A new internet-based “social action platform” will come to life in Manchester. We twisted the arm of its creator to write the following;

James Duggan, one of the organisers of CityCampMCR (http://www.citycampmcr.org), was last Friday (June 22nd) granted £7,500 from the UMI3, Faculty of Humanities (UoM) Social Enterprise Innovation Competition (http://www.umi3.co.uk/social_enterprise_competition.htm).

The money will support the development of WeaveMCR, a place-based, social action platform.  WeaveMCR will develop a common platform, in the form of an online social action platform, to bring institutions and individuals together in mutually-beneficial relationships around social innovation projects.  The platform will do this by making opportunities to collaborate visible and rewarding/ recognising acts of collaboration.

The platform will function by providing social innovators with an online space to post and explain their ideas and then convene the stakeholders in Manchester who can provide the intellectual, relational or financial resource to make that project happen.

If you would like to learn more about WeaveMCR please contact James (duggan.jr@gmail.com).

MCFly says: Is this a game-changer? On its own, clearly not.  Please do not write in telling us that people in Harpurhey or Gorton don’t use the internet.  We know this.

Will Weave on its own create a social movement around climate change?  Don’t be silly.  Will it help the existing “movement” (if you look hard you can see bits of it) grow quicker than if Weave didn’t exist?  Yeah, maybe.  It is most definitely worth a shot…

We are going to be working with James around the steadystatemanchester.net project.  Watch this space (and that space!)