outreach
Website Development
Organization:
Young Entrepreneurs Society, Inc. VISTA Name:
Stephen Wills
Program Start:
1/2007
Project Description:
The overall goal of the VISTA is to build our capacity to sustain and grow our services to low-income teens and adults by expanding our regional web portal serving residents, organizations and business, and developing an on-line version of the Odd Jobs Squad program that helps youth advertise their odd job services.
- Expand and sustain new regional web portal by refining design, promoting the site to area residents and organizations, and soliciting sponsorship support from business
- Design, develop, launch and sustain an on-line site that enables youth and adults to sell and buy odd jobs services that is supported by organization and business sponsors.
Youth Program Development
Organization:
YMCA of Greater Boston VISTA Name:
Leena Silverman
Program Start:
1/2007
Project Description:
- Successfully apply for and run the MIT/Astronomy project. Includes outreach, volunteer coordinating, and running the program over the summer.
- Successfully run the Kinetic City program. Including familiarizing herself with the curriculum, choosing participants, building relationships with the participants, teaching the class, and creating a presentation of the end result
- Create a CyberY operations binder.
- Create a digital movie with youth/teens about their life experience
Project Outcome:
VISTA’s major duties included full responsibility of computer lab and resources for the lab.
CTC Outreach and Development
Organization:
The Wilderness Technology Alliance VISTA Name:
Anthony Williams
Program Start:
10/2006
Project Description:
- Reach out to community based organizations, faith based organizations, social service organizations and educational organizations to drive attendance and volunteerism at the WTA center
- Bring WTA programs to Baltimore-area organizations. This involves marketing programs to these centers, increasing volunteerism to deliver the services and managing the logistics
- Bring the WTA’s “WildTech” program to Baltimore area schools. This task involves marketing the program to schools, training teachers in the service-learning tasks that will be performed by the students, an providing raw surplus technology that students in WildTech programs can process.
- Build an empowerment center at the WTA center by running technology service-learning as a high-technology company. Facilitate the acquisition of technology work for non-profit and government agencies for students and community members to execute. Facilitate students and volunteers to: repair computers, provide network services, design web sites for non-profit organizations, generate eCommerce transactions, host a community technology access lab, and provide a community technology help desk.
- Recruit and train teachers and community center leaders to implement
Event Planning
Organization:
Community Technology Organizing Consortium (CTOC) VISTA Name:
Michael Eagle
Program Start:
9/2004
Project Description:
- Increase attendance at CTOC events
- Help coordinate CTOC events
- Assist in the development of a training curriculum for Train the Trainer events
- Assist in evaluation of CTOC’s project activities
- Assist in fund raising efforts
CTC Program Building
Organization:
Operation P.E.A.C.E. Boston VISTA Name:
Colette Mahoney
Program Start:
8/2002
Project Description:
Goals include rolling out a computer skills training program, designing a plan to utilize computers to improve the literacy of students attending our after school program, doing the same with an English as a second language program, and working on community outreach partnership building to raise awareness of our programs so as to attract community and corporate support.
Long Island City CTC Outreach
Organization:
Citizens Committee for New York City VISTA Name:
Carmen Mitchell
Program Start:
6/2002
Project Description:
To strengthen the capacity of the Long Island City CTC by improving self help materials, supporting neighborhood volunteers use of technology, and conducting a needs assessment. The VISTAs will also help the extend the organizations reach to a more diverse constituency of new Americans living in New York.
- Support and organize a more robust outreach campaign targeted at local block, tenant, and neighborhood association members to encourage use of the CTC
- Schedule training sessions and develop self-help materials related to getting neighborhood and civic groups online
- Conduct an information needs assessment of the information and technology needs and interests of 60 neighborhood groups located in low-income, immigrant dense areas of New York City to determine which self-help materials are needed and how they are most likely to be used
- Develop and design five new top sheets based on the specific needs of immigrants
DISKovery Computer Learning Center Development
VISTA Name:
Daniel Sheen
Program Start:
6/2001
Project Description:
- Support the development of a volunteer team of computer trainers and technicians
- Coordinate our program website and design print materials as a function of outreach activities
- Help establish curriculum models and evaluative procedures for improved lesson delivery, effective instruction, and replication
- Develop an afterschool program for at-risk, high-school aged youth designed to train participants in high-level computer-based skills
- Support small minority business efforts by providing pro-bono web development services to local shops and restaurants
Social Media Development
Organization:
Portland Community Media VISTA Name:
Denise Cheng
Program Start:
7/2008
Program End:
7/2009
Project Description:
Access 2.0 is a three year project to expand access to and viewership of community media through new media channels. In this project, PCM will upgrade its technology and training to integrate new media channels with traditional public access channels to expand and enhance access to media as a communications tool for community members, community-based and non-profit organizations, government partners and other stakeholders. Through Access 2.0, PCM is upgrading equipment, improving technology, upgrading the PCM website, redeveloping the PCM database and reaching out to a number of groups and organizations in the community with an emphasis on underrepresented populations.
The Access 2.0/New Media Vista will work with PCM’s Media Educators and Media Facilitators to:
-Develop media education training projects, classes and curricula for expanding the skills of community producers, organizations and other stakeholders through in new media areas
-Develop skill building activities and materials to improve the competency and confidence of community members and other stakeholders in the use of new media
-Further develop PCM’s drupal-based website to strengthen user participation and better meet user needs
-Actively participate in and contribute to technical planning for PCM’s Access 2.0 project to develop new media opportunities and distribution channels for community members, community-based and non-profit organizations, government partners and other organizations.
-Build skills of community members and stakeholders in new media applications to increase distribution and sharing of community media including blogging, podcasting, cross posting and others
-Initiate and develop participation of PCM in PEGSpace project of the Alliance for Community Media and other collaborative development projects
-Develop new opportunities for volunteer participation, particularly related to new media
Project Outcome:
Denise’s activities are focused around research and development of new media services and education. She has assisted with development of two new classes that focus on teaching participants how to prepare content for distribution via the Internet, and how to utilize online video and social networking tools to increase distribution of content, and to connect with target audiences. Denise also participates on the PR and Marketing committee, is helping to redesign our website with the goal of building capacity, is participating in grant research and writing, and helps with proofreading and layout in creation of new documents.
Denise researched and proposed a new project that was submitted for consideration to the Knight foundation. Denise’s proposal made it through the first round but has been dropped from consideration by the Knight foundation. PCM will continue to try to secure grant funding to realize this proposal. The proposal would create a new acquisition and distribution path for audio content via a new website portal. The focus of the project targeted increasing participation from immigrant, minority and youth groups using cell phone and Internet technology. Denise’s research identified very high cell phone and Internet penetration among immigrant populations in the Portland area. Denise’s project would also create a backbone for a large scale expansion of Internet based acquisition and distribution for PCM participants.
Denise revised our existing Media Education schedule to create a more polished document to promote Media Education classes and workshops. Denise has routinely been proofreading and editing public documents to maintain voice and consistency.
Denise was asked to submit a design mock-up for our upcoming website redevelopment. Her mock-up showed an advanced understanding of the kind of content rich site that many Internet viewers would appreciate. Denise’s research on social networking and how different groups consume information via the Internet comes through in her clean and rich design concept. Denise is currently assisting with implementation of our new open source database project being developed in partnership with Denver Open Media.
Impact Quote:
“Denise participation in brainstorming and discussion has provided me with a new perspective on a variety of topics including community media, who we serve, immigrant issues, community engagement and a millenial perspective on technology. Denise has reshaped my views on my career field because she asks questions I’m not often asked, and she brings a different perspective and set of experiences to the organization. I am very grateful for the opportunity to have worked with her.”
- Bea Coulter, supervisor
Program Development and Outreach
Organization:
Appalshop VISTA Name:
Julia Taylor
Program Start:
7/2008
Program End:
7/2009
Project Description:
Julia works in various capacities at Appalshop/Thousand Kites Project. She manages “StoryLine,” our online story-gathering project, for which she uploads audio to the content management system, and writes the copy for the website. She also responds to communication via our social networking sites and writes emailblasts. She works with community members (locally and nationally) to gather their stories about the criminal justice system and post them to the website. She also is currently creating a plan for a google map to document these stories using new technology. She also co-produces our campaigns. For our most recent campaign, Calls From Home, Julia coordinated the targeted outreach to radio station managers, prison chaplains, and prisoners and their families. She does the background research for the campaigns and organizes content. Including partnerships with other non-profits for viral marketing support. Julia works with community members (stakeholders) to identify community needs to inform future campaigns and communication strategies. Julia also produces our weekly radio show, Holler to the Hood, which broadcast online, as well supporting workshops that train community members and stake-holders in radio/online production.
Project Outcome:
When Julia arrived at Appalshop, she spent the first couple of months working with staff to revamp the project’s website, making it media rich, clean, and efficient. We now have an direct model for people to call in their stories and a way to share them on the web. At the same time, Julia aided in the creation of a Facilition Guide, which helps Thousand Kites be a model for communities to take action. This document makes our work process more efficient because we can now direct people to the guide, instead of having to talk through all the details with each individual community. It is available in print and online and has greatly increased our capacity to train and garner participants. Julia has taken the lead on developing our database, updating contacts, and training staff on a system for long-term use. Overall Julia has worked at all levels of the organization to build our communication, online, and digital capacity.
Julia is able to identify key opportunities, and run with them. While looking through old email to learn more about the project’s correspondence, she found an unanswered email from a poet who was willing to volunteer his time to the project. Julia contacted him about possible connections, and now his network of poets has become a tremendous source of capacity in our project. His online community of writers has generated hundreds of audio samples for our website. Another example of this was when we received an email from a woman in the Virgin Islands who is dealing with the prisoners from her community being shipped up to prisons in our region. Julia saw this as an opportunity to really immerse in a community’s issue and help them find ways they could take action locally. The group has since produced their own radio program and hosted multiple film screenings using the Kites tools.
Impact Quote:
Without our VISTA we would not have gotten several projects off the ground or reached the level of capacity that we have. Julia greatly expanded outreach and participation in our program by local, regional, and national communitiy members through building our communication backbone, developing a model for web-site content production, and building tools to lower the threshold of working with our program. It has simply impacted the entire organization to have someone focused on capacity building and research.
Fundraising and Outreach
Organization:
Collins Center for Public Policy, Inc. VISTA Name:
Loveta Wynn
Program Start:
7/2008
Program End:
4/2009
Project Description:
Vista description is to manage the volunteer committee, coordinate community technology events such as graduations, parties, and meetings. Also do a quarterly press release, a monthly community technology newsletter, create flyers and brochures and a community resource guide.
Project Outcome:
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.