BREAKOUT REPORT

Session 2: March 2, 2010

• Facilitator: Jerry Wareham, President and CEO WVIZ/PBS and 90.3 WCPN Ideastream

• Scribe: Carolyn Torgersen, VP for Communications, Community Foundation for the Lowcountry

The group was asked the question – what institutions in your community are already information providers?

A sampling of responses:

• Newspapers, television (locally-owned);
• Local mothers group (email list-based, provides community information);
• Asset maps to reveal local sources of information;
• Extension services at colleges and universities;
• Affiliate television networks;
• Online forums on newspaper;
• Alternative newspapers;
• Community foundation e-blasts to nonprofit sector;
• Radio, talk shows;
• University radio;
• Ideastream  (Cleveland-based);
• Websites – futurefundneo.org;
• Blogs, Facebook;
• Telephone-based tools (phone blasts);
• Onecommunity.org (Cleveland-based) connect with ultra broadband to schools, hospitals, rural areas.

Participants were asked to describe their projects, examples of partners, barriers as well as awareness-building efforts.

The River Partnership of Community Foundations

A program along the Mississippi River

• Foundations to build out local platform to educate local communities on what it means to be a river community;
• The goal is to have policy decisions be influenced by local communities;
• Currently working on business model that could be replicated community by community.

Chicago – Community News Matters

A grant program to support the city’s media innovators along with a study examining the region’s infrastructure.

• o.Uses unemployed/underemployed journalists to gather information.

Cleveland

Fund for our Economic Future

Efficientgovnow.org

• Public votes on suggested changes to community infrastructure and the funders came together to finance ‘prizes’ to elicit change;
• Second round will have a separate allocation for rural communities;
• It is sustained by great leadership and engaged community partners;
• Awareness is built through Web sites, newspapers, ideastream, NPR.

North Dakota

The university is building a back office system to store common information with CVB and others.  The community foundation would like to build philanthropy’s presence in community through this system.

University of North Dakota has a Center for Innovation.  Are there any other examples?

• Third Frontier program, 100 investors – $25K each, state match.  All high-risk projects
• Kauffman Foundation
• JumpStart.org
• Ohio Enterprise (biosciences)

The question, “What are examples of some of the partnerships in which you would like to engage with these institutions?” was posed to the audience.

Ideas included:

School districts and governmental organizations – would like to address the duplication of services such as safety forces and superintendents and encourage collaboration.

Libraries – would like to see them expand their reach and involvement in community.

Some suggestions include:

• Technology side investments – purchasing computers rather than books;
• Providing access to broadband within libraries;
• WiFi hub;
• Community gathering place.

Relationships with government officials such as mayors also came up as potential partners to strengthen communities and improve information dissemination.  There was an overall concern about “spin” when promoting government websites as information portals.

Examples of community portals currently in existence:

• Cleveland.com – associated with Cleveland Plain Dealer

The thought on these was that the comments on stories were typically negative and thus it wasn’t a productive community knowledge center.

• Chambers and convention and visitors’ bureaus were also mentioned