Community Impact – Page 52 – Knight Foundation

Program Area: Community Impact

Sheila Cockrel is co-founder and executive director for CitizenDetroit, an independent nonprofit that organizes and activates engaged citizens in the democratic process. Citizen Detroit is receiving $1.5 million in new support from Knight Foundation. 

On Saturday, Jan. 27, 2018, several hundred Detroiters of all ages, races and life experiences convened in a union hall near downtown Detroit for CitizenDetroit’s first Citizen Assembly. The Assembly’s mission: to understand how Detroit’s history has shaped its present, and together, agree on the priorities we’ll use to hold our elected officials accountable. After four hours of speakers, thought-provoking exercises and deliberation, 10 priorities were identified. These will be used as progress indicators to assess the actions of elected officials – those in office and those running for office – over the next three years. The priorities include:

  1. All Detroiters will have access to quality education.
  2. We won’t support a development if Detroiters are moved so others can move into their homes.
  3. Our transit system will transport Detroiters to their jobs and appointments.
  4. All neighborhoods will be safe.
  5. We’ll fight economic segregation: every area of Detroit will have a place for people of all incomes.
  6. Those who stayed will have an active voice in shaping their neighborhood redevelopment.
  7. Government actions will be transparent and accountable to residents.
  8. The City will promote and protect residents’ health, well-being and safety.
  9. Jobs and opportunities will be brought close to the neighborhoods whenever possible – and made available first to Detroiters.
  10. Blight removal is critical but we must save every house we can.

Building on this work, CitizenDetroit will produce a scoreboard that tracks how the city is doing across a multitude of measures. At the assembly, many attendees also signed up to be part of a group that will help track progress through CitizenDetroit’s action arm, EngageD. With the support of a three-year grant from Knight Foundation, we will engage in deep civic education that equips Detroit residents to be the most informed and engaged citizens in our country.

CitizenDetroit’s participants include those who have long histories of championing for breakthroughs in civil rights, as well as young adults who are coming of voting age and want to participate more fully in the democratic process. While there is a sense of great hope among them for the future of Detroit, there is also a fear that their voices won’t be heard. CitizenDetroit is committed to creating a space for Detroiters from all walks of life to come together to break bread and discuss the most important issues facing our city.

Detroit is facing a period of great transition since exiting bankruptcy and emergency financial management. A recent Knight Foundation-commissioned report for Detroit Future City, 139 Square Miles, noted: “For the first time in 60 years, the city is moving toward population growth, [and yet] today, 53 percent of Detroit residents live in ‘areas of concentrated poverty.’”

Enhancing the decision-making skills of local residents about their rights as citizens has been and remains necessary to set the agenda for change in the city. When laying out city planning goals at the 2017 Mackinac Policy Conference, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said: “Our principle is this: one city for all of us.” This mandate has set in motion a call for increased attention and dialogue among residents about how decisions are made in the city and who decides. CitizenDetroit serves as a platform for Detroiters to become informed about issues that are important to them and what’s at stake.

President Obama, paraphrasing Louis Brandeis in his farewell address, stated that the most important office in our democracy is that of “citizen.” We believe citizens can and will change the course of policy and the course of the country for the better. We’re bringing the notion of citizen power forward in 2018. We will work with our fellow Detroiters to promote a multilayered and critical understanding of policy issues and candidate platforms. In this way, citizens can make decisions rooted in shared values as our city undergoes an incredible period of transformation.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Feb. 20, 2018 –This summer, American Public Media (APM) will look to expand the horizon of rising entrepreneurs and contribute to business development in St. Paul with the launch of a new and philanthropy-backed innovation center, The Glen Nelson Center, in addition to a startup incubator supported in part by $1 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The Glen Nelson Center will invest in startups aligned with APM’s mission and launch new businesses on the frontier of media and technology. The new center is named in honor of Glen Nelson, M.D. – a longtime supporter, board member and board chair at Minnesota Public Radio and APM – who passed away in 2016. As vice chairman at Medtronic, Dr. Nelson championed efforts to save lives through innovation and was the patron of the “Patent Garden,” honoring the legacies of medical inventors. 

“We are immensely grateful for Marilyn Carlson Nelson and her family’s support of this initiative and its dedication to Glen’s mission,” said Jon McTaggart, president and CEO of American Public Media Group. “This wouldn’t be possible without the scores of friends who made memorial gifts in honor of Glen, along with the support of Newman’s Own Foundation and the Bill Kling Innovation Endowment. The generosity of these individuals and organizations have made the Glen Nelson Center a reality. This center will honor Glen’s commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship that creates social good.” 

APM’s primary goal is to expand our relevance and reach to audiences. The Glen Nelson Center will invest in companies that support this mission and are on the frontier of their field. The center is central to APM’s efforts to lead the changing landscape of media, in addition to ensuring that APM can continue to serve diverse and growing audiences in the most vital of ways. Jeff Freeland Nelson (no relation), a seasoned entrepreneur with 20 years of leadership experience across the for-profit, non-profit and governmental sectors, will lead the Glen Nelson Center.

The first new business launched by the Glen Nelson Center will be Lunar Startups, a shared workspace and new venture incubator. The Glen Nelson Center and Lunar Startups will be based in downtown Saint Paul’s Osborn370, which opened this year to house the next generation of innovators in a vibrant setting within the reimagined former Ecolab headquarters.

Lunar Startups to accelerate high-growth startups with Knight Foundation support

Lunar Startups is a collaboration between the Glen Nelson Center and Osborn370 with support from the Knight Foundation that will incubate and accelerate early-stage, high-growth startups with a strong commitment to entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities. 

“The Glen Nelson Center and Lunar Startups aims to help ensure entrepreneurs across all of our city’s diverse communities have access to the tools and resources they need to contribute to the success of St. Paul,” said Jai Winston, Knight Foundation program director for St. Paul. “The center’s location in downtown will also help to add a new, vibrant hub for ideas to the heart of the city, encouraging further growth and development.”  

Lunar’s collaborative space will inspire a wide-ranging group of startups and give them access to critical resources, such as shared office space, visibility, programming, essential business services, and a powerful mentorship network. Melissa Kjolsing Lynch is the founding managing director of Lunar, as well as the co-founder of tech startup Recovree. Recently named by Minnesota Business as one of the 2018 (Real) Power 50, Melissa previously led the MN Cup, the largest statewide startup competition in the country. 

“The Glen Nelson Center and Lunar Startups have the leadership and vision to be a perfect match for Osborn370 and St. Paul,” said Scott Burns, technology start-up veteran and partner in Osborn370. “The entrepreneurs they seek to nurture will find a vibrant community of innovators in this unique building.” 

Glen Nelson Center and Lunar Startups will occupy one full floor of Osborn370. The 10,000-square-foot space is scheduled to open in summer 2018. For more information on the Glen Nelson Center, visit http://www.glennelson.org. To learn more about Lunar Startups, visit LunarStartups.org.

About American Public Media
American Public Media® is the national programming division of Minnesota Public Radio® and reaches 20 million listeners via 1,000 radio stations nationwide each week. APM is one of the largest producers and distributors of public radio programming in the world, with a portfolio that includes BBC World Service, Marketplace® and the leading classical music programs in the nation. APM offers a diverse array of podcasts featuring the best in food, culture, entertainment, business and investigative journalism. In November 2015, APM launched APM Reports, a long-form reporting group aimed at creating distinct, high-impact journalism in the form of investigations and documentaries. APM Reports’ groundbreaking investigative podcast, In the Dark, which examinedthe 27-year-old cold case of the kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling in central Minnesota, won a George Foster Peabody Award, the highest honor in broadcasting. For more information on APM, visit americanpublicmedia.org.

Source: Data are copyright Nielsen Audio. Data are estimates only.

About Knight Foundation

Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.

About Osborn370 

Osborn370 is building a community of innovators in downtown Saint Paul. The former Ecolab headquarters tower is being transformed into a working environment where companies, organizations and individuals can create and collaborate. Through design, intentional collaborative spaces, critical professional services and lead tenants that set the tone for innovation, Osborn 370 is designed to support large and small entrepreneurial businesses and help them attract and retain the talent they need to power their growth.

Media contacts: 

Kelly Reller, American Public Media, 651-290-1552, [email protected]

Anusha Alikhan, Director of Communications, Knight Foundation, 305-908-2646, [email protected]

To strengthen technology expertise within government by supporting the nonpartisan Congressional Innovation Fellowship which places technologists in congressional offices.

To engage residents in each residential building downtown in community planning and decision-making, and recruit diverse board members.

The forum’s main sessions will be livestreamed Feb. 20-21 at knightfoundation.org/live.

At a time when trust in media, and institutions in general, is dangerously low, how can news organizations work to rebuild it? What effect does the trend have on people’s engagement in solving local issues? 

Starting Tuesday morning Feb. 20, the Knight Media Forum will tackle these topics and more, as it gathers leaders in philanthropy, media and technology to look at ways to strengthen both local news and communities. The event will be streamed online, and features a range of speakers including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who recently piloted the news service WikiTribune, and former CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer, who will address how our society can navigate the information overload that surrounds us.

Woven throughout the sessions is a prompt toward action, as panelists consider how funders and leaders can work to ensure communities are getting the information they need to make decisions, and galvanize people around solutions.

The livestream kicks off at 9:15 a.m. EST Tuesday with a conversation between members of the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy. Under the Aspen Institute, the blue-ribbon panel is looking at the media landscape around the country, starting from the premise that without trust, our democracy cannot function. With members ranging from a PBS producer to Facebook’s product manager for news, the commission will share what it has learned and gather input for its final recommendations. 

The role of technology and what it means for the future of communities will be front and center too. Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, will explore the difficult choices we face as artificial intelligence and algorithms play an increasingly important role in our lives, and how people can and must shape their roles in society. Amy Webb, founder of the Future Today Institute, will talk about the latest tech trends, what to expect in coming years, and how communities might be able to leverage innovation for good. An additional panel will look at how communities might restore respectful dialogue – both online and in person – in this time of partisanship.

A Wednesday morning panel will look at the ways foundations are investing in local news, to ensure that both rural and urban communities are getting the information they need to make important decisions. The support takes many forms, from helping nonprofit news sites like The Texas Tribune get off the ground, to enabling small newsrooms to come together with a solutions journalism focus, as the LOR Foundation did in the Western U.S.

The livestream schedule is below. You can join the conversation online with #infoneeds, and watch live from knightfoundation.org/live.

Tues., Feb. 20, 2018


9:15 A.M.: WELCOME

Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO, Knight Foundation

9:30–10:30 A.M.: KNIGHT COMMISSION ON TRUST, MEDIA AND  DEMOCRACY

Moderator, Jennifer Preston, VP/Journalism at Knight Foundation.

Panel: Co-Chair Tony Marx, president and CEO, The New York Public Library and Commission members Mizell Stewart III, vice president, news and operations, Gannett/USA TODAY Network, Charles Sykes, Talk-show host and author, MSNBC contributor, Nuala O’Connor, president and CEO, Center for Democracy and Technology, Raney Aronson-Rath, executive producer, Frontline PBS, and Anthea Watson Strong, product manager for news, Facebook. Moderator, Jennifer Preston, VP/Journalism at Knight Foundation.

12:15–1:30 P.M.: THE FUTURE AND WHY IT’S UP TO US

Introduction: Emmett Carson, president and CEO, Silicon Valley Community Foundation

Speaker: Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media 

3 – 4 P.M.: CIVILITY, TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNITY

Moderator: Sam Gill, vice president, communities and impact, Knight Foundation

Panelists: Emily May, co-founder and executive director, Hollaback, Rashad Robinson, executive director, Color Of Change, Frank Fukuyama, Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow and Mosbacher Director, Center of Democracy, Stanford University, Lisa Adkins, president and CEO, Blue Grass Community Foundation

4:15 – 5:15 P.M.: OVERLOAD

Introduction: Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO, Knight Foundation

Speaker: Bob Schieffer, former CBS news anchor and host of “Face the Nation”

Wed., Feb. 21, 2018

8:30 – 9:45 A.M.: WHAT’S NEW; WHAT’S NEXT

Amy Webb, founder and CEO, Future Today Institute 

10 – 11 A.M. FOUNDATION PARTNERSHIPS MEETING LOCAL INFORMATION NEEDS

Moderator: Lilly Weinberg, Community Foundations Program Director, Knight Foundation

Panelists: John Thornton, Texas Tribune, LaMonte Guillory, chief communications officer, LOR Foundation, Anne Galloway, founder and editor, VTDigger, Christopher Kaufman-Ilstrup, chief operating officer, VTDigger, David Haas, vice chair, Wyncote Foundation and Sandra Clark, vice president of news and civic dialogue, WHYY

12:30 – 2 P.M.: 

Introduction and conversation: Helene Gayle, president and CEO, The Chicago Community Trust 

Speaker: Jimmy Wales, co-founder, Wikipedia and founder, WikiTribune

To support Charlotte Center City Partners to engage residents in planning and developing the Historic West End.

To support Bartram’s Garden serving as a civic destination for Southwest Philadelphia residents to gather and engage with the reinvestment challenges of their neighborhood and waterfront.

To amplify Knight Foundation’s emerging smart city and community strategy through SXSW’s social media reach.

To connect nonprofits with donated office space in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.

The Knight Cities Challenge was an initiative to surface new ideas to advance the success of the cities where the Knight brothers once owned newspapers. From 2014-2017 the challenge awarded nearly $15 million to 99 winners. Although many projects are just getting underway, we’ve already been able to glean many lessons from the ideas and innovators that it surfaced, which will help to shape Knight’s work in communities into the future.

The winners represent a huge variety of projects from musical swings in public spaces to simultaneous shared meals in hundreds of homes, from new zoning overlays to pop-up bike lanes. They are united in that they are all pursuing innovative projects that take them outside their comfort zones in the quest for successful cities.

What can we learn from them? What are the lessons for practitioners that we can take from the winning projects?

The first TreeOpp class, where apprentices learn about the reclaimed wood they’ll be working with. Photo courtesy of Boulder Tree Opp.

Establish clear lines of communication to agree upon outcomes.

While it sounds simple, setting clear and measurable goals is crucial to success – especially on projects with a large and diverse group of partners working together. Boulder’s #TreeOpp project brought together multiple city departments, homeless services provider Bridge House and the local library system. Each partner brought different priorities to the project that were sometimes at odds with each other.

By facilitating communication between partners, testing different approaches and openly sharing successes and failures, the partners were able to settle on realistic shared goals. The program has graduated 20 “Ready to Work” apprentices, diverted more than 5,000 ft. of lumber from the landfill, sold out of all produced merchandise, and brought new attention to BLDG 61 (the library’s makerspace) and the Emerald Ash Borer infestation in Boulder.

Greg Mangan’s Bus Parklet project on Michigan Avenue. (Photo by Stephen McGee)

Stay focused, but also flexible.

In the words of Chad Rochkind from Detroit’s People First Project “be strict about outcomes, but loose about pathways.” Detroit’s Michigan Avenue is an overbuilt nine-lane state highway that discourages public life, even as the street operates well below capacity. The People First Project offered micro-grants to tactical urbanism projects to spark a new conversation between decision-makers about the avenue’s built environment.

The success of any one of the individual projects was not as important as building a sense of momentum and that “something was happening.” Combined, the projects sparked new collaboration between responsible city and federal agencies and now, Michigan Avenue boasts the second-longest protected bike lane in America (the longest on a state right of way), has eliminated two lanes of car traffic, and the neighborhood continues to advocate for café-style sidewalk seating as a further improvement to the street.

Photos by Place Make the Vote

Build a big tent and invite everyone in.

Cities are broad, diverse and complex organisms. To make an impact requires pulling together a constellation of partners with a wide range of connections and expertise.

Case in point: Long Beach’s Place Make the Vote project. To increase civic engagement and voting rates in the 2016 general and primary elections, the design firm City Fabrick tested the impact of familiar placemaking tools such as food trucks, street games, performances, props and even photo booths on voting rates. Organizers brought together local election officials, civic engagement groups and community business and nonprofit alliances to build the project. Election officials ensured that compliance laws were followed and that polling place staffing levels were appropriate while community organizations engaged their constituents and managed the sites on election day. The large coalition meant that more time was spent in advance preparation, but it resulted in impact that an organization working solo couldn’t match.

Ultimately, the six Place Make the Vote voting sites experienced more than a five percent increase in voter turnout relative to the citywide average when comparing the 2008 and 2016 general elections. That’s huge. Now, the LA County Registrar is taking lessons from Place Make the Vote as they roll out early voting sites across Los Angeles.

Don’t forget to tell your story.

When you’re immersed in the day-to-day grind, sharing a compelling story online and in social media often falls to the bottom of the priority list – but it’s hugely important. Transformation is hard. An effective, vibrant communications strategy can make the difference between a successful project and a flop. In Charlotte, the Queen City Quiz Show had a fun and innovative way to provoke dialogue about the city’s challenges and opportunities. The game pits two four-person teams from community organizations against one another in front of a live audience. Promoting the series, which was a completely new concept and unfamiliar to Queen City residents, was an exercise in testing assumptions. Organizers had to adapt their message, medium and messengers to achieve success and participation.

Season one of Queen City Quiz Show featured 15 shows with hundreds of attendees and reignited a spirit of civic conversation in the Queen City. The format has been incorporated into monthly segments on “Good Day Charlotte” on the local FOX affiliate as well as the Creative Morning event series. Organizers expect further growth in season two. A toolkit and guide to producing your own events is coming out soon.

To develop a bicycle network strategy for Akron through the delivery of an implementation strategy, policy recommendations and a final report for public release by creating opportunities for partnership with 8-80 cities, the Summit Cycling Center and City of Akron residents.