Power to the peas and carrots - Food Day launches on NationBuilder

From Honolulu, HI to Farmville, VA ("Let's put the farm back in Farmville"), Food Day is coming.

The 50-state day of celebration and education around healthy eating and farming launched a new website today on NationBuilder, featuring videos, events across the country and training materials for organizers and educators. Food Day is October 24, 2012. Last year, the inaugural event reached millions of people across the U.S. with more than 2,300 events.

"Food Day is a celebration of healthy, affordable, and sustainable food - but it's also a grassroots movement that's uniquely poised to take advantage of social media," said Jeff Cronin of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. That's one of the reasons we decided to use NationBuilder - it lets our activists communicate seamlessly with their networks on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere."

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New sandbox nation install

Name your nation's virtual currency

We've just released a much sought-after feature: the ability to rename NationBuilder's virtual currency that rewards participation in and promotion of NationBuilder nations. Just about from the day we released NationBuilder, folks have been suggesting alternatives to "pc," the points supporters earn for tweeting about your websites, recruiting signups and donors and otherwise helping build your nation. We've explained how to remove the currency badge on supporter profiles and many of our customers call it "participation credit" for apolitical nations. (If you don't already have a nation, you can sign up for a free NationBuilder trial here).

As of today, it's much easier to get creative with your nation's currency ("karma points" was one early suggested alternative). To change your nation's currency to anything you like, go to Settings in your control panel. Remember to change the headline and description on the political capital display page as well (it's linked from Settings as a an additional help).

Here's a look at how I switched over to "mini bitcoin" for my supporters in Adriel Nation:

You'll need to edit the page that folks use to review their own political capital (or "mini bitcoin," as the case may be). The tiny lock icon in front of the link indicates that page has some security setting - on my nation, you have to be logged in as a supporter to review your mb.

 

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Voter file release: Wyoming, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, Montana

Over the last year, NationBuilder has worked to increase access to state voter files for qualified candidates and campaigns (see, "The Voter File was Meant to Be Free"). We've just rolled out several new state files, for Wyoming, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, and Montana. Data for most candidates and campaigns is free of charge  with a basic subscription to our outreach tools, which included canvassing options and much more.

Up to 100,000 records are included in our $19 a month pricing plan, and up to 1 million records in our $79 a month plan. The data includes recent change of address updates from the postal services national database as well as zip-four and phone number and vote history enhancements. Candidates and campaigns can also purchase voter file enhancements to reach likely donors and online influencers.

To request the file from a current NationBuilder account, just go to People > Import > Request voter data in your control panel and make your selects. If you need to start a new account, do that here - NationBuilder signup. And here's a brief look at how we support voter outreach - http://nationbuilder.com/how_to_use_your_voter_file.