I’ve written here before about the experiment in networked philanthropy at Omidyar.net. Sadly, they are shutting down the operation. Less sadly, they’ve thought out a good procedure for the existing community to self-organize its next incarnation. I wish them luck.

In Spring 2004, Omidyar Network created a set of collaborative tools to facilitate our work as an organization. We found it useful, and a few months later in July 2004, we opened up access to the tool set to anyone and everyone working toward making the world a better place.

We chose the approach of a self-managed community in the hope people would find shared interests and discover their power to make good things happen. Indeed, in the three years since we opened the omidyar.net tool for external use, thousands of members have met, posted, discussed and collaborated in the many groups and discussions and workspace pages on omidyar.net. And while the connections may have been made here, the positive impact has spread to many other online communities as well as real world communities across the globe. Through several experimental and experiential collaborative funding projects, the omidyar.net community has directed thousands of dollars to organizations making good things happen around the world.

This summer, instead of deciding where to direct funding, omidyar.net members will decide how to migrate to other community platforms.

We strongly believe in the power of community-based efforts, and we feel the best way Omidyar Network can continue facilitating the kind of work that’s being done both within and through omidyar.net is to empower communities online that are more narrowly focused on specific interests and moderated in a style of their own preference.

One of the things we’ve learned over the last three years is that self-managed communities can work. Given the tools and the space in which to use them, the community can and will manage itself and keep things running with little to no oversight. We’ve also learned that communities are all about the people, not the platform, and that’s informed our decision for moving forward.