Transmission Project

For the 2009-2010 Online Community Management and Membership Engagement Plan we are looking for a a VISTA volunteer to:
1. Manage and contribute to the 2009-10 Technology Infrastructure plan, which will continue to build the capacity of our members’ to connect and work with each other more fully.
2. Work in collaboration with program staff to create new content and interactive areas of the NAMAC website; edit and post web content regularly to keep it fresh and relevant; maintain the website and its technical needs.
3. Work with staff to set a social media strategy, and build out NAMAC’s capacity to reach members and the public through social media tools.
4. Work with NAMAC staff to pilot a series of webinars on the use of social media tools.
5. Expand and publish NAMAC’s web-based toolkits and guides to build capacity of our members’ organizations.
6. Work with staff to engage and reach out to members by communicating with them regularly through social media platforms; and develop metrics for NAMAC-based website and social networking usage.

NAMAC’s 300 member organizations serve the needs of low income communities around the country by providing access to technologies in community media centers, teaching members from these communities digital literacies and instructing at-risk youth in media production technologies; broadcasting with and distributing to underserved populations (such as new immigrants); and advocating on behalf of low-income communities in the telecommunications policy area. Many of our member organizations provide technology workforce development programs. Because we are a national organization, we estimate that more than 5 million people people will be affected by the work that we and our members create and take part in; from more that 400,000 media professionals to audiences and media users numbering in the millions.

This project will strengthen both our capacity to deliver services to our member organizations and simultaneously encourage them to share knowledge and best practices among themselves by connecting them, encouraging collaboration, and disseminating content and analyses through social media tools and technologies. Now, more than ever, it is critical to build strong community ties among disparate members found at all points around the country – from small startups to venerable institutions. NAMAC brings them together to create a media democracy and commons open to everyone.

This project is both timely and necessary because it will build upon the work done by our first CTC VISTA staffer, Morgan Sully, who remodeled the NAMAC website in 2007-08, in its first iteration as an online community space. The next VISTA staffer will further develop our social networking capabilities, broadening and deepening our engagement with people through these interfaces. They are absolutely crucial to keep the organization lively and useful, and draw new members in. Social media is rapidly becoming a core demand that people want and need as part of a membership of a national network that seeks to bring organizations together.

NAMAC serves the media arts, and is extending its reach to offer services to the broader arts sector. We are here to ensure that our member organizations meet and work with their own communities through 21st century technologies. Our members expect us to provide a continuing stream of virtual connections, personal experiences and value-added knowledge. Online platforms now offer an advantageous way for NAMAC to reach, engage with and ask members to participate in our knowledge network. Social media platforms also give us a degree of customization, which means we can target programs and services to members in a specialized and targeted manner.

In addition, we plan to develop workshops and webinars that can also help members to productively use online social media to strengthen their real life engagement with their communities and supporters.

NAMAC has had a strong web-based presence since 1997, when we adopted a plan to offer a majority of our programs through our emerging knowledge network. It has grown and evolved through the years as tools and technologies have been refined. This next online phase is part of our strategic planning, and a way to deepen and broaden our relevancy to members, allies and supporters. And from our experience, we find that in order to be successful, the online community management must be undertaken by a real person who is there paying attention and responding continuously to the needs of the constituency.