Today at the Personal Democracy Forum, my buddy Matt Ewing announced the launch of his new Democracy Alliance venture effort that’s looking to spend serious seed money on progressive technology start-ups. From their site:

Unknown candidates are raising millions overnight. Huge Internet fueled movements are rising up from nowhere. Long-standing powerhouses are struggling to adapt. Progressives have reaped huge rewards by successfully leveraging innovation. New Media Ventures was created to make sure we can stay ahead of the curve.

Anyone got a good idea out there waiting for some seed capital? This is your chance!

Tides is now accepting nominations for the $10,000 Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest, an award that honors open source software developers who add significant value to the nonprofit sector and ongoing efforts for positive social change.

Nominations for the prize, the largest annual award in public interest computing, will be accepted through February 1, 2010, and the winner – the fourth to be selected – will be announced at NTEN’s 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference in April.

Complete application information for the Pizzigati Prize is online at www.pizzigatiprize.org.

It’s a clever name, and changing it is long overdue. The organization’s strategy had outgrown its brand. ONE/Northwest was an acronym, “Online Networking for the Environment.” Very techy; too techy. As their Executive Director Gideon Rosenblatt explained to me over beers once, “We started as the guys who crawl under desks. We graduated to websites. Then we graduated again to organizing strategy.” I’ve heard them describe that final piece as “engagement consulting” — a philosophy of deploying technology in ways that maps to best organizing practices, and even pushes those practices further.

Anyway, I could go on about how great they are, and smart, and productive, but you can visit their new site and see it all for yourselves.

Oh, and the pretty design was provided by Free Range, my former employer. Good work all around!

Not a huge shock that DonorDigital was ripe for a takeover. The firm has not been pulling in the clients it needs to succeed. And since they shared offices in San Francisco, Fenton makes a suitable suitor.

But the big news is that Fenton is now smack dab positioned to be in the online advocacy world. That’s a pretty serious departure from their core strength (media strategy & relations). Here are the fabriquotes from the press release:

“Our clients will benefit by combining current and next generation communications services. This is the future of multi-channel advocacy communications.”

“Together we can help clients develop integrated online and offline strategies for communications, advocacy, fundraising and marketing.”

“Fundraising and program activities can no longer be kept in separate silos if social change organizations hope to have maximum impact.”

The question is, can Fenton’s position as the (fairly) undisputed leader of progressive media relations translate into leadership in the online strategy realm? Do they have the talent or formula to corner that market, too? And can they really, effectively combine online and offline media services — when so few nonprofits and campaigns combine the two internally? “Integrated online and offline strategy” makes for nice marketing materials. Can it be exectued to Fenton’s high standards?

If anyone knows any scuttlebutt from the inside, I’d be curious to hear it.

(Thanks to Ben Smith at M&R for the heads up!)