Transmission Project

Dana Sou actively participated in building the capacity of the Community Technology Organizing Consortium on various levels. Dana helped to organize 3 major events which included: COTC’s Annual Christmas event in December, NTEN’s Accessibility Institute in Los Angeles in January, and our annual Meet the Funder Event in June. Each of these events required vast outreach and community organizing to CTOC’s members which consists of various non-profit organizations and CTC’s in the Los Angeles area. Dana was successful in drawing attention and generating interest to these three events by actively communicating with numerous organizations through phone calls, and posting on the listserve.

Dana has also collaborated with CTOC staff to write and edit parts of CTOC’s three year strategic plan that spans from fundraising to media policy initiatives. She has also helped in areas of funding through conducting research for potential funding through foundation searches and has written up Letter’s of Inquiry (LOI’s) as well as draft and edit grant proposals. She is also currently writing a policy position paper concerning technology standards among high schools. Dana’s participation with CTOC has greatly helped the organization through community outreach, funding, and creating resourceful research projects.

Loveta coordinated the summer CTC graduation and the winter CTC graduation. Gathered volunteers to get the place and stage ready. Loveta organized and managed the fall Thanksgiving raffle to get internet reconnected at YETEC. Vista has recreated the infrastructure by teaching us how to use resources our organization already has. By making the average printer into a two sided copy machine. Creating brochures and making flyer and necessary forms for on-goin tech support. Loveta also created a community needs assesment check list from scratch and has done 5 site visits with hopes of finding grant related solutions. Loveta started a grassroots community technology newsletter thats is issued monthly with updated resources and digtal media news, manage volunteers, and bring a since of hope and committment to the Little Haiti community. January 2009 the internet was restored and students from the tech school helped with the fundraiser.

Loveta is dedicated determined to help those in need. Loveta organizes our center and takes the initiative to get project started and completed. Loveta also has brought many volunteers to our center who participate in our discounted tech support program.

Two conferences were organized to serve the funding, advocacy, and planning needs of nonprofit technology organizations (Jan. and June 08). The conferences established a platform for joint advocacy and inter-agency relations for nonprofits, positioning them in relation to the Donor’s Forum, Knight Foundation, and related initiatives such as OneCommunity and Florida 2.0. Through the conferences and community relations, positive relations were established and maintained with key partners such as InternetCoast, OneCommunity, and Florida 2.0. Through the co-op Victoria helped to establish a new CTC lab (Hialeah Gardens), strengthen existing programs, increase communication and collaboration between participants. Assessments were conducted with Crossfire, Cutler Bay Parks and Recreation, Inner City Youth, Center for Independent Living, WeCount (Cutler Bay), WeCount (Homestead) and the North Miami Beach Intel Clubhouse. Volunteers were recruited through Refresh Miami meetings and various online sources, and the first volunteer orientation took place in June 08. These activities were the culmination of planning and outreach that began in November 07, when the co-op strategy was initially developed. As a result of positive progress on these fronts, Victoria was hired by Collins Center to work jointly with the initiative and with InternetCoast.

CTC’s expressed appreciation and volunteered to write support letters for the project. Key partners likewise expressed appreciation for the work of the project and have made plans for ongoing collaboration. The most illustrative story is that InternetCoast asked Victoria if she would be willing to coordinate their own program activities, and together we developed a jointly funded position for 2008-09 that will enable Victoria to coordinate the work of nonprofit and for-profit technology sectors, and to better develop linkages between the two.

Cecille and Josh have been helping with the Cooperative Measurement and Modeling of Open Networked Systems (COMMONS) project and have done fantastic work aiding with logistics on this initiative. We are currently moving forward with piloting our first COMMONS networks and integrating local community networks into the larger project.

Cecille has also aided me with report writing, drafting several grant applications, and logistics on events.

Cecille, Josh, and I are in discussions with ARIN to provide the first-ever major allocation of IPv6 numbers for community networks. This would transform many networking initiatives throughout the country and represents the culmination of two+ years of work.

Carolyn has brought in approximately $3,000 in undesignated donations, almost reaching her goal of $5000. Working with board members and other staff, Carolyn scheduled coffee or lunch meetings with past and potential supporters and asked them for money. Carolyn created a database of past and potential donors of more than 300 members. Carolyn also organized and ran a fundraising Tea that brought in approximately $1000. Considering our past best year for individual donations was about $700, this is quite a leap forward.

The Community Software lab now has the infrastructure for soliciting donations and for putting on fund-raising events. We also now have an organizational culture that values fundraising. To insure we can continue, our board and permanent staff have worked with Carolyn on fund-raising setup and implementation and pledged to continue when she leaves. Remaining work includes refining our presentation for different potential donors. We need to cultivate donors outside our existing network.

When Carolyn started we realized that her work should fit into a larger plan, a plan that we had not yet created. Carolyn has contributed to our business planning efforts and our draft/working business plan document. Carolyn has done planning work on an un-conference we are exploring putting on with another organization. Carolyn recruited somebody who is proving to be one of our better board members. Carolyn helped write two grants.

Some main areas that Erica helped to develop and expand are: Volunteer recruitment/outreach, Partnership Expansion/Outreach, and Fundraising development.

Volunteer outreach: Erica has set up an entire program of recruitment of volunteers. As a result we had as many as 19 volunteer interns at one time at our facility during the fall, spring and summer months. The recruitment efforts targeted local universities and high schools. The success was due to setting up face to face meetings as well as using Craig’s List, social media and e-newsletter contact. This was done in conjunction with the Executive Director.

Partnership Outreach: Erica also worked on setting up partnerships with the Albuquerque Convention and Visitors Bureau, Media Literacy Project, The Alibi (local weekly newspaper), Enlace Comunitario, SWOP, KUNM Youth Radio, Albuquerque Film Festival, SW Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Taos Shortz Film Festival, Experimental Cinema Film Festival, New Mexico Daily Lobo, Public Service Media Project, NM Film Office, NM Thunderbirds, CitizenSchools, and the creation of an accredited production class through the University of New Mexico Continuing Education department.

Fundraising Outreach: Erica worked on many small scale and large scale fundraising efforts throughout the year. Some examples of these efforts are: “Benefit Night” fundraisers being help at T.G.I.Friday and Fuddruckers, a “TV Dinner” benefit event, a concert event at a local venue, and the development of a monthly media industry networking event held at a local restaurant. Other areas have included working alongside the Executive Director on research for and preparation of grants and foundation money. Examples of this assistance was the working on a letter of inquiry for the Glaser Foundation which focused on Independent Media projects. We pitched the creation of a youth-focused journalism and mentorship program. A letter of inquiry into the MacArthur Foundation, regarding the same project. The creation of a profile in multiple local community foundations. She did extensive research and compiling together of regional, state-wide, and national grants and foundations that could be potential sources for income. Erica also helped Steve Ranieri with researching and preparing the application for a grant through the McCune Foundation, a local foundation here in New Mexico.

Other general outreach efforts that Erica engaged in were attending various local outreach events, such as: NM Film and Media Day, Digital Arts Conference, NM Film conference, SW Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Fiery Foods Show, and other events where the positive image of our organization was represented. All of these efforts were tracked, documented, and written into a manual titled “How to Outreach: a Resource Guide for Quote Unquote.” This resource will be left behind for future staff and VISTAs to refer back to for guidance.

Two other projects Erica worked on were the transitioning of the paper newsletter to the electronic newsletter and the transitioning of the Dreamweaver based website to a user-friendly, more efficient website through the Grassroots.org services. It developed through the need of better organizational efficiency. There was an indication that some staff had additional responsibilities that were taking them away from their actual work. With Erica noticing this, she suggested making these two main transitions as a means to alleviate extra work from staff (printing of newsletters, mailing them, updating the website using software that requires skills) and to build a more sustainable infrastructure.