Attendees of the 2010 Media Learning Seminar were interviewed by FSG Social Impact Advisers for Knight Foundation and told what they learned or took away from the conference.

Session two: March 2, 2010

• Facilitator: Esther Thorson, Missouri School of Journalism
• Scribe: Megan Brownell, Arizona Foundation

The Indexing Community Information Needs checklist (available at www.informationneeds.org under Media Learning Seminar “Resources”) is the taxonomy of communications and services in local communities. This tool can help you understand and realize the areas of your community in which communication is the key.

One of the things you want to map is who else is in the space – who else is trying to do things in your community and what are your communication channels with them? Synergy is key.

Esther Thorson emphasizes the importance of partnerships – with universities and colleges (particularly young students), who can help with data collection and guidance in digital communication. Communication, business and journalism departments are great resources. It is important to explain the community foundation business model so that the relationship does not become centered on the foundation funding university initiatives but rather on students assisting with research. Internship directors are a good resource.

Thorson also stresses the usefulness of consultants. Jan Schaeffer runs J-Lab, the Institute for Interactive Journalism. Her Web site contains great information on communication mapping and start-up ideas. Knight Foundation can connect with other consultants, and Knight circuit riders are very helpful.

The first section of the checklist looks at Legacy News Channels, also called mainstream media. Thorson suggests Placeblogger.com to find out by geographic region all of the start-up media entities and sites that exist. She also suggests talking to your major newspaper’s editorial board to determine if your organization’s interests and specialties are of interest to the newspaper. Most newspapers want to expand their reach, run special series, etc., so they may have an interest in the community foundation’s priority areas. One participant suggests taking the time to write up the things you want to submit to increase the chances of the piece running. One participant noted a sense of apathy on the part of legacy news channels in stories about community building because they may lack a tangible news hook.

Thorson recommends conducting an informal content audit, looking beyond what media is present and examining what is being talked about, the quality of coverage, topics being covered, how well the media is serving as a watchdog on topics such as politics, crime, development, business, government, etc.

It is critical to know the portion of your population with broadband access. Your local university may be able to help, the FCC has some broadband access maps, broadband providers’ Web sites allow for zip code searching and some county governments have GIS mapping and may be able to provide this information.

The next section of the checklist looks at Non-News Information, including public libraries, municipal government Web sites, chamber of commerce communication tools and other network communication tools. Look at how lively the discussion is about your area’s issues, and whether local TV stations give ordinary people a voice and a chance to contribute to the shared dialogue, etc.

Looking at local quality-of-life services (public programs, transportation, healthcare, legal and business services, entertainment, grocery/restaurant, religious services, etc.) and assessing how well these services are provided, how well their availability is communicated to the public, and how well these services are helping people cope with daily life are all integral to assessing the overall information flow within a community.

The next area of the checklist looks at Social Capital – a concept created by a sociologist named Coleman in the 1980s and popularized in America in the book, Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam. He argued that just as there is financial capital, there is social capital – relationships of trust, nurturance and communication among people. He found that the richer those networks, the more successfully a community will function. He argued that social networks are coming apart and losing participants, but it turns out to be only partially true. He blamed TV for people’s self-isolation and subsequent breakdown of interpersonal relationships, but he turned out to be wrong. Research shows that the real culprit is entertainment (gaming, TV programming, non-news activities, etc.).

It’s important to measure social capital to get a more sophisticated view of how rich the trust is in a community, what the connections are and where the challenges lie in terms of community building. One participant notes that there is value in long-term online social relationships (Facebook, gaming, etc.) equal to real-world relationships, and research supports this.

Thorson recommends doing an informal mapping of communication opportunities and challenges in your local area, seeking help from natural partners to help you understand the potential of your information activities. Be strategic when choosing your communication projects; look at what’s already available, what’s missing and what you can best do to participate in the information ecology.

One participant asked: What is an aggregator? They are essentially people who “steal” content and put it on their site with proper attribution. Good aggregators help build audience for the content they aggregate (ex: Placeblogger.com) while some steal and display it as their own. The difference comes in why you bring it together and whether you’re generating income and following fair use standards.

Several resources were suggested by Thorson and participants, including:

http://mediapolicy.wiki.newamerica.net/index.php/Main_Page

http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/how_news_happens

http://www.mediaengage.org

In addition, the 2010 Census is expected to ask about Internet access, but we’re not sure if they’re asking about high-speed or broadband access, and how that is being defined (e.g., not all high-speed connections allow for access to high-end content).

One participant asks if it is the role of a community foundation to produce community news, or can we be more effective as a supporter of existing entities? Community foundation ties in the community don’t necessarily mean we have special ways of solving community information needs. Community foundations are being tasked with solving a wide range of social problems (education, environment, etc.), so how to know which to be? Thorson suggests there is great potential for synergy. Newspapers may not have time or resources to cover these critical topics, but community foundations can bring the combined knowledge of everyone participating in that field and aggregate that and then work with the local media to ensure the information gets out to the people. The key is to move information freely and not hoard.

Civic engagement and information are going to be key elements of any successful community foundation initiative. So rather that becoming a producer of news, it’s critical to know the information landscape and supplement it as needed to ensure the information facets of your initiatives are addressed.

One participant recommends looking at the Akron Community Foundation model: they are funding four people inside the newspaper to relate to those in the blogosphere to help them produce quality content. (Check with them for details.)

One participant notes that community foundations tend to be insular and have a reputation for being a clique. It wouldn’t hurt to get out stronger in the community, participate, build ties, etc.

• Facilitator: Dirk Beveridge, president, 4thGeneration Systems
• Scribe: Larry Bud Meyer, Meyer Communications

This session incorporates sales strategy in how community foundations (CFs) can build their donor bases, especially in attracting funders interested in helping to meet information needs in their community.

Dirk read three statements gleaned from community foundations’ web sites describing the customized, tailored work they do.

As he read them, he asked if they reflected participants’ own definitions. In a prescient comment, Peg Sikjeskog of South Dakota said: “You just listen, and you ask: What are your passions?”

Dirk also said he noted the presence of industry standards on many CF web sites.

Those customer-focused statements, and the attention to industry standards, combine to tell Dirk that CF’s are saying, in effect: We sell.

Dirk again introduced three principles of sales and began to apply them to building donor bases: 1) Proactivity and focus; 2) Customer focus; 3) Added value.

Principle #1: Proactivity and focus

More foundations, Aspen Institute research says, are reactive rather than proactive. Only 27 percent say they develop funds using an intentional program rather than waiting for funds to come their way. Put another way, instead of beating the bushes for prospects, they wait for prospects to come their way via referrals from professional advisers.

He got nods of agreement.

To be proactive, Dirk said, CFs need to ask the first of two key questions: What is my world of opportunity?

Most participants agreed their world of possible donors is mainly current donors.

The problem, said Dirk: That’s too narrow.

But once you start growing your world of opportunity, it raises another challenge: Your list becomes too long. You need to narrow it down.

The second key question thus becomes: Which of these prospects are the best for me?

Dirk reminded his group of Alberto Ibargüen’s opening remark: Information is a core community need in a democracy.

He asked: Are there individuals within your community who would also agree with that statement?

To reach them, to discover who can potentially join the effort, CFs need to develop an ideal customer profile.

Dirk divided his session into three groups to develop ideal customer profiles for funding information needs projects. One focused on individuals; one on organizations, and the third on professional advisers.

The individual group suggested these ideal customers:

• The owner who just sold his or her business
• A CEO who’s a former journalist
• An active donor in a community-based organization
• A 60+ citizen whose kids are launched in life
• A civic leader

Halfway through, Carleen Rhodes said the group asked themselves if these looked any different than the usual suspects. And several key new groups emerged:

• A tech company/telecomm owner (or a related business)
• Board members with connections to all of the above
• Entertainers and golfers
• Donors to local journalism schools
• The professional advisers group came up with:
• Attorneys
• Trust and estate
• Tax
• Private client
• Wealth
• Single/family
• Corp
• Accounts and CPAs
• High end/life insurance providers

The group had discussed what kind of filters or lenses they’d use to identify the ideal professional adviser customer. They arrived at the importance of getting to know them well enough to have a meaningful conversation, one intent on getting access to donors.

The group discussed ways to convene the advisers to – this is important – listen for ways to draw out the right potential donor.

“I sell this idea all the time,” said Alberto Ibargüen, listening in. I’d go talk up information needs to other foundation presidents and try to sell them: What’s more important than democracy? But it didn’t connect until we started talking about the things funders make as part of their mission. For Ford, it was equality of access. Rockefeller wasn’t interested until they heard a conversation that couched information needs in terms of infrastructure – something they care about. You have to focus on the donor.

The organization group discussed qualities. Look for an organization:

• With a shared mission
• One civically involved
• With a reputation in the community
• The capacity, credibility, presence, leadership

They discussed:

• Local think tanks (from both sides of the political spectrum)
• Junior leagues
• Chambers of commerce
• Universities
• Media companies

Principle #2: Customer focus

This brought Dirk to the mantra of customer focus.

What’s important to the customer? Most CFs talk all day long about focusing in on the needs of the customer. But there’s a huge gap between talking and doing!

Dirk brought the group around to thinking about who does the talking and the listening when a CF is making a donor pitch.

Do a customer leads analysis. Understand that each potential donor has different interests, different internal motivators. The trick: Discovering what they are. “I need to have a different conversation with that 60+ parent and the attorney who’s a professional adviser,” he said.

The next group exercise had the same three groups developing a suspected needs analysis.

The readout of suspected needs for individuals focused on one group: Board members of tech companies. Their suspected needs: Impact on community; the ability to share personal stories; the opportunity to determine affinities; the need to give back; to establish a legacy; to improve the community’s health; to honor a referral request.

For the organization group, it boiled down to identifying the needs of the organization’s individual contact person.

For professional advisers, Clothilde Dedecker jumped to the session’s ultimate point: CFs add value. We’re another arrow in the quiver, she said; we add bench strength; we do it as a nonprofit; we’re a one-stop charitable shopping cart for all your philanthropic needs.

Dirk asked the group to separate product from the things that add value. He left the group with this key statistic: We find that 40 percent of a customer’s buying decision is based on the tangible product, but 60 percent of their decision is based on the intangible, value-added benefits.

The key question to leave Miami with is: What do you do for the donor beyond the product? Pick three things from your list of value-added offerings, and use them to kick-start the next conversation about your prospective donor’s needs.

“This is the exact information I need as a first-year person,” said departing participant.

Session 1: March 1, 2010

• Facilitator: Dirk Beveridge, president, 4thGeneration Systems
• Scribe: Larry Bud Meyer, Meyer Communications

In this session community foundations (CFs) will learn from the world of sales how to build their donor bases.

Dirk is a sales marketing consultant and author. He started two nonprofits and works with the community foundation in Barrington, Ill.

Dirk started with several definitions CFs use to describe themselves from their own web sites to kick off a discussion about their missions. He found references to “custom approaches …unique experiences.” They were variations on a main theme: creating a customized way for donors to meet their giving needs. And he looked at the fact that CFs subscribe to national standards. All of which told him that in more than one way, whether it’s clear to the audience or not: They all focus on sales.

Just like a business with a product to sell, CFs need to continually ID potential donors, ID the needs of the community, then match them and build solutions together.

Dirk asked: What role does a sales orientation play in building a donor base? Can we apply what we’ve learned from business to helping CFs develop their donor bases? He shared three sales principles from business for broadening donor pool:

1. Proactivity and focus
2. The importance of customer focus
3. Value-added

Principle 1: Proactivity and focus

CFs must be proactive in prospecting for donors. Most businesses, Dirk says, are reactive. Community foundations, too. As a participant said: When the market’s good, it’s really good. When it’s bad, it’s really bad. And in the recent economic bust, donations for some were down 50 percent.

Dirk used a key statistic: According to a recent Aspen study, only 27 percent of respondents say they develop their own intentional approach to geographic component funds (GCS), as opposed to responding to an approach coming from local leaders.

The common sentiment in the room: It’s hard to be proactive. There was an acknowledgement that “when I’m out asking for gifts, I’m making more money.”

But it takes work. Josie Heath (The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County): “You gotta kiss a lot of toads to find a prince.”

Sales people ask: What is my world of opportunity? Who are my current customers? The same questions go for a CF: Who’s currently giving? Does that make up part of our world of opportunity?

In sales, we challenge people to develop their potential market, said Dirk. So, too, for CFs. So the first question is: Can you develop the entire world of opportunity?

That’s time consuming, the group agreed. So the second question is:

Which of our potential donors are the best fit for what we do in our foundation?

Put another way: If you could mold the perfect donor: Who would it be?

And so, against the takeaway encouraged by Alberto Ibarguen of Knight (information is a core community need), Dirk challenged the participants to develop a profile of the potential donor (individual and organization) who might be interested in joining a community information challenge project.

The group broke into three panels. Two developed profiles of an individual donor. The third developed a profile of an organization.

Individual profile might look like:

• NPR listener
• Civic entrepreneur
• Cause driven
• Professional educator
• Librarian
• Current politician
• University community
• Long-time resident
• People of means
• Past donors

Or maybe just a well-read lottery winner!

More from group two:

• Someone in the information business
• A nontraditional donor, someone new to philanthropy
• Someone with a personal/professional incentive

The third group looked at organizations that might fit the profile:

• Newspapers
• Chambers of commerce
• TV
• Higher ed
• Financial resources
• One that cares about the community
• One that sees the need for info to community
• Place based
• One with a focus on corporate responsibility
• An outfit that believes in the American story (free speech)
• One willing to lead
• One interested in transparency

In conclusion: Keep prospecting. Proactively go after the likeliest prospects.

Principle #2: Customer focus

After a discussion about customer focus traits, good listening jumped to the top.

Dirk said the key is turning the conversation around. Know the customer well enough to find a way to get them to do all the talking.

Dirk told an anecdote about a business that succeeded when it developed a customer service-focused mission: We won’t ask for your business unless we have a plan to help improve your business.

To get there, you’ve got to do your research on your customers before you have the conversation. The customer-service research will show you everyone has a different set of needs.

In another breakout, Dirk asked the groups to discuss what might motivate those earlier individuals and corporations.

For organizations, the small group said: tax deductions, recognition, legacy, passion, trust, reputational enhancement, competition.

For individuals, the small groups said: Information on a specific issue, more transparency, personal fulfillment, personal connections, the chance to leverage resources, a connection to like-minded people.

Using these characteristics, CFs should develop a questioning road map so that they can turn the conversation around. Let prospects do 80 percent of the talking.

Principle #3: Value Added:

It boils down to this: Research show only 40 percent of a customer’s buying decision is based on the tangible product. Everything else is based on the intangibles that add up to value-added.

Dirk’s message to CFs: Understand your product: Funds, options, administration. Get to know the rest of what you do as the 60 percent, value-added intangibles.

From a closing group discussion, those intangibles include: convening, research, new approaches to giving, strengthening nonprofits, leverage, connections to shared interests, social activities, recognition, a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves, due diligence, security, the relationship with the CF and legacy.

The cosmetics industry gets this. Watch them, Dirk said. They create a solution that fits every situation for their customers, and they give them a unique experience tailored to their needs.

Just like the language Dirk found in the CF mission statements.

Session Two: March 2, 2010

• Facilitator: Diana Mitsu Klos, American Society of News Editors
• Scribe: Susan Knudten, Rose Community Foundation

Introductory Remarks:

• News literacy is being able to assess what’s true. 
• Media literacy and digital literacy: What are the tools and means of conveyance? How do we give everyone equal access to tools and knowledge of how to use them? 
• Civic literacy is giving people the skills so that they fulfill their role as individuals in a democracy. 

A few sites to check out:

• www.hsj.org (High School Journalism)
• www.myhsj.org (collection of student media)
• www.newsliteracyproject.org (News Literacy Project)

Initial questions and comments from participants included:

• What are different foundations doing? How can we use new tools? 
• What are some ways to reach new audiences? 
• Why are we literate but still making bad decisions? How do we increase understanding in order to make better decisions? 
• How can we create systemic change regarding access, and use it to create a more civil community? 
• Do we understand what we’re reading? What are others doing with youth? 
• What role can we play to extend knowledge about literacy issues? 
• How are others dealing with issues of censorship/negative comments when opening up a website for public comment? 
• How do we get our message out to help us grow? 
• How do we overcome apathy when civic action is often perceived as futile? 
• How do we expand educational attainment? 
• Students have lots of technologic capability but how do we increase their levels of discernment? 
• How do we get beyond civil discourse to ideas that can actually be implemented? 

Question: Do you have existing youth (or community center, places of worship) projects in your community?

Response: We have a fund for young artist fellowships to make films about their lives and communities.

We have an online grant-making competition for youth-focused programs, but we also needed to help students, teachers and others understand why we were doing this. We did education around social change, and found out what that means to this generation.

Question: What are your concerns about public comments?

Response: We have rules of conduct and an editor who checks comments daily. We have an independent advisory council made up of community leaders who vet controversial information.

We implemented a team leadership course to get younger people engaged in community issues. For example, we had polarized school board elections; we taught civil-discourse skills. We found that youth are much more open to diverse communications than adults. And we had youth presenting their knowledge to adults (through Rotary and other places).

Question: We are at a loss about how to deal with another organization that is taking information and comments off our website and commenting very negatively about us on their site.

Response 1: Don’t engage.

Response 2: We use that as an opportunity to comment again and drive viewers back to our site where our message appears. Link to a PDF, to a report, to an issue page.

Question: What are the measures that will show if a community website is successful?

Response 1: The number of clicks, the number of return users on the site, and if advertisers are willing to pay/re-up their ads

Response 2: We look at referring sites – where are they coming from?

Question: How do you get people to come who are not currently media-literate? Are there institutions like public libraries that can help with this?

Response: See notes from March 1, 2010 session for information on Long Beach project with libraries.

Question: Does anyone have Internet cafes in their communities?

Response 1: Urban Wireless in North Little Rock, Ar. www.urbanwireless.net

Response 2: California Communities Project has a mobile wireless project.

Question: How can a website be an enhancement to help engage donors?

Response: Create an online newsletter. Pose a question that drives people to your site. Invite donors to contribute experience, knowledge, opinions.

Counter: If you build it, they won’t necessarily come.

Response: Make sure “it” is something people can actually figure out how to use.

Other resources:

• Planetizen
• Philanthropy Journal
• Stanford Social Innovation Review

Question: Should we figure out best practices for community foundations around this area?

Response 1: The information captured at these sessions could be gathered.

Response 2: Make community foundation websites evocative. Include a collective call for action.

Question: How do you handle branding/sub-branding?

IDEAS AND COMMENTS:

• What about working with middle school students? That’s a critical age to teach these literacy skills. 
• Create a mobile version of a website to reach underserved communities where people don’t have computers but they have smartphones. 
• Figure out how to appropriately un-censor access within schools (can’t see something about breast cancer because of the word breast). 
• Use RSS feeds with aggregated sites of interest around a topic. 
• Require/suggest that grantees demonstrate how they are engaging people. 
• People do ask all the time how they can help: Have actions available. 
• The example from the Community Foundation Serving Boulder County was great. They found one measurable issue, that they can educate community members and try to change things through a ballot measure. 
• Change takes patience. Just because technology makes many things fast, it doesn’t mean change is fast. 

Session One: March 1, 2010

• Facilitator: Diana Mitsu Klos, American Society of News Editors
• Scribe: Susan Knudten, Rose Community Foundation

This conversation is about literacy, not in a language sense, but in a news sense.

• How do I know what to believe? 
• What do I need to know to be an engaged citizen? 

Questions from session participants included:

• How do we make people feel empowered to use multiple options instead of like they have to pick one source for news? 
• How do we know what’s true? 
• Digital literacy can be a barrier – how do we overcome that? 
• What can/should we look for when considering funding for media projects? 
• How do we educate future journalists to look deeper into stories to see larger trends/issues? 
• How do we get all members of a community to rise up to the same level of media literacy? 
• How do we put media literacy education into practice? How do we develop best practices? 
• How can digital literacy be used to cause change? 
• What role does interpersonal trust play in digital literacy when people get their information forwarded from personal contacts? 
• How do we educate our community about new media? 
• A lot of our efforts are how to use existing tools but that can be problematic – tools are too complicated or not user-friendly. What about developing new tools? 
• How can we improve a social networking site that we have created? 

Question: How much of a priority is it to engage people of all ages in civics?

Response: Long Beach has a live blog-radio show that can be heard through the computer. A second version has popped up that is Spanish-language.

How are these sites marketed? They use Facebook and word of mouth through a farmer’s market; lots of volunteers are involved.

Question: Is anyone else funding something like this?

Response: As a funder, we want collaboration and for projects to connect to other projects. We want to see a blog, Web presence, Facebook presence, etc.

This can be a challenge for the grantees. Smaller communities are working through the “ownership” issues of who is responsible for managing a site, etc.

Question: Once you ask the grantee to set up a website or a blog, how do you/they drive traffic there?

Response: We created a news story. We did research and got interesting information to share. By creating our own news story, we got a lot of attention. We keep information on our website and are repurposing the information and doing fresh research.

Question: We are bringing together people who are vying for the same dollars. How do you get people to want to take a risk when they may be criticized or someone will steal their idea?

Question: Has anyone had conversations with school systems or library systems about how to introduce elements of civic literacy?

Response: We just funded a program through a library. Whether you’re in the library or not, if you have a computer you can use your library card to gain Internet access. This program existed but no one knew it was out there. (Learning Express – info at www.connectedcorridor.org)

Another project: Middle school kids refurbish old computers that were warehoused, parents are trained on how to use them, then they are given to families. (Digital Divide – info at www.quantumfnd.org)

Comment: Civic literacy is lacking. People talk about ideas in all types of forums but they have no idea how government works or who their own government representatives are. This is not limited to young people. (LOTS OF AGREEMENT WITH THIS CONCERN.)

Response: Times have changed – we used to memorize existing knowledge. We probably shouldn’t encourage that anymore. You don’t necessarily need to know something as much as how to find out that information if you need it.

Counter: It is important that certain things should be memorized – forms of government and separation of powers, etc. These concepts don’t change.

Comment: Trying to overcome tremendous cynicism is a challenge. People say, “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

Response: Maybe the answer is to give youth a reason to want to know. If you give people a sense that they can make a difference, then they may want to know more.

IDEAS:

• Get together groups with a common interest (education, child care, etc.) and see if someone can take on being responsible for creating a mashup site or setting up particular RSS feeds based on interest area. 

• Partner with public broadcasting, employment centers, houses of worship and/or arts and recreation centers. 
• Teach for America model: Bring young people with tech skills to areas that are underserved with technology in order to teach skills and show why broadband can be so useful. 
• Use games that give youth a chance to solve problems. 
• Kids aren’t really using Facebook and Twitter. There is an opportunity for us to teach them about it. Our youth do care; they just need the tools to act sometimes. 
• Work with arts and/or theater organizations to create interesting messages. 
• Educate youth about standards: 
  • Help youth understand that their posts and photos on Facebook, etc., can be viewed by college admissions folks, potential employers and others. 
  • Teach that there is no such thing as a “free” site – your info is being used for marketing. 
  • Encouraging parents to learn about social media in order to understand their children’s activities. This is also part of media literacy. 

“Every generation creates its own journalism.” From Tom Rosenstiel and Bill Covich – The Elements of Journalism (highly recommended book)

Session 2: March 2, 2010

• Facilitator: Carolyn Lukensmeyer, AmericaSpeaks
• Scribe: Nancy Jones, Community Foundation of Broward County

How do you move from information to action?

The group defined for itself what it wanted to accomplish out of the session. Each of the small groups reported back the following:

1. How can information be shared in a meaningful way? 
2. What are some best practices of how and when we communicate to create action and behavior change? 
3. When do we move from the information stage to the action stage? Is there a tipping point? What platforms do we use? 
4. Who has some information that can help with individual needs? 
5. How do we get started in a smaller community foundation with minimal resources? 
6. What happens after a community foundation steps out in a leadership role? How do you determine what happens next – from “noise” to action plans – and really move the collective will? 
7. How do we ensure that we have good information? When and how does that get out properly and used? 

Seven infrastructure components necessary to develop public consensus:

1. Legislative: The United States has this framework developed and practiced for years, thanks to our founding fathers. Of note to this group should be the recent Citizens United U.S. Supreme decision, which removes corporate campaign contribution caps. 
2. Physical: Communities need to have places where everyone feels safe. These places need to be accessible and neutral. 
3. Technological: This is affected by the way that we are socially organized. We need to recognize that there is a digital divide and where that divide is. The emerging democracies have done this well, in particular Estonia, where 97 percent of their residents have broadband access at home and 84 percent have been trained in technology literacy. 
4. Human: We need a cadre of trained facilitators in every community. Good moderation and facilitation skills are necessary.  It can’t be just one person, but it can be one to train the next person and build the human structure. 
5. Organizational: Community foundations fill this need. 
6. Media: The free flow of information is critical to a democracy. That is why we are here at this conference to help figure out this component. 
7. Educational: Perhaps this is where we fail most as a country. Civics is essentially left out of curricula today. 

Build public consensus.

As a nation we do not have moments that give us national narrative. Conventional wisdom says that you don’t want to engage the public; they don’t have the information, time or will and would make a “me”-oriented decision, and decision makers will not listen anyway.

If, however, you put your consensus-building project together well:

1. Radical opinions on both sides drop off within 40-45 minutes. This is a core truth about Americans: we move to the center and we want to solve problems. 
2. If there is enough information and time, people want to come to a collective decision that serves the public interest.  
3. People will stay engaged.  
4. Decision makers will listen, but they have to be involved early in the process. Have public meetings and invite the officials in at the front end to have them take ownership. 

It seems like the hardest part is to get everyone in the room.

• Use existing analysis from marketing firms about what media reaches what audience. 
• Use neighborhood newspapers; in Washington, D.C. alone there are 68 local newspapers. 
• Use human interest stories that feature people whom the neighborhood trusts. 
• Use drive-time radio with the same analytics: Who is most trusted? 
• Use proven community organizers; they are the people who know those neighborhoods.  
• Think about churches, NAACP, unions, etc., and low-power community radio stations. 
• Use existing events. 
• Use mobile phones as a way to inform, with an invitation to participate. 

Share things that you have discovered that make the information you are sharing meaningful.

• Produce trends report. This is public information that already exists; you just need to analyze it.  
• Change the way that you write to address why something  matters to the readers and their family. Include information about what the reader do about it. 
• Consider if we would build out the media this way if we had the opportunity to do so. 

Examples:

• Foundation for the Carolinas representative asked how we can leverage stimulus money with private dollars. They were told no by government officials, that there was no role for the community foundation. The foundation then mapped the dollars coming in and looked at low-wealth individuals and what was really required to support an individual. They then mapped the stimulus dollars and how they were being directed to help that individual. 
• Visualize information in new ways. 
• Use mind-mapping software. 
• Watch 1,000 pennies video on youtube.com. 
• Remember that data visualization is quantitative data and you need qualitative words to understand the whole picture. 
• Check out Edward Tufte’s data visualization workshops (EdwardTufte.com). 
• Good graphics help you rise above the noise. 

Is there a place where we know that action and behavior change?

Meetup.com cites that people are anxious about getting together with folks they don’t know – but four times seems to be a tipping point. Return-attendance rates rapidly increase after four.

Resources:

• Tallahassee consulting group that ran successful binge-drinking prevention campaign 
• Spitfire Strategies helps groups identify what their audience needs to hear to move to action 

How do you get started?

• New York Trust project seeks to reduce gun violence in seven neighborhoods, using Knight grant to advance the existing program goal. Think about projects that can advance institutional goals. 
• Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque: Their most successful programs are the ones where they went out and built partnerships first. 
• Park City Foundation leveraged partnerships and brought everyone into a room to develop common goals. 

Leave with this key leadership skill: Listen with your heart and your mind.

Session One: March 1, 2010

• Facilitator: Carolyn Lukensmeyer, AmericaSpeaks
• Scribe: Nancy Jones, Community Foundation of Broward County

How do you move from information to action?

The group defined for itself what it wanted to accomplish out of the session.  Each of the small groups reported back the following:

1. 1.We need to define the importance of sharing information in our community.  
2. 2.What is the role of a community foundation? Are we neutral? Is what we are doing a reflection of our values? 
3. 3.How do we ensure that all the voices are heard and then build consensus around those voices? 
4. 4.We are looking forward to the sharing of ideas of award-winning projects and stealing other ideas from the group. 
5. 5.While there is lots of information available, how do we move people to public judgment together? 
6. 6. How do we bridge the digital divide between the poor, seniors and use those tools to achieve consensus? 

Seven infrastructure components are necessary to develop public consensus.

1. Legislative: The United States has this framework developed and practiced for years, thanks to our founding fathers. Of note to this group should be the recent Citizens United U.S. Supreme decision, which removes corporate campaign contribution caps. 
2. Physical: Communities need to have places where everyone feels safe. These places need to be accessible and neutral. 
3. Technological: This is affected by the way that we are socially organized. We need to recognize that there is a digital divide and where that divide is. The emerging democracies have done this well – in particular Estonia, where 97 percent of their residents have broadband access at home and 84 percent have been trained in technology literacy. 
4. Human: We need a cadre of trained facilitators in every community. Good moderation and facilitation skills are necessary. It can’t be just one person, but it can be one to train the next person and build the human structure. 
5. Organizational: Community foundations fill this need. 
6. Media: The free flow of information is critical to a democracy. That is why we are here at this conference to help figure out this component. 
7. Educational: Perhaps this is where we fail most as a country. Civics is essentially left out of curricula today. 

How can you best handle/achieve your results?

Key points included that people need to be able to articulate what they think about an issue – and that this is true whether on the Internet or in person. To come to shared public judgment, people need to know that they have a stable government behind them and their decisions. And for it to be “shared,” people need to have a conversation with others who think differently than they do about the issue.

How do you connect education infrastructure with broadband, etc., and the role that government plays?

• The White House is accomplishing this through its open government initiative, including the FCC and a sustainable neighborhoods project that is being led by HUD and includes HHS, DOT and DOE.
• Community foundations need to pay attention to this when they are reaching out to online audiences primarily. 

What are the best ways to do outreach?

• Solicit the help of the bonafide community organizers in your community.
• Remember that the only way people join a community process is because someone they trust (who looks like them) invites them. 
• Sort data and create a theme before you send out the invitation to contribute. What is the structure and what are you going to do with the data once you have it? 
  • Trust is broken of institutions. 
  • Get the help that you need with technical expertise and what tools are available, especially digital. 

What are the major challenges faced by groups?

• People have no trust of the process. 
• Conventional wisdom is that citizens will not come without an invitation. 
• People feel that the issues are complex and that they can’t help. 
• People suffer from NIMBY and are most concerned about what is good for them and their family. 
• People fear that decision-makers will not listen. 

Lukensmeyer urged the group to think about this truth that she has learned from her experience – most human beings have the capacity to come from the lowest level motivation (NIMBY, protect my job, family, etc.) to the highest level purpose when they:

• Feel safe 
• Believe that they will be listened to 
• Feel that someone “is home” once we have this discussion 
• Have and understand the information 
• Have confidence that the decisions that are made will be acted on 

One of the most extraordinary pieces of social capital in the U.S. is that the vast majority of people still feel responsible for the common good.  It is proven that in just 45 minutes of a group process that has the above characteristics, the radical solutions on both ends fall off the table.

What are some things that you learned that you know can be replicated in another community?

• Regional Information Initiative, San Diego: They learned that it was important to allow for grantees to have time to plan and work collaboratively. Understand that it takes time and allow for that time. 
• Act for Alexandria: They learned that they had to make the case for why this is important to every constituency; they had buy-in before they went to next step. 
• Columbia, S.C. is using college students to teach seniors how to use technology. An interesting aspect is what seniors are teaching the young people in return. The lesson: Celebrate unintended results.  

What can the role of community foundations play in convening?

• When another entity, like a community foundation, takes the lead on planning public meetings, it changes the dynamic of us v. them or constituents v. officials. 
• Community foundations can provide a critical link between public will and political will. 

Ideas

• Zimbabwe PBX phone system: Dial 1 to get this, dial 2 to get that – this is one award winner in how they are distributing news. 
• Princeton developed a registry for retirees to get involved in the community; the newspaper gives free ads, someone else gives free billboards, etc. 
• NJ Spotlight.com features state news and allows people to discuss what problems exist. It’s moderated so that it is not an us v. them conversation.  
• Use local extension services as a source of information and assistance. 

Session 2: March 1, 2010

• Facilitator:  Kim Marcille Romaner, Founder, Possibilities, Inc.
• Scribe:  Heidi Williamson, VP Communications, Berks County Community Foundation, Reading, PA

Kim Marcille Romaner is working with the Miami-Dade Broadband Coalition to close the digital divide in the county and to improve broadband access in public anchor institutions like libraries and community colleges. In their work, the coalition has discovered that it is disingenuous to rely on broadband penetration studies, which do not show the whole picture because the surveys are done using land-based phone lines.

In partnering with public anchor institutions, the coalition is hoping to improve broadband access available to local residents by providing a broader broadband “pipe” all of the organizations can use, thus lowering the strain on the organization’s budgets.

Once the broadband pipe is in place in a community, public institutions need help getting up to speed so that they know what is possible with the new “fat pipes.” Community foundations can look for ways to expose organizations to best practices in their communities and in other places around the country and the world. Foundations may also want to encourage organizations to tap into the FCC’s goal for universal access, which will be announced formally on March 16. That goal is likely to be to connect 100 million homes at 100 megabits, which is a big leap in bandwidth from where we are now.

The Miami-Dade Broadband Coalition’s approach is aimed at developing a Digital Public Square, which is a place for people to come together, discuss priorities and develop new understanding of the issues that impact their communities. It also serves as a place for people to address and solve problems. A Digital Public Square democratizes the process of community input because opinions are weighted for their own value rather than by who said them. Finally, a Digital Public Square should be completely accessible, with no significant economic or technological barriers for those who want to use it.

To get organizations and communities to think seriously about creating a Digital Public Square and then take action to get started, foundations can identify public and private funding sources that might be available. Foundations can also celebrate any “wins” that take the community closer to having universal access.  Foundations can increase awareness of the issue by reaching out to community groups and describing the project, then generating multimedia stories and posting them online.

After broadband access is in place, community foundations may be challenged to encourage community conversations and engagement. Potential ways to start, continue, or enhance conversations about important community issues include:

Creating a public relations strategy around the conversation you want to start;

Having politicians or civic leaders involved and talking about the project;

Holding public meetings  and listen to what people are saying about it;

Holding community workshops that conclude by asking attendees to become engaged in the project in some way, such as signing up for a committee;

Creating a competition around a public issue and give people a mechanism to provide feedback about the ideas that the competition generates (minnesotaideaopen.org);

Finding ways for those who will be most affected to become engaged through online discussions rather than relying on set-time public meetings. One resource for this is Dimdim.com, a collaborative presentation site;

Expanding a task force’s reach by posting information to a blog and engaging interns in the process of interviewing community members;

Partnering with organizations and people who already have influence in the community.

Another challenge will be ensuring that those who cannot afford or are unable to use the tools to access the Internet don’t get left behind. Options for connectivity include low-cost mobile applications, like cell phones, and computer giveaways coupled with training programs. One way to improve access is to have quality, affordable low-income housing come with broadband and a computer, as if it were a basic utility/need that should be there, just like a furnace (or AC in Miami).

There are potential partners that community leaders can turn to as they work to create a Digital Public Square. These include small ISP-providers, hardware and software manufacturers, who all have a stake in the game (market-creation strategy).

While there are potential partners, a concrete method to sustain Digital Public Square projects has yet to be developed. Promising ideas include treating access as a public utility and implementing a rate-payer concept similar to what electric companies use. Long term sustainability will require driving access into community institutions such as schools.

Community foundations can play a role by convening interested and relevant parties to discuss ways to create Digital Town Squares in their own communities.

Session 1: March 1, 2010

• Facilitator:  Kim Marcille Romaner, Founder, Possibilities, Inc.
• Scribe:  Heidi Williamson, VP Communications, Berks County Community Foundation, Reading, PA

Note: This session was also live-blogged. The archive, including links to resources, is available at www.informationneeds.org.

Kim Marcille Romaner is working with the Miami Dade Broadband Coalition to close the digital divide in the county and to improve broadband access in public anchor institutions like libraries.

The Miami Dade Broadband Coalition is working with these public institutions to create and sustain robust broadband access for the communities they serve. The coalition is looking at ways to measure the need for broadband among these organizations and provide a broader pipe they all can use, thus lowering the strain on the organization’s budgets.

The coalition’s work is one step in a multifaceted approach that communities can take to develop a Digital Public Square. A Digital Public Square ultimately provides broadband access to everyone, allowing each person to choose how engaged to get in community issues.  

In many cases, people may not become engaged in those issues at all, but the very ability to access the Internet is of value. When people have access, they can decide what they want to use the Internet to do, and eventually may develop an interest in broader community issues.

Once a Digital Public Square is built and accessible, community leaders need to look for ways to ask people for input and to contribute to the conversation. The Digital Public Square should also take into consideration other tools that can be used to share content, including cell phones. This will require taking a holistic approach to the access issue and considering other factors (poverty, advanced age) that people without access often face.

Another facet of creating a Digital Public Square is engaging schools in the process. By improving civics education beginning in elementary school, children will begin to learn the importance of information in a democracy. As it becomes more and more difficult for those without access to connect to services and apply for jobs, communities will need to develop a sense of urgency within their schools to provide students with the technological skills they need and the public with the broadband access it needs. Schools can also play a role by providing broadband through programs such as E-rate, where schools pay for connectivity for their buildings but can also provide access to the community around them.

In addition to schools, there are many potential partners that community leaders can turn to as they work to create a Digital Public Square. These include:

Businesses that need to hire people with at least rudimentary computer skills;

ISP-providers, hardware and software manufacturers, who all have a stake in the game (market-creation strategy);

Local, state and federal government grants and funding;

Existing community organizations already working on access issues;

Newspapers, public radio/television stations;

Faith-based communities;

Arts organizations;

And Healthcare providers, who need to broaden the network to put health records online, could potentially use the broadband they put in place to connect broader swaths of the community.

While there are many potential partners, a concrete method to sustain Digital Public Square projects has yet to be developed. Promising ideas include treating access as a public utility and implementing a rate-payer concept similar to what electric companies use.

Similarly, a step-by-step approach to creating a Digital Public Square has yet to emerge among the many experiments. Current models for the Digital Public Square concept include:

In upstate New Hampshire funders are putting towers in rural areas as an experiment;

Wisconsin has a wide network to connect universities, now trying to spread it wider;

MIT Center for Future Civic Media is studying cell-phone networks, broadband and looking at the culture of specific communities;

The Boston Hub on Wheels bicycle race raises funding for access projects;

The Teach Up program pairs Mississippi schools with IT interns to improve access and expand learning;

Existing literacy programs may offer insight into rolling out access programs;

And Google has a program where communities can apply for broadband – Google-gig.

Community foundations can play a role by convening interested and relevant parties to discuss ways to create Digital Town Squares in their own communities.