I can’t tell you just how proud, thrilled, delighted and giddy I feel every time I see a copy of Measuring the Networked Nonprofit: Using Data to Change the World, by Beth Kanter and Katie Delahaye Paine (reigning queens of non-profit social media and measurement for organizational communications, respectively.) It’s a fantastic, potentially world-changing book… and I got to draw the cartoons for it.

I blogged about the book a while ago on Social Signal, explaining why I think it’s important (and why I think you should go buy a copy right now):

It’s a momentous book. Organizations from governments to businesses to community groups to nonprofits have all struggled with whether and how to engage with the networked social world, especially when resources are scarce and stakeholders are feeling skittish. Measuring the Networked Nonprofit opens up new possibilities for accountability, learning, innovation and greater impact.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll post my cartoons from the book. And I hope they’ll help prompt you to go snag yourself a copy. Whether you work for a nonprofit, a business, a government agency or just your own efforts to make your corner of the world a little better, you’ll find it a thorough, practical guide to having a far greater impact on the world — and knowing just what that impact is.

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This cartoon kicks off the book’s introductory chapter, which starts with the emerging media director of the Human Society of the United States snapping a photo of her dog in a party hat. It’s related to Beth’s Cute Animal Theory, which owes something to both Nicolas Kristof and Ethan Zuckerman: “Ethan points out that the Web was invented so physicists could share research papers, but Web2.0 was invented because people want to share cute pictures of their cats.  These same tools become very powerful in the hands of activists.”

So be nice to your dachshund, tabby or Betta fish. They may be the key to global transformation.