How an established foundation got its groove back
How An Established Foundation Got Its Groove
I. GETTING INVOLVED: INFORMATION AND MEDIA
When JoAnn Turnquist arrived for her first day on the job in February 2009 as CEO of the Central Carolina Community Foundation (CCCF) in Columbia, South Carolina, she faced a tall order: The foundation’s board had recently completed an intensive nine-month strategic planning process, and the cornerstone of the plan was to increase assets to $150 million by 2030 while transforming the foundation into a more visible and viable institution in the region, among other goals. Now it was up to Turnquist to turn that vision into reality.
A few months earlier, a group of South Carolina’s top media and academic leaders had informally begun meeting to discuss ways to address the region’s growing news and information gap, in particular how to best meet the information needs of the city’s most under-served populations. One prominent group member was Charles Bierbauer, an award-winning former CNN reporter and senior White House correspondent and Dean of the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies at the University of South Carolina (USC). USC’s Newsplex, a media learning laboratory established in 2001 with support from the Knight Foundation, was also at the table; Newsplex helps news organizations adapt to new technologies, provides training and sponsors academic research, among other activities. Spurred by the announcement in September 2008 of the Knight Foundation Community Information Challenge (KCIC), the group soon expanded to include executives from the city’s major print news outlet and the state’s public broadcasting television station, as well as leaders from Benedict College (a local historically black college) and local foundation leaders.
Knowing the central role of community foundations in the KCIC, Bierbauer and his colleagues invited the Foundation to join in their discussions, and Dr. Susie VanHuss, the foundation’s interim president, immediately agreed. From her experience with the Foundation’s engagement in the City of Columbia’s homeless shelter debate, she had honed her instincts for identifying and capitalizing on promising opportunities, and this one had all the signs of success: Respected and talented partners with experience and traction on the issue, and perfect timing as the foundation was looking to become more visible and viable.
And so with the announcement of Knight’s new competition, VanHuss, Bierbauer and his growing cadre of colleagues teamed up to develop the idea for a new media and information initiative, BGTIME (Bridging Generations through Technology, Information, Media and Engagement), with KCIC support. BGTIME turned out to be an innovative and exciting idea in the information and new media space. The program bridges technological and information divides by uniting formerly disparate groups, such as seniors and college students, while serving the information needs of vulnerable communities. Project Description: BGTIME: Facebookers and Seniors Mash Up
BGTIME bridges ethnic, economic, and generational divides by increasing digital literacy among seniors in the greater Columbia area. College students are paired with seniors who, together, engage in both learning and teaching: students teach seniors how to use new technology and access information through the Internet, and the seniors contribute wisdom and experience that is captured and shared through new media avenues.
The primary focus is not to simply train seniors to access information from the Internet, but to enable them to share information and perspectives in ways that are easy to communicate with other members of the community.
The concept was originated by members of the working group, which included educators and administrators at the University of South Carolina and, later, Benedict College and various media thought leaders. Members reflected on which parts of the Columbia regional community had been left behind in the digital age as well as most lacked access to news and vital information. They quickly agreed that the most vulnerable group was senior citizens, who spanned all income levels and cultural backgrounds, and, as a demographic, were both a big part of the community and relatively disengaged in using new media. BGTIME proved to be a critical first step in empowering students and seniors to use new media to access information, express themselves and tell their stories.
II. BEYOND THE PROJECT: FOUNDATION LEADERSHIP
Turnquist’s arrival at CCCF coincided with the foundation’s receipt of the KCIC grant for BGTIME. As Turnquist took the helm at CCCF, she asked herself: What could the foundation do to further leverage its resources toward solving pressing problems in the community, and at the same time enhance the institution’s visibility and sustainability? Participation in the creation and roll-out of BGTIME laid the groundwork for Turnquist to lead CCCF toward other opportunities where it could have a visible, high-impact role in the community. Let’s take a closer look at how the foundation’s involvement in its information and media project enhanced its leadership in the community and deepened its understanding of seniors’ concerns, in particular as Columbia’s mayoral election approached.
1. Enhancing the Foundation’s Role in Community Conversations
As BGTIME gained traction, the community foundation noted that participating seniors were increasingly embracing new technologies and the Internet to connect with friends and family and to capture and share their life experiences. The foundation was struck by this trend: though they had expected BGTIME to provide greater access to public information through the Internet, the seniors’ motivations for using the new technology were typically much more personal. So CCCF began to seek out other ways to engage BGTIME participants in more public concerns.
The upcoming 2010 Columbia mayoral election provided CCCF with a unique opportunity. It was the first time in 20 years that Columbia’s incumbent mayor was not running for reelection, and a broad field of eight candidates had emerged in a high-profile, hotly contested race. The community foundation seized on the opening, and offered to host public forums for seniors to encourage them to participate in civic dialogue around the election. The community foundation hosted two mayoral forums among the eight candidates for mayor, focusing on two issues with which it had become deeply familiar: senior concerns and homelessness.
Creating Community Conversations
Soon the field of mayoral candidates had narrowed to two, and CCCF again stepped into a convening role and hosted a debate. Turnquist invited Charles Bierbauer to moderate. The quality and content of this debate – in which Bierbauer’s television experience and skillful moderation served to elevate the discourse and generate substantive discussion – was widely praised and created a new standard in the election process. “The [community foundation]-hosted debate raised the bar for the content and tone of all subsequent debates,” noted the now-Mayor’s Chief of Staff.
2. Amplifying the Foundation’s Visibility and National Prominence
The mayoral forums and debates that grew out of BGTIME marked an important inflection point for the community foundation. Following the debates, CCCF was invited to present the BGTIME project at the 2010 Media Learning Seminar conference in Miami. Unbeknownst to CCCF CEO Turnquist, Carolyn Lukensmeyer, founder of the national nonprofit, America Speaks, was listening to her presentation. America Speaks promotes civic engagement and serves as a non-partisan convener of community forums and meetings on a host of public policy issues.
The community foundation’s BGTIME experience stood out to Lukensmeyer for its successful engagement of seniors and students, and its subsequent orchestration of the mayoral forums and debate. This was noteworthy for two reasons. Firstly, CCCF had generated political interest and civic participation among college students – a constituency that is notoriously difficult to engage in civic discourse. Secondly, the foundation had used technology to teach BGTIME seniors about the Internet and new media not just for personal use but to broaden the reach of its community engagement efforts, through its partnership with ETV (the state’s television public broadcasting network) to stream the CCCF-hosted mayoral debate online.
America Speaks was at the time preparing to roll out a nationwide civic discussion on the federal budget and deficit called “Our Budget, Our Economy.” The event would allow residents of towns and cities to learn about and participate in facilitated discussions on strategies for the country’s fiscal future, using technology to link participating sites and unite thousands of residents in a national town hall meeting. CCCF was clearly a natural partner to coordinate and host the national meeting’s forum in Columbia. America Speaks offered CCCF an opportunity to leverage the foundation’s experience with BGTIME and the mayoral debates to further advance their visible and viable strategic goal.
Responding to Opportunity’s Call
Initially, some board members were skeptical that the event would remain non-partisan, but the Board ultimately unanimously approved the debate. The Board charged Turnquist with the challenge to ensure that a diverse set of community members with a broad representation of backgrounds, political affiliations and perspectives participate in the national town hall discussion scheduled for June 26, 2010.
Participating in the America Speaks “Our Budget, Our Economy” event presented an important opportunity for Columbia, as it was one of 19 selected town meeting sites among cities that included Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. America Speaks received a significant amount of media attention throughout the community, and CCCF, as the event convener, became better known. As it turned out, Columbia had the largest engagement team of any participating city, and residents throughout the community heard of the discussion and the foundation’s role through extensive participant recruitment efforts.
The America Speaks event has led to heightened community interest in bringing the same discussion format to policy issues at state and local levels. Turnquist believes that the opportunity to engage Columbia residents in local issues is ripe. For a community that is sometimes considered to be strongly rooted in the past, with deep racial and socio-economic divisions, the opportunity to bring residents together to discuss and engage with pressing local issues has been critically important. CCCF has continued to pursue its partnership with America Speaks, and will receive training to apply the America Speaks methodology at the local level on issues that pertain to the greater Columbia community.
3. Generating New Collaborations and Programs
CCCF is pursuing new partnerships and program opportunities that have sprung from the relationships they built through their BGTIME project.
The community foundation went on to partner with local library systems to host a literacy summit that brought together leaders from the 11 surrounding counties, including library directors and key literacy stakeholders from each county, to discuss and collaboratively plan for literacy improvements. The goal of ‘Literacy 2030’ is for South Carolina to become the most literate state in the country by 2030 by identifying and addressing key literacy challenges in each county. The foundation is interested in the process for bringing these stakeholders together, but also in the ongoing collaborative planning and projects that will emerge from it.
As BGTIME evolves, CCCF has considered how it can engage area senior citizens in the community. One initiative that has been chosen due to its ability to help bridge generations is One Book, One Columbia, a community-wide reading initiative where people of all ages and all backgrounds read a common book and come together to share their impressions, learn more about the book and its subject matter, and to connect with their neighbors. 2011 will be the inaugural year for this annual initiative in Columbia. Seniors and students from the BGTIME project will participate in the project as reading advocates and discussion leaders. They will also use their recently honed new media skills to provide journalist coverage across the city, by recording discussions and blogging about the event on the BGTIME website. One Book, One Columbia is expected to give seniors the opportunity to become more engaged in their community, both offline and online.
III. LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP
As Turnquist nears the end of her second year at the helm of the Central Carolina Community Foundation, she can point to a long list of accomplishments that mark the foundation’s progress toward becoming a more visible and viable institution. It has dramatically increased its profile in the community through BGTIME, just as it has also been able to increase information access and civic engagement among the local senior population through BGTIME forums and community programs. The State newspaper, a BGTIME partner and Columbia’s major daily, runs regular BGTIME ads below the weather report. The foundation has also developed relationships with major universities and has tapped into the city’s impressive wealth of expertise in an area new to the foundation. With this powerful group of partners, the foundation’s profile in the community has grown, and so has its understanding of the importance of the ability to access and share vital information. As a result, CCCF has become more widely known, more deeply respected and an undeniable go-to player on issues of concern to residents of Columbia and the Midlands region. It has enhanced its capacity and relationships to take a leadership role on important issues facing the region and to shift the dialogue and create impact.