporting and sustaining Mapmakers now get stars on their profile!

If we've missed anyone who should get their stars, let me know.

If you want to become a supporting or sustaining mapmaker, donations can be made at http://greenmap.org/greenhouse/about/donate or on any other page of the website. Supporting Mapmakers have paid double their required Mapmaker fee; Sustaining Mapmakers have paid triple their fee or more.

If you have any information in the Wishlist section of your Green Map Profiles, this is now featured on the wishlist page in the Donations section: http://greenmap.org/greenhouse/about/donate/wishlist

To add stuff to your Wishlist you just need to:

1. log in to your account
2. click on one of your Green Maps on the list on the left hand side of your account page
3. click the orange 'edit' button at the top of the page
4. scroll down to section D (Results & Impacts) number 9 (Wishlist) and type in what you're after
5. click 'submit'