Transmission Project

Donna completed several significant web-based graphic design and technical projects during her assignment with NAMAC. She has significantly built the capacity of NAMAC’s online interactivity and resource-sharing to reach and assist members and the public around the country and globally.

Donna’s primary focus has been on developing the interactivity of the NAMAC website, in particular the Idea Exchange. This entails identifying which actions/networks are key for building our online presence and in building strong relationships with a team of bloggers who represent a cross-section of our online community, in terms of region, discipline, generation, and other important demographic criteria.

We have received increased traffic to our website, and conduct most of our membership business via the website: from conference and event registration to promotion and marketing, to resource-sharing, news and analysis across the field. The new look and architecture that Donna instituted has branded NAMAC as a leading web presence and has integrated well with our Facebook, Twitter and YouTube social media platforms.

Nickey has totally revamped our social marketing presence and strategy, increasing our Facebook network to over 1200 fans and bringing our Twitter followers to over 1700. She also revived our long-dormant blog - helping develop a schedule and model for posts from staff and participants, redesigned our YouTube channel, participated in our website redesign project with the Taproot foundation, and redesigned our templates for program outreach and registration. Nickey has done a great job of developing new ideas and really showing leadership in terms of growing our online community - and understanding how to be an active contributing participant in networks like Twitter and Facebook. Where many organizations will simply Tweet or post about their own successes, Nickey has helped us learn to offer interesting articles, videos, analysis and funding opportunities to our networks. That way, when it does come time to promote our own programming or events, our network doesn’t feel bombarded by asks. She and I have worked closely together in developing strategies and making decisions, and she has shown great initiative and leadership skills in being able to take projects from idea to execution.

Thanks to Nickey’s efforts at developing our online presence, Reel Grrls has become a significant contributor to online discussions of women and media within the Twitter community. Many of our outreach materials - in print and online - have had major facelifts. And we’ve finally launched the “GAB (Grrls Advisory Board)” - a youth-led advisory group that was in the works for a long time before Nickey’s energy was able to bring it to life. We are currently working to reframe our intern job descriptions to include some of the work that Nickey has been doing on an ongoing basis. Additionally, Nickey is developing a social marketing handbook that will help us integrate ongoing social marketing tasks into permanent staff members’ duties.

Nickey has a great eye for graphic design, so she has pitched in to help redesign program outreach materials, event programs, enewsletters and DVD covers - which has been a huge asset in presenting a vibrant image of Reel Grrls to the outside world. Nickey has also jumpstarted our Grrls Advisory Board, led a couple of Reel Grrls Productions projects for clients, and started a plan to create a sales catalogue of our DVD library.

Sharon was responsible for expanding our use of social media and for upgrading the website. She assisted with the implementation of radio schedules and class curriculum. She was part of the team that coordinated live broadcasts and ran her own radio show.

Our ability to use social media in basically now in place, as is the process for website updating. The radio curriculum has been further refined.

The three main project goals for this position were to support the Girl Tech Collective program, support a media assessment of New Mexico, and support a project on media monitoring.

The Girl Tech Collective program began this past year, but was shifted to another staff person. Instead, Candelario supported another youth program in New Mexico called Digital Justice for Us! (DJ4U) program. This was a more strategic move because it connected to MLP’s work on broadband in New Mexico, a project that this VISTA member would already be working on. The Digital Justice for Us! program was successful and MLP learned a lot from this first year. Cande supported the youth involved in this program, assisted in organizing the event to showcase the young participant’s video work, lead an evaluation on the program, and documented the process. His work will make the DJ4U program stronger for the coming year. MLP’s Program Director helped support this program.

The second project goal was to support the New Mexico media assessment. This project took on the form of an assessment of broadband access in New Mexico. Cande helped to host researchers from the Social Science Research Council in our state as they conducted focus groups in the greater Albuquerque area. Cande also formalized new organizational partnerships around the broadband issue, helped to build MLP’s base, and participated in community conversations. The increase in supporters of MLP and the collection of stories and information on how broadband affects rural and low-income communities has greatly strengthened MLP’s programs and projects. All MLP staff, partner organizations, and community members helped support the goal for increased access to broadband in New Mexico.

The third project goal was to support the media monitoring project. Cande helped to support Siembra la palabra digna, MLP’s initiative to address responsible speech in our media. Cande assisted at outreach events, collected video stories from community members, and monitored media clips to examine how issues and communities are framed and reported on in various media. Support for this project has helped MLP develop better workshops and materials that connect responsible speech with access to media and storytelling. MLP’s Campaign Coordinator assisted the VISTA member in this initiative.

Katie Completed the following projects and assignments.

To increase Cincinnati’s access to local, community-based media by:
• Providing a locally owned station that broadcasts at least 50 hours a week
• Airing at least 40 hours a week of original programming produced by volunteers
• Training at least 40 local programmers

To increase the diversity of voices in local media by:
• Actively recruiting women, minorities and people of low income for programming and Advisory Board positions
• Offering broadcast training classes for less than $100
• Prioritizing shows with unique content, to ensure that a wide variety of voices are represented on the air

To promote local arts and culture and provide much needed exposure to local musicians by:
• Airing several hours of arts and cultural programming each week
• Designating blocks of airtime for local music
• Creating a library of songs by local musicians for volunteers to play on the air

To encourage public discussion and civic engagement by:
• Prioritizing talk and public affairs programs that cover issues of local importance

Mark developed a list of 100 community organizations and events in coverage area and Developed outreach material describing community media project and volunteer interest forms. Developed on-air announcements and recruited audience members for project Recruited participants from current audience, community advisory committee and existing volunteer p Surveyed existing volunteer usage of social media networks and other online tools Integrated KNON station brand into new station website, facebook and twitter. Established user interface for volunteers and staff to update station’s online presence Activity 3: New Media Training for Community Volunteers Develop ed training series for community members for blogging and video (youtube) origination, editing and uploading onto station webtools. Also developed social networking training. Mark did all of this by reaching out to those at the station and in our audience during meetings and on air. He was assited by KNON volunteers and staff

Fundraising web componants. Developed well and continues to help us in fundraising

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.

Claudia has organized recruitment efforts, orientation sessions and meetings to help build our advisory board. She has been instrumental in developing and documenting the procedures for effective volunteer training and management. She has developed an orientation and training module which we will utilize in preparing future volunteer club leaders for their role in leading multimedia clubs for girls. In addition, she has developed a comprehensive volunteer leader manual which clearly outlines the role, responsibilities, procedures and policies in the management of volunteer led clubs. The manual includes club leader job descriptions, club meeting outlines, attendance policies, dress code, code of behavior, classroom management tips, mentoring tips, recruitment tips, Internet safety guidelines, material checklists, equipment checkout procedures, attendance sheets, volunteer hour logs, club member evaluations, club fact sheets and other valuable tips on managing a media club for girls. Furthermore, our VISTA member has worked collaboratively with a team of volunteers to develop a new Club Leader Curriculum Guide building on our library of club lesson plans. Thanks to support from our VISTA Member, we now have over 100 multimedia lesson plans developed that we can implement in our multimedia clubs. These lessons are focused on teaching young Latinas in grades 4-8 about how they can use media as a tool for creative self-expression. These lessons are bilingual and bi-cultural and focused on writing, art, photography, audio production, film making, desktop publishing and web design. Our VISTA has also initiated a pilot test program training 4 volunteers to lead volunteer media clubs. She has recruited the volunteer club leaders, implemented and tested a club leader training session and provided technical support to our club leaders. The volunteer training module and curriculum guide has proven to work successfully with this group and our VISTA member is helping us lay the foundation to implement this program on a larger scale in the future.

Since our VISTA member is perfectly fluent in Spanish and English, she was able to assist us in translating numerous documents in our volunteer training manual as well as other materials for the public. We work with a largely Spanish-speaking population of recent immigrants, so her assistance in creating bilingual materials was a great asset in preparing all the needed documents for our volunteers to go out into the community to serve Spanish-speaking girls and families. In addition, our VISTA member developed a volunteer recognition procedures to assist in our volunteer retention efforts including creating volunteer certificates and awards, organizing volunteer appreciation events and developing a system for recognizing volunteers in our newsletter and special events.

The primary goal was for Denise to help “design and establish sustainable structures for the” Neighborhood News Bureau project…now called the Rapidian. Denise has done an outstanding job at reaching out to the community to gather input, creatively think through the citizen reporting process and create procedures, structures and partnerships that support those processes. She has organized training materials and events; evaluated and revised methods, and researched other “best practices” bringing those lessons to bear on The Rapdiian project. Denise worked effectively in a team that included a drupal developer, a content coordinator (part time), the design manager and the publisher. As the only person dedicated FULLTIME to the launch and evolution of the project, Denise has taken an inspiring leadership role, allowing us to reach farther into the community and engage new participants.

We have expanded our reach and perceptions of relevance in the community (for the good). Mainstream/traditional media now includes us in discussions; promotes our work and even seeks our input and advice as they look to expand their use of community reporters. We a re currently working on the development of a business model to sustain the work, however, our “user engagement numbers” are significant.

The project was sufficiently open ended enough to allow Denise great creativity to design execution plans. But in addition to The Rapidian proper, she has extended a connection to our community radio station and represents the Rapidian weekly on-air. She has also established a drupal working group in our community.

Our VISTA member Nicole Belanger definitely had significant involvement in the community, collaborating with staff to develop and implement a volunteer program to support Media Alliance initiatives and strengthen our capacity to identify, attract, train and monitor dedicated volunteers who can help support our locally produced community media production and distribution. She expanded our outreach efforts, achieving our goals.

Nicole Belanger outreached to other organizations and institutions, increased awareness of our community media projects, and assisted with coordination of our community programs—with the result of a greater community network with substantive relationships to our organization. As part of her VISTA work, Nicole compiled a community volunteer and outreach binder, with tasks and activities broken down into clear and efficient descriptions. The goal was to sustain her accomplishments. Although we could always use more support, this work does go a significant way to ensuring the longevity of the accomplishments achieved through our VISTA member Nicole Belanger’s accomplishments.

One interesting accomplishment beyond our proposed project is that Nicole organized a pot-luck and cooking crew. The wholesome meals and hospitality helped to build community—here, with a focus on “home sweet home” values! This is another accomplishment which will have longevity, and has helped in our community outreach. Our VISTA member also helped to frame our community arts and education projects as a valuable component of our community outreach, and we appreciate it!