The Community Foundation of Greater South Wood County has formed an innovative partnership with the MIT Media Lab’s Center for Future Civic Media. Together they are creating a community lab that tests ways to match digital technology with citizen information needs and community challenges.

“We provide the MIT Media Lab with a ‘community lab’ within which technology experiments to foster civic engagement can be created and tested. The Lab benefits from our foundation’s networks, reputation in the community and holistic approach to re-development,” said Kelly Lucas, President and CEO of the community foundation.

A highly ambitious and innovative project is One.me, currently being designed to better coordinate services for low-income and unemployed individuals and families and focused on networking support agencies.

The Center for Future Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) proposed creating One.me. Lucas notes that MIT’s Rick Borovoy “turned the question of information on its head” by suggesting that the information flow be centered on individual clients, enabling them to determine voluntarily what information would be shared.

A prototype of One.me, in the spirit of sites like Facebook, strives to  coordinate services and capture the survival stories and social networks behind the data, according to Liz Everson, project manager at the community foundation.

In some cases, the foundation will take the lead on MIT projects. In another cases, the foundation may simply connect the MIT center with community partners.

Other efforts under way include:

– Grassroots Mapping. Community members use helium balloons and kits to launch “community satellites” with inexpensive cameras attached. The resulting photos are geo-referenced and compiled into maps. Following a demonstration of the tool by MIT representatives, which earlier was used to document the BP oil spill, the community foundation developed a video and manual that will be distributed to area schools and organizations. University of Wisconsin Stevens Point students are considering using the tools to document the Wisconsin Rapids flood of 2010.

– Hero Reports. This is a community campaign to recognize and inspire public acts of courage and kindness by asking citizens to report moments when others make a difference. Hero Reports campaigns in New York City and Juarez focused on violence; the South Wood County campaign would focus on quality of life and community pride in an area that has struggled with economic disruption.

– Red Ink. This open source platform enables people to share, aggregate, analyze and publish their financial transactions and participate in data sharing campaigns. Students at UW-Stevens Point are testing and helping refine this platform and the community foundation will be involved in discussions of how the software might increase transparency of foundation grant making.

Foundation CEO Kelly Lucas and Board Chair Helen Jungwirth first connected with Chris Csikszentmihályi, the MIT center’s director, at the Media Learning Seminar in Miami in 2009. Csikszentmihályi subsequently was keynote speaker at the community foundation-hosted “Information Revolution Forum” in early 2010 and the partnership was born.

Lucas says the foundation’s efforts go well beyond individual projects and encompasse research, reflection and preparation. The community foundation, a two-time Community Information Challenge winner, is pioneering a holistic approach to assessing and supporting community information needs.

“Changing systems – including a community’s information ecology – is long-term work. It requires understanding culture, systems thinking and patience with both process and ambiguity,” Lucas said.