How to make base.html a little more useful?

I am somewhat new to Django, but I have been able to figure out the
form, model, view, session flow etc fairly well. I am going to ask
this question in an abstract sense, because I really think a simple
abstract answer is enough to get my mind in the right place.

I have a base.html that has a header, left nav bar, main content area,
footer, etc. Of course some views override these sections to
drastically alter their content, etc (the main content being the most
common of course).

One thing that I would like to do is put some more useful nav links in
the left sidebar for users who are authenticated. Such as a list of
their friends who are also online (even if the data is pulled from
third party) or a list of projects they are currently working on so it
has hyperlinks to take them directly to those project editing pages.

What I am mentally missing is how to get that data fed into base.html
with every view call. Each time the left nav in base.html would be
rendered it would need to draw data from a couple different apps I
have installed on the site.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

-Wes Wagner

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