This post is one in a series on what four community and place-based foundations are learning by funding media projects that help to meet their local information needs. All are funded through the Knight Community Information Challenge.

Prior to 2000, Wisconsin Rapids (population 18,000) and surrounding south Wood County were at the pinnacle of prosperity: Consolidated Papers Inc. had its corporate headquarters there, most of the community’s workers were employed by the papermaking company, and the town had a newspaper housed in its own 20,000-square-foot waterfront building downtown.

Today, paper mills still operate in town, but they employ far fewer people (977 in late 2013), following the company’s sale to a Finnish group. The Wisconsin Rapids newspaper scene fell on hard times too.  Gannett has owned the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune since 2000, but downsized the paper. The Daily Tribune left its building for smaller digs and sold the vacant facility to Incourage Community Foundation in late 2012.

Now, the building that was once the information hub of Wisconsin Rapids is being born again. The Tribune Building is about to become a different kind of community information and engagement hub — as well as home to a microbrewery, cafe, recreational rentals and space for creativity, all uses determined by input from hundreds of local residents. Construction is scheduled to begin later this year.

At first glance, such plans for the space don’t scream out “information hub,” but don’t misunderstand. The former newspaper building turned social enterprise is part of Incourage’s decade-long effort to “foster a new culture in our community,” says Kelly Ryan, the community foundation’s president and CEO.

That means:

• Making it possible for residents to make their own informed decisions, based on quality data and information, plus engagement with each other and local leaders.
• Leaving behind old dependencies on the paper company, which once dominated local decision-making and lives, and fostering more self-reliance in the community.

Likewise, a stronger culture of citizen inclusiveness and listening to community members has evolved inside Incourage itself. Incourage found its focus on community information and engagement because of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy report, led by a blue-ribbon panel that assessed the information needs of communities and made recommendations. The 2010 report continues to inform Incourage’s efforts.

Chelsey Mazurek, Incourage’s manager of the Tribune Building Project, explains that communication is an overarching theme for the project. While information once flowed out of the building (the old newspaper “we tell you” model), in its new life the building will be a place to connect and engage (two-way communication, a stalwart characteristic of most media today).

As community foundations look to apply the Knight Commission’s recommendations to informing their communities, Ryan points to a key lesson learned in Wisconsin Rapids: When faced with cutbacks in local news, the foundation’s first inclination was to create an information-and-news online platform to inform the community. They quickly discovered it wasn’t the right approach for their community. “It’s not enough to just produce content when you don’t truly understand how residents get their information,” she says. Incourage shifted from looking at a “supply” solution to a focus on how to get residents engaged, so that they might become more self-reliant.

That engagement played out in a spectacular way after Incourage purchased the old newspaper building. A series of community meetings attracted about 700 local residents to discuss, develop and come to agreement on ideas for the physical space. Some 200 of those people became actively engaged in the project. Participants in the process came up with about 1,000 ideas, and over the course of 15 months were able to reach agreement on the new uses for the building. (You can read about the process in this report.)

Ryan describes the process of deciding what the building will house as “the purest example of engagement and voice you could imagine.” What residents learned is, “If I participate, I will be heard.” Equally significant is that the process came to a decisive conclusion with so many players involved, and that it proved that there is an appetite for community engagement among many of those who live and work in Wisconsin Rapids.

Beyond the specifics of future uses of the Tribune Building, Incourage has been able to better learn about what matters to community residents and what issues resonate. For example, Ryan says that her foundation and everyone involved “discovered” the Wisconsin River. What long has been a “working river” serving the paper industry runs through the middle of town. Now it’s known that community members want to repurpose the waterway for recreational activities, a byproduct of downsizing the local paper mills which had affected the river’s water quality.

As the Tribune Building Project proceeds, Ryan expects that the process will continue to adapt in order to assess and address information needs of the community while fostering increased self-reliance and residents’ ownership of the information ecosystem. “That’s the ongoing challenge ahead, for us and for every community,” she says.

For the Tribune Building, as it begins a new life, managed by a community foundation and the town’s residents, what goes on inside its walls will inform the community’s residents and leaders in different and perhaps more powerful ways than the newspaper operation that once thrived there.

Steve Outing is a writer and digital media consultant.

RELATED LINKS

“Foundations take on projects to improve local news and information” by Steve Outing on Knight blog, 10/30/14

“Small news startups try to survive and cover ‘ignored’ New Jersey news” by Steve Outing on Knight blog, 11/19/14

“How Smart Chicago gets everyday people to guide future of civic tech” by Steve Outing on Knight blog, 12/10/14

“A foundation eager to act learns to listen first” by Steve Outing on Knight blog, 12/17/14

“In Wisconsin, a vacant newspaper building takes new life” by Steve Outing on Knight blog, 01/21/15