TransparencyCamp ‘11 will be held on April 30 – May 1 at Microsoft’s offices in Friendship Heights. (The location is on the DC / Maryland border and is Metro-accessible.)

We’re really excited to meet many of you at this year’s camp, and we’re particularly excited about making this a bigger and more inclusive camp than ever before. When we sent out a survey about what you wanted to get out of this year’s conference, we heard from a lot of passionate and committed activists who want to attend but don’t have the resources to make it all the way to Washington. In fact, cost of travel was the number one reason people listed as their biggest barrier to attending TransparencyCamp ‘11.

These are folks from communities across the country who volunteer their time and energy because they are passionate about open government — not because it’s particularly lucrative.

We think we have a lot to learn from these local organizers, and we think they’d get a lot out of TransparencyCamp. So this year, we’ve decided to offer some travel scholarships to help defray the cost for emerging leaders in the transparency movement.

We’ll need some help — and we’re really thrilled that people are stepping up already to support this program (after all, we just launched it this morning!). The first so far: Josh Tauberer of GovTrack.us and CTO of POPVOX.com.

I hope you’ll join us at TransparencyCamp ‘11. And if, like Josh, you’re interested in helping to bring an activist to Washington who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend, I hope you’ll consider making a contribution. All contributions made through transparencycamp.org/donate will go exclusively to this program. Want to apply for a travel scholarship? Check back soon for updates.