The Big Idea is getting a complete make-over. New and improved connectivity, tools and functionality will help creative people and organisations find what they need to grow big ideas into sustainable careers and enterprises. Your contribution (of any size) will help us deliver this.

Behind the scenes, we have a working prototype of The Big Idea 2.0 and this final phase of fundraising is to complete the build and front-end design. See more about The Big Idea 2.0 rebuild here.

At The Big Idea, we started with an audaciously big idea and I am asking you to help make it even bigger. The Big Idea is getting a complete make-over. New and improved connectivity, tools and functionality will help creative people and organisations find what they need to grow big ideas into sustainable careers and enterprises. Your contribution (of any size) will help us deliver this.

Behind the scenes, we have a working prototype of The Big Idea 2.0 and this final phase of fundraising is to complete the build and front-end design. See more about The Big Idea 2.0 rebuild here.

At The Big Idea, we started with an audaciously big idea and I am asking you to help make it even bigger.Would you be willing to provide a charitable donation please, to help us complete the redevelopment of The Big Idea website? Doing so will connect you to a growing movement of individuals, groups and organisations who have said yes. To see who they are, please go to TBI Invest. At that website, you will also find everything you need to make a decision.

We have set a target of $50,000 for our creative sector fundraising campaign which, alongside capital funding from several major funders and investors, gives us the money required to finish the rebuild and launch the new site later this year. At the time of writing, just under $20,000 has been contributed so far.

As you may know, I'm part of a small team working on the redevelopment of The Big Idea website: the on-line home of New Zealand's creative community. What is important to us is deeply networked and connected creative communities throughout New Zealand that thrive and are valued for what they do through their talent, innovation, enterprise and passion.

We now have a working prototype of The Big Idea 2.0 and you can find out more at TBI Website Rebuild.

The new site will offer people and organisations working in the creative sector the best available on-line functionality, tools and content to support their practice and development. Your contribution (of any size) will help us deliver this.

We have provided three options for you to pay your donation to The Big Idea Charitable Trust:

By credit card: We have used PayPal to establish a secure process to handle credit card payments. PayPal is a world-wide internet payment system that provides a safe and easy way to pay with a credit card without exposing the credit card number. Here's the relevant page:

By internet banking: This page has all the details including our bank account number

Once your donation is received, we will issue you with a receipt as your contribution qualifies as a charitable donation (for IRD purposes).

I truly believe in the promise of The Big Idea 2.0 as it will provide creative people no matter where they live in New Zealand with the power to connect and engage with real opportunities anywhere in the world. For me, that's absolutely vital.

From the beginning, the Trust strongly believed in the power of 'community development and peer networking' to strengthen and grow the scale and capacity of New Zealand's creative community. People having the inspiration and tools to effortlessly connect with each other across disciplines and different creative communities is, we believe, key to accelerating creative thinking and practices into all sectors of New Zealand society. The phenomenal growth of on-line social networking since The Big Idea was first launched in 2001, has shown how 'in the zone' our thinking was back then and our ongoing work is strongly focused on bringing the best available ICT solutions and services to the attention of our community.

Our work is fuelled by the commitment and dedication of a small team and a tight operating budget. We receive no recurrent funding from any Government source and each year we fund our activities through income that we earn, private investment, donations and one-off grants from generous funding bodies and organisations.

Financial as well as endorsement support from everyone in the creative community [and those outside our community who believe in the importance of the service we deliver] is vital so that as a Trust we can help deliver and champion issues important to us all.

TBI Central: This is the central user interface. It signals a community space, e.g. a marae, zocalo, piazza, town square. It houses links to recent editorial content (news, interviews and articles), forums, employment listings and practitioner profiles as well as login, search, help, filter and display information and user preferences

Enterprise Space: This is where the community can: find tools and resources that primarily help them make the most of work and income opportunities, e.g. employment listings, enterprise news and freelance registry

Network Space: This is where the community can: profile themselves, interact with other members and participate in community activity via such functionality as practitioner or organisation profiles; events calendar; professional development courses, organisations and resources; recommended websites and opportunity listings such as auditions, awards, calls for cast and crew etc

Knowledge Space: This is where personal and professional development information and resources are located, e.g. educational facility providers, tertiary courses, conferences and workshops, graduate profiles.

Gallery Space: This is where the community can: create, upload and view creative content, e.g. photos and images, documents, sound, moving images, online spaces, podcasts; participate in work in progress blogs or link to digital exhibition spaces

My Big Idea Space: The member self administration area allowing community to register, add and maintain personal details, select creative discipline(s) and region(s), register for the e-bulletin and upload personal profiles and creative content

Usability Functionality: This is functionality that allows the community to find, interact and disseminate information and content, e.g. search, filter, tag, print, email, bookmark, comment, promote, rank, receive RSS feed

Your contribution of any size will help The Big Idea Charitable Trust deliver the best available on-line functionality, tools and content to the creative community.

Organisations already contributing to the campaign are generally providing a donation of $300 or so, and in return, we are offering several promotion opportunities.

Home page banner: With a contribution of $300 + GST, you will have an image on TBI home Page that measures 162 pixels wide x 150 pixels high and can be a gif or an animated gif. Underneath that, we will put the text 'XYZ - generously supports fundraising for The Big Idea 2.0'. This will be up on our home page for a minimum of one week.

Profile: Both your logo and the text will then link to TBI Invest where you will be included in our stars wall of fame. And profiling yourself for the wall of fame is easy too.

This link gives you some questions to answer - shameless self-promotion is encouraged.

Stars Wall of Fame: A contribution of $100 + GST gets you featured on our Stars wall of fame with a thumbnail image [60 pixels wide x 80 pixels high] which links to a dedicated page about your organisation.

However we appreciate any contribution large or small and they are all acknowledged on our fundraising site.

12/06/08