Chicago's Barrel of Monkeys is a winning nonprofit in the Chase Community Giving competition, receiving 1,615 votes. This will go a long way to help a group which we personally know is a great cause. Congrats!

Our resident interface and user experience whiz Tai Palmgren is a member of Barrel of Monkeys, a local nonprofit that offers an alternative environment for children and creativity. Barrel of Monkeys teaches creative writing workshops in Chicago Public Schools. These actor-educators adapt the stories and poems written by the students into sketches and songs, and perform them in a show for the school. We profiled Tai about working with BOM and the ‘Art of Theater for Education’ in last year’s Chicago Artists Month series, talking specifically about creative process.

Big Brands and large Trusts aren’t the only ones funding cause-driven projects these days.

Pepsi’s Refresh Everything and Chase Community Giving are getting all the press, but small businesses can make big differences as well, which is truly admirable in such a challenging economy. Fellow Chicagoans Firebelly Design have been offering their annual Grant for Good, donating a year’s worth of strategy, branding and design services to a lucky non-profit, for years now.

Upcoming workshops and recent presentations on social media, web development, and online strategy by some of our crew.

Take an advanced look at social media for brand awareness in a FREE workshop led by Tim Frick through University of Chicago Consulting Roundtable. Brush up on Drupal knowledge in November with Steve Persch’s Chicago Drupal MeetUp presentation, and check out recent presentations on web strategy and social media for non-profits to download.

Joy Burke is the bona-fide Pixel Princess of Mightybytes. She is a 2007 graduate of the Visual Communications program at the Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago and her personal art is being featured in the Alumni Gallery Show along with some award-winning design work she did for Mightybytes. Be sure to stop by and check out her work and that of her fellow alumni!

Tricky Mickey improv group performs at The Playground in Chicago Oct. 14th at 8 p.m.

We profile actor, writer, director (and Mightybytes web developer) Steve Persch in our continued support of Chicago Artists Month by talking with our team and friends about their art and creative process. Steve is a member of the comedy improv group, Tricky Mickey, with Mike Abdelsayed and Steve Gensler. Performing next at The Playground in Chicago, Oct. 14th, Nov. 18th and Dec.10th. With three performers, Steve calls it “a more intimate show” with “a greater sense of excitement and possibility.” Rather than with a large group, he says there is “more fluidity moving through characters” because everyone is on stage most of the time.