research
Website Design and Analysis
Organization:
Healthy City/Advancement Project VISTA Name:
Caitlin Flint
Program Start:
9/2010
Program End:
9/2011
Project Description:
The Corps member would be working directly to collect data, conduct analysis, research innovations, and provide recommendations on how to enhance and improve HealthyCity.org. The corps member’s role would be to gather and analyze user feedback and comments, provide responses and information to user questions, collect and promote stores form communities on the ground, and brainstorm and think through ways to improve and enhance trainings and structure of HealthyCity.org to increase usability and accessibility.
Neighborhood News Network Project Manager
Organization:
Bay Area Video Coalition VISTA Name:
Anne Simmons
Program Start:
9/2010
Program End:
9/2011
Project Description:
BAVC developed the Neighborhood News Network Project in order to take advantage of the high-speed fiber optic network that connects the local public acces, educational, and government channels to nearly fifteen community sites throughout San Francisco. It has the capacity to support live video streaming and high resolution file transfer from any connected site. In the initial n3 pilot, BAVC will focus on three unique organizations and the constituencies they serve.
The Digital Arts Service Corps member would serve a central and defining role as Project Manager in building and launching the neighborhood news network project, with complete focus for one year on building, implementing, documenting, and evaluating the project, in a way that no current staff member could do without letting their essential duties drop. The Corps member wold be responsible for identifying San Francisco neighborhoods, organizations, and programs that could most benefit from the added capacity of tools and skills required to share relevant, timely, and hyper-local news and information with each other, to conduct research, outreach, documentation, and evaluation tasks, and subsequently to implement a pilot program in a successful, sustainable, and replicable way with guidance, input and participation from BAVC staff and our community partners.
Youth Community Technology Program Development
Organization:
Korean American Community Services VISTA Name:
Molly Szymanski
Program Start:
8/2005
Program End:
8/2006
Project Description:
Molly will work with the Youth Community Technology Program (YCTP) a youth project within the Korean American Community Services Community Education Department serving at-risk youth ages 17-21 through technical instruction and holistic services. In Particular, Molly will help develop a sustainable system of outreach for you youth technology program students and volunteers (guest speakers, field trip sites, etc), will assist with program activities, will research information around issues of the digital divide to create a program Statement of Need for use in grant writing and will research possible funding streams for the programs.
Program Documentation and Evaluation
Organization:
Organizers' Collaborative VISTA Name:
Catherine Hersh
Program Start:
9/2005
Program End:
3/2006
Project Description:
OC is looking for assistance from Americorps Vista members to document our novel technical assistance model, to help evaluate and document low cost software solutions and training methods that we are using in our technology assistance work, and to bring this assistance model to one low-income neighborhood of Boston. We are also planning to produce, with Vista volunteer help, a concise publication for small organizations that helps them understand how to improve their technology setup. The publication will address critical needs of nonprofits, including acquisition of basic infrastructure, backups and virus protection, database management, setting up membership and donation systems, volunteer tracking, outreach, online fundraising, and gathering data on constituents.
Community Organizer
Organization:
The Children's Partnership/Tides Center VISTA Name:
Jessica Rothschuh
Program Start:
3/2006
Program End:
2/2007
Project Description:
Goal 1: Engage underserved communities in the policy-making process to address local issues
Project Outcome:
Jessica has used technology tools to facilitate organizational communication and information gathering/sharing at TCP. These tools included an Intranet, the Vienna newsreader and a del.icio.us account for the organization. This work has enabled TCP to stay on top of cutting edge issues in the field of youth and technology.
She has also made major contributions in researching, writing, editing and design work for some of our products. This has helped TCP achieve its mission of advocating for digital resources and access to benefit the nation’s 73 million children and youth, particularly those who are low-income or underserved.
Jessica has also completed several projects for CCTPG, working towards meeting the broader goal of advocating for all communities’ access to broadband and advanced technologies and the benefits they offer.
Working with several colleagues, Jessica helped create the new CCTPG Web site and edited, updated and posted a majority of the documents currently available. She uploaded the contacts currently in the CiviCRM and created an automated sign-up form for new members. She was also responsible for many listserv and Web site updates and helped with several outreach efforts, including a videoconference. She gathered information for an online map of CTCs and helped with CCTPG’s network restructuring.
One of the measurements of Jessica’s success was whether CCTPG won any legislative victories while she was serving. Of the four pieces of legislation CCTPG focused on last year, three of them passed.
Outreach Coordinator
Organization:
Aspiration VISTA Name:
Tim Wescott
Program Start:
9/2006
Program End:
10/2007
Project Description:
Goal 1: Tracking the increased capacity of grassroots nonprofits to make informed decisions about software selection, resulting in better software to effectively do their work.
Goal 2: Build Nonprofit and NGO collaboration in creating and developing capacity building tools among grassroots nonprofit communities.
Goal 3: Bring together software users, developers, intermediaries, and investors to articulate and focus their needs, spark relationships and collaboration, and share skills and knowledge in the nonprofit software relm.
Project Outcome:
Over the past six months, Aspiration tracked the increased capacity of grassroots nonprofits to make informed decisions about their software selection through the Social Source Commons project. Our VISTA, Tim Wescott has spent the majority of his time ensuring that grassroots nonprofits know about what tools are available to them and how to find these tools within Social Source Commons.
In addition, Aspiration convened 3 events building nonprofit and NGO collaboration in creating tools that will benefit grassroots communities. These events brought together software users, developers, intermediaries, and investors. Tim participated and worked hands on with these constituents to encourage collaboration, skill and knowledge sharing in the nonprofit software realm.
Tim’s ongoing work is helping Aspiration achieve its mission of connecting nonprofits with software solutions that help them better carry out their work.
Outreach Coordinator
Organization:
Cambridge Community Television (CCTV) VISTA Name:
Jennifer Schmitt
Program Start:
9/2004
Program End:
9/2005
Project Description:
Goal 1. Increase participation of users and viewers of Cambridge Community Television.
Goal 2. Increase access in Cambridge.
Project Outcome:
To quickly review Jennifer’s first quarter initiatives, her project included research into the demographic makeup of the city of Cambridge, preparing a significant report on ethnic and language identity by zip code of our community, and identifying organizations in our community to build relationships with to better serve our city. Jennifer’s second quarter worked to increasing member production rates and values by fostering and mentoring two member production groups; one group for the support of active producers working on individual productions, and the next a group focused on cooperatively producing a current affairs program.
Jennifer has also been responsible for a couple of community television events. These are events that, without CCTV and the hard work of our interns, would not have made the nightly news.
In the fourth quarter, a new initiative was born and Jennifer became the supervisor for our Summer Media Institute, a youth media program operated here at CCTV in collaboration with the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program. The Mayor’s office runs a program each summer placing teenagers for six weeks in various host sites with the intent to provide structure, job training, and income for youth in the city of Cambridge.
The twelve teenagers placed with CCTV undergo a rigorous media training program including digital camera and editing techniques, documentary and fiction production, software and other hard skills through project-based workshops and weekly screenings. This program empowers our twelve Cambridge youth each year with the ability to produce media that more accurately reflects their lives and experiences in our city. This program is several years old and graduates continue to return for our services and facilities in their independent media work.
Impact Quote:
We adore Jennifer Schmitt. This year has been the best volunteer experience that CCTV
has had with the VISTA program and it is clearly because of Jennifer’s strength of
character and investment in her work. She far exceeded our expectations and through her
year long service she greatly improved the services CCTV has to offer our community.
In fact, her excellent work was the reason we have offered her a full time position here at
CCTV beyond her service year.
"Girls Get Digital" Project Building and Teacher
Organization:
Korean American Community Services VISTA Name:
Ria Fay-Berquist
Program Start:
9/2004
Program End:
9/2005
Project Description:
I. Increase student participation
II. Enhance Volunteer Recruitment and Management Procedures
III. Raise funds to support ongoing programs
IV. Build the YCTP and GGD media presence
V. Develop and strengthen programs and curriculum
Project Outcome:
Ria has done a good job of connecting with schools and organizations to
create alliances for projects and for recruitment. Ria hasalso been wonderfully effective at recruiting guest speakers and field trip hosts for GGD.
Ria has done a wonderful job of preparing program information for the public, including the fall GGD update (sent to funders and partner agencies) and the December graduation flier. Because the program’s outreach has been so successful, there has not been a need for the extensive outreach we have had in the past.
I believe Ria’s work on program curriculum and her work in the classroom will be one of her greatest legacies in the program. She has developed strong curricula and has led successful, creative classes. She has developed curriculum for and taught the fall and spring classes and has developed a proposal for a summer video program. Her teaching style with the students has been steadily improving, and her comfort level and ability in working with students in and out of the classroom has been a pleasure to watch grow.
Impact Quote:
I have been continually impressed by Ria’s dedication to the program and ability to keep on top of the many challenges of this period of time, and I believe that her ability to bring together the creative and organizational aspects of the program will serve us well in coming years.
Outreach Coordinator
Organization:
Grand Rapids Community Media Center VISTA Name:
Tom Schwallie
Program Start:
8/2003
Program End:
8/2005
Project Description:
In building the capacity of the Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy, Tom took on the following responsibilities:
Media Monitoring – this includes daily logging of local news coverage for the studies that GRIID produces yearly on election coverage, race & gender representation, and any other issue that we may be monitoring. This may also include occasional monitoring of entertainment media; commercials, movies, ads, etc.
Grant Funded Projects – this includes assisting GRIID on grant funded projects that involve working with students and community groups on issues such as tobacco, gender issues and the West Michigan Progressive Directory. This work gives us an opportunity to apply the resources developed in the media monitoring process.
Web Site Maintenance and Design – Tom has learned some of the basics of web design and has helped update and create new content for the GRIID website (www.griid.org). In particular, he updated the GRIID media directory and the GRIID lending library pages. Tom also designed and created his AmeriCorps VISTA web page (www.grcmc.org/americorps/tom/).
Community Outreach Projects – working on various community-based projects that GRIID is involved in through the Progressive Directory. This involves attending meetings, conducting media trainings, producing media with community groups, and promoting the coalition building through the Progressive Directory. In many ways this is the main outcome goal of GRIID – getting community groups to develop their own media strategies.
Project Outcome:
Tom played an essential role in completing the Youth Anti-Tobacco Advocacy Project (http://www.griid.org/antitobacco/) He collected and correlated all the data for this study and created the online report. He also worked with the student volunteers in creating the study and accompanied them when they presented the study to the Grand Rapids City commission. Tom also helped in the creation of several grant-funded video productions that GRIID produced, assisting in both the editing and the filming process.
Tom does about half of the actual news watching that GRIID undertakes, and is responsible for documenting and tabulating all of the news watching data collected. He also has taken an active part in writing GRIID studies examining local media coverage on various issues. Over the last six months, Tom played a significant role in creating the content in GRIID’s Election Watch 2004 feature.
Tom worked on the grant funded Video Voter Project. This project tied into GRIID’s election monitoring and education efforts. Tom’s work monitoring and documenting news coverage were important components of the Video Voter Project.
Tom has been involved in several projects designed to reach out and empower community groups. Tom has been one of the producers of Catalyst Radio, a weekly radio program on the CMC’s radio station WYCE FM. Catalyst Radio provides news analysis and interviews featuring local community groups and organizations. Tom writes half of the news analysis pieces as well as being one of the shows on-air voices. He also is responsible for setting up and conducting the interviews on occasion as well as updating the Catalyst Radio website every week.
Another community outreach effort that Tom has been involved with is GRIID’s work on FCC license renewals procedure education. This is an effort to build an awareness in the community on the FCC license renewal process which was designed to hold the local TV media accountable to community needs. As part of this project, Tom has given presentations, created mailing literature, and helped create online resources.
GRIID maintains a large collection of documentaries pertaining to issues of media literacy and media and democracy. Tom has helped organize and promote public showings of these documentary films. Tom also helped facilitate public discussions following the films.
CTC Outreach and Support
Organization:
CTC Net New England VISTA Name:
Dan Schackman
Program Start:
6/2002
Program End:
8/2005
Project Description:
Goal 1: Expand local ties among member centers and increase organizational capacity to collaborate with local consortia of CTCs around the country.
Goal 2: Assist in creating a system of technology-related technical assistance support for CTCs in the Boston metropolitan area.
Goal 3: Conduct research, web design activities and email activities to maintain and expand delivery of services to member centers.
Project Outcome:
As can be seen above, Dan has continued to take on an extraordinarily broad range of projects that require talents ranging from research to multi-media production, to writing, community organizing and Web design.
In these past six months he has played an especially important role in increasing the organization’s communication capacity through everything from enhancing our Web site to managing email lists systems for well over 1000 subscribers to communicating with and assisting individuals seeking to create community technology centers.
A summary of accomplishments includes:
Assisting Evaluation for Grants
• Participated in applicant evaluation committee; reviewed approx. 25 proposals for the subawards we’re making through our CNS-funded Learn & Serve America/Youth Visions for Stronger Neighborhoods program
Communication:
• Edited 2004 CTCNet Annual Report
• Edited Fall 2003 CTCNet Newsletter
CTC VISTA Project:
• Served on CTC VISTA Project Advisory Board; participate in monthly conference calls
• Attended part of CTCNet VISTA Pre-Service Orientation (08/03)
• Participated in CTCNet presentation to new VISTAs at PSO
• Updated his VISTA web page
• Sent informational emails about regional CTCNet-associated groups to each non MetroBoston CTC VISTA and their supervisor as a potential resource
• Attended monthly MetroBoston CTC VISTA meetings
• MA InterCorps Council: Serves on this state-wide National Service council
• Leads Communications team, managing MICC web site, edited and co-wrote Fall/Winter 2003 newsletter
• Developed and helped plan MICC Service Enrichment Roundtable event (12/05/03) attended by over forty National Service members; did time/stress management presentation.
Other:
• Produced “Digital Empowerment” PSA Video
• Attended all-day CTCNet Staff Meeting (Oct. 1); did “What Matters Most” personal/time management presentation
• Participated in CTCNet Strategic Planning Meeting in DC (Oct. 24-26)
• Met with Lisa Austin of Pasadena, CA, in town to research setting up a CTC
• Completed supervisor evaluations of Executive Director and Managing Director
• Completed CTCNet Tech survey for current and future needs
• Served as reviewer for Salesforce.com Foundation on-line Community Youth Media Festival
Impact Quote:
“Throughout the years that he worked with CTCNet, Dan was always glad to take on new and challenging tasks and worked with talent and diligence to get them accomplished successfully. In addition to his own work, he maintained a consistent focus on the overall success of the organization and was supportive of fellow workers and projects in addition to the ones where he played a principal role. We were very fortunate to have his assistance thanks to the AmeriCorps*VISTA program!”
— Steve Ronan