Thursday, June 11, 2015
Big News: Pallimed Foundation and Pallimed Network
by Christian Sinclair
I am beyond thrilled that we made it to our 10th Anniversary. There were some times in the last few years I thought about shutting it down and simplifying things. But I was thinking only of Pallimed as a blog. Pallimed stopped being just a blog quite a while ago, but many (including me, until recently) may still think of it as only a blog. While the site is still the backbone of the work, the scope of the Pallimed brand has expanded greatly in the past decade. Understanding the behind-the-scenes support (tech, planning, editing) was largely dependent on my own individual volunteering, it was only last year when I realized that plan would not sustain Pallimed into the future. The writers and many contributors to the Pallimed effort have created something grand, and it needs to be able to stand alone as an organization. So this year, in our 10th anniversary, the non-profit Pallimed Foundation was established.
Introducing the Pallimed Foundation
With the establishment of the Pallimed Foundation, we recognize that there are many different aspects to what Pallimed actually does. The Pallimed Foundation will allow us to gather the resources to sustain the work we do into the future and not be dependent on individual volunteerism.
We are still in the planning stages for the Pallimed Foundation, so if you are interested in being a part of this new formal effort, please get in touch. Some basic ideas for the Pallimed Foundation include: becoming a formally recognized 501-c(3) organization so we can accept tax deductible donations, support overdue website and design upgrades, crowd-funding new content for Pallimed, supporting (through grants and coverage) unique real world and digital media projects focused on palliative medicine, reimbursing contributors for their writing and efforts, teaching social media skills to hospice and palliative care clinicians.
Some of you may be concerned about this addition of money into the equation. I assure you, true to our original mission, Pallimed website content will always be free to access and free of advertising. We are strong believers in the open access and Creative Commons movements. Our revenue model will be focused on donations, grants, crowd-funding and pay what it’s worth (PWIW). In the past 10 years, I have personally spent less than $4,000 on Pallimed efforts, but there have been countless opportunities that having established funds could have helped propel something to a new level of engagement. And that is a core tenet of what Pallimed is about: engagement.
If we have a funding model for long term viability, we also need an organizational approach and structure to the rest of our content creation, and so I am also introducing the Pallimed Network.
Below is the list of current nodes of the Pallimed Network. Some are current, some have lapsed and need to be rebooted, but altogether they can reach a potential audience of over 24,000 non-unique users with each post. In formalizing the Pallimed Network, we can begin to recruit and recognize dedicated volunteers who can lead these various efforts through advocating and scholarly activities.
If you are interested in helping on any of these efforts we are looking for leads and support. We will soon be introducing affiliates of the Pallimed Network as well as stand alone websites for the Pallimed Network and the Pallimed Foundation.
Pallimed Network Properties
Pallimed
- Websites
- Main
- Arts and Humanities
- Cases
- Twitter - @pallimed
- Tumblr
- YouTube
- Periscope - @pallimed
#hpm chat
- Twitter - @hpmchat
National Hospice and Palliative Care Month*
Other Twitter accounts
- Health Care Chaplain @hcchap
- Hospice and Palliative Med/Care Education @hpmedu
*Pallimed Network does not own any rights to National Hospice and Palliative Care Month, but has maintained the page since 2010.