E-Democracy’s BeNeighbors.org Virtual Booth and Video from Knight Foundation Media Learning Seminar 2013

E-Democracy was honored to be part of the Knight Foundation’s Media Learning Seminar in 2013. This is a mobile phone video tour with our Executive Director Steven Clift. It was a living version of our 2012 St. Paul outreach year in review blog post.

Handouts:

• Pictures in the Video
• Forum Stories
• St. Paul Year One Outreach Highlights Flyer
• BeNeighbors Flyer, Hmong, Spanish
• Neighbors Forum Diagram
• “Price List” for Community Foundations
• Example Community Workshop – Held in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles … stay tuned for New York and Boston
• Project Grant Outline One Page
• Consulting Services, also see Services
• Example “public” by design Neighbors Forums:  Westside St. Paul (new forum, 365 members), Standish Ericsson Minneapolis (1000+ members)

Why Inclusion Matters – Building Powerful Networks for ALL

One thing not mentioned in the video are national statistics about online neighbor connecting from the Pew Internet and American Life project released in 2010. While 7% of adult Internet users are members of neighborhood e-mail lists or forums there is a large divide based on income. Those households making over $75k a year report at 15% participation rate and those 50K and under are five times less connected at 3%. Online neighbor connecting is too powerful to limit the movement to wealthier neighborhoods or communities with less racial diversity. This divide is something that can and must be closed. All neighbors in all kinds of neighborhoods can make this happen and we seek to help them with civic models that are inclusive, open, and agenda-setting in public life and not limit ourselves to virtual gated communities with exclusive resident-only designs. More stats.

Their survey sample was too small to pull our Asian, Native American, African Immigrants or immigrants generally. Our experience suggests their participation is likely closer to Latinos than Whites and long-time African-Americans. Our pilots have demonstrated the potential for opening up communities and promoting neighborhood-oriented immigrant integration.

Presentation Slides and Audio

We also had a desk copy of our recent Neighbors Online presentation (sign up for a future webinar version):