Rootwork Powering grassroots networks from the bottom up

Rootwork helped the Genocide Intervention Network build out its social networking presence from the beginning, leading to widespread exposure and an engaged membership. In addition to social change outreach through a half-dozen different networks — Facebook, MySpace, LiveJournal, BlackPlanet, Eons and WiserEarth — utilizing social media from Flickr and YouTube, Rootwork also built the following campaign websites:

• AskTheCandidates.org: Rootwork created this website from the ground-up through the Drupal content management system. We were responsible both for the technical implementation all components on the site as well as its design and layout.
• DarfurScores.org: Also built on Drupal, Rootwork created the back-end and design of this congressional scorecard site.
• TimeToProtect.org (no longer online): Focused on a fundraising campaign, Rootwork built this site and implemented an events map, connecting activists in their local communities. Over the course of the month-long campaign, student activists raised more than $100,000 through the Time to Protect website.

Rootwork-created proposals for the Genocide Intervention Network were featured projects, nominated for awards at the 2007 and 2008 NetSquared Conferences.

Rootwork's Ivan Boothe was a founding member of this collective. Ivan handled media and design aspects for the organization's campaign of electronic civil disobedience against the electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold in 2003, in addition to building the websites:

• Why-War.com: This website boasted an extensive custom content-management system before CMSes were in widespread use (pre-Drupal, pre-WordPress). While Ivan can't take credit for that aspect of the website, he did work hard to create a unified, accessible design for what would ultimately become a massive website archiving tens of thousands of articles, analyses and chronicles of four years of war, peace and struggles for a better world. Ivan designed the entirety of the site, including several special projects connected to Why War? campaigns.
• Galeropia.org: A journal of nonviolent theory and practice, Galeropia's design was created from scratch by Ivan, who also contributed an article.