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Workshop Report: Rich Gordon - Carolyn Torgerson, Day Two

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The Information Needs of YOUR Community
Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008
Marbella Room

Leader: Rich Gordon,
Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University
Scribe: Carolyn Torgersen,
VP Marketing and Communications, Community Foundation of the Lowcountry

Several topics were generated
for a means to begin discussion. The topics were discussed in both general and
strategic terms:

  • Enabling technology
  • Training
    • Technology
    • Communications strategy
  • Conversation (many to many)
  • Platform (few to many)
  • Info Analysis
    • Prioritization
  • Info Dissemination

Rich Gordon reflected on the
commentary from the first breakout session and noted the discrepancies between
Knight Foundation goals and community foundation goals.

  • Knight Foundation – part of the reason
    for the information gap is lack of resources available to traditional media. This
    is a general problem to be solved by many community organizations. Information
    gathering and dissemination could be considered a strategic priority like economic
    development, housing, etc.
  • Community foundations are
    interested in communications strategies being integrated into initiatives but
    not necessarily a stand-alone goal.

There is a concern that
overwhelming numbers of community foundations could not play the role of leader
in the capacity building. We need to look to fund community foundations that
can play that leadership role and infrastructure building for those who cannot.

As with the first session,
there were several questions posed throughout the hour. Answers were not
produced, but the thoughtful exchange of ideas is important to note.

There are two skill sets that
need to be developed within community foundations – information
gathering/analysis and civic engagement – but they are not necessarily
compatible. Most community foundations don’t have these skills on staff, how
can we make it happen internally?

In many communities, the
newspaper and television stations are major players. Would it be more
productive to improve on what they already to rather than develop new resources
for information? What might the partnership look like?

Also noted was the fact that
newspaper web sites have more traffic and attention than community foundation
sites. How would community foundations either collaborate with newspapers in
generating web site content or drive traffic to the community foundation site?
site?

Other thoughts:

Community foundations are all
different, large versus small, and communications and information do not fit
neatly into vital issues of the day as it crosses all areas of foundation work.

Journalism cannot be one-way,
top down as it once was. Besides creating information and data, it needs to
make other resources available to learn more about topic. Community
foundations could aggregate information and give direction on how to be
involved in solving community issues.

In addition, community
foundations could fund local community groups to develop web sites and engage
community members.

Community foundations and
their partners also need to determine how reach to populations that are not
served by technology due to economic barriers as well as how to train
populations on the used of said technology.

Community foundation
examples of successful communication:

  • Boulder has worked on data
    aggregation through demographic studies of boards and staffs, the cultural
    leadership aspects used in those populations, and helping groups understand
    emerging leaders from diverse communities.
  • Milledgeville, Ga., is building a wireless network infrastructure and other industries and government are
    providing support. This is an effort to connect community, raise high school
    graduation rates, improve civic services, economic impact and development.
  • Palm Beach/Martin Counties is
    considering marketing through NPR.
  • PBS was also mentioned as a
    locally owned media outlet, may be a good source of collaboration. As is
    community radio.
  • Charlotte had public
    school/civic engagement findings published in paper.
  • Cleveland emphasizes strong
    web presence around its issue areas, including blogs and podcasts.
  • Northwestern University’s
    nanotechnology blog is an example of using new technology to draw interest to
    expertise, a model that could work for many community foundations. It is more
    than just Northwestern-based, but technology-based with references to other
    sources.

Look at natural connections
such as statewide networks and regional associations which may be better poised
to address issues.

Conclusion:

Knight Foundation is aware of
capacity issues at community foundations, but this is new reality of digital
technology and a lot of community foundations are not staffed to deal with
these changes. Community foundations need to look at job descriptions to ensure
their organizations are sufficiently prepared to be engaged in meeting the
information needs of their communities.

The session had 24
participants – all were very actively engaged.