Whether it is Somali Independence Day in Minneapolis (video), Rondo Days, or the CHAT Hmong arts festival in St. Paul, our new outreach team will be in the field across the community this summer.

Our goal is to recruit at least 1,000 new participants across our Twin Cities online neighborhood forums (15 forums open with 18 new forums in the pipeline) with major growth in the diverse, lower income neighborhoods we work with as part of our Inclusive Social Media effort.

Here is our lead summer outreach team – along with their diverse community and neighborhoods of focus:

• Corrine Bruning – Outreach Coordinator
• Ayanna Raven Benitez – Latino (Powderhorn, Phillips)
• Damon Drake – African-American (East Side, Summit-U Rondo, Frogtown)
• Deanna StandingCloud – Native American (Phillips mostly)
• Julia Nekessa Opoti – East African (Special engagement work, Cedar Riverside extending to Seward, Phillips)
• Kaying Thao – SE Asian (East Side, North End, Frogtown)

As great applicants for the part-time positions above (most are two month summer jobs except for Julia and Corrine) came in, we felt compelled to add some additional outreach roles. Let’s call them “volunteers+” for their dedication, as they provide additional grass roots outreach in the community. The idea is to time-efficiently leverage their existing networks and existing activities deep in the community as they recruit up to 100 people each.

Thank you for joining us:

• LaShunda Jackson – African-American/Everyone in Frogtown
• Mustafa Adam – East African Outreach (Any Forum)
• Salmah Hussien – East African Outreach (Any Forum)
• Sandy Ci Moua – SE Asian Outreach (St. Paul-wide)
• Possible – Additional Latino Outreach (West Side St. Paul) – Interested? Contact us.

This project is supported by grants from the Ford Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, and the Knight Foundation (St. Paul Foundation donor-advised fund).

With all of this “digital inclusion for community voices” work, we are experimenting and generating “how to” lessons we will be sharing via future Inclusive Social Media webinars, via the Digital Inclusion Network, and other means. One lesson we can share now is a reflection on trust.

Trust.

Trust is a powerful thing.

Going to a community and saying “we will empower you, just trust us” simply does not work. If anything, it will get you tossed out. Further, taking a technology-first approach can create distrust and generate conflict if you roll over long-time and essential community voices who happen to be the wrong side of the digital divide. Inclusion isn’t providing an “opportunity” and then being satisfied when few show up.

With this in mind, we had one of the most powerful and humbling E-Democracy.org gatherings in our 18 year history the other week.

Gathered around the table/phone were most of our recently contracted ten member Diverse Communities Outreach Team. While our funded Inclusive Social Media effort is focused on lower income, high immigrant or highly diverse neighborhoods, all of our all volunteer-based forums should strive to broadly represent the full diversity of their neighborhood not just of those who most easily “show up.” The fact that Internet users who make 75K a year are 5 times more likely to belong to a neighborhood e-mail list or forum than someone online who makes 50K of less a year can not stand (15% v. 3%) (Source: PewInternet.org). Our direct experience is that all neighborhoods can benefit from digital community engagement and the digital divide is no excuse to wait.

During the meeting it dawned on me that this was NOT about E-Democracy.org building enough trust to get people to join forums on a website they have never heard of, it was about our team members putting their own hard earned trust on the line.  They are sharing their trust to help build our shared effort and vision that all people who live near each other (of many different backgrounds) should be able to talk to each other in an open, accessible, welcoming, civil, and effective local community building setting online.

Gulp.

(On a related note, one outreach leader noting skepticism in initial conversations, said anything that starts with “e-” is thought of as a likely pyramid scheme in their community.)

So together we are rolling up our sleeves and getting out into the community to reach people one at time so every voice can be heard one click at a time.

Some Video

Say here is our video from our Somali Independence Day as well as May Day outreach.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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The slides are detailed so you can skim or go in-depth. Additional download options are at the bottom of this post.

Invite us to present in-person in your neighborhood. Our Outreach Coordinator Corrine Bruning is also available for small group overviews in our target inclusion neighborhoods in particular. So far we have an on-demand video version with audio that goes in-depth (play it below).

In addition to the presentation, we have a new flyer available in our print materials section.

If you would like the start a new forum in your area anywhere please contact us. With renewed grant funding, we are focused on growing and launching as many diverse community forums (see our outreach summer job posting) as possible in St. Paul and Minneapolis. tcneighbors.org is our new promotional web address where folks can quickly find their local forum or request a new one.

How can you help?

If you don’t see yourself starting a new forum in your neighborhood, you can still get involved! Please join our Projects online volunteer group here or monitor it via Facebook or Twitter. We put out calls for assistance there. If you are covered by a forum, contact your local Forum Manager and offer to assist with outreach.

Also, if you are software developer, please join the GroupServer Development group and help us develop new features or join our proposed next generation BeNeighbors.org effort.

New communities?

Are you from outside Minnesota, Oxford and Bristol in the UK, or Christchurch, New Zealand? We are open to hosting forums both at the neighborhood-level but also city-wide “online town halls” based on our classic Issues Forum model everywhere. Eau Claire, Wisconsin is next. If you have the will and the dedication to do real outreach, we have the technology and lessons that plain and simple – work!

This isn’t an auto-pilot, set it and forget model (nothing is), but wouldn’t you rather build your local online community supported by a network providing mutual benefit and support? If not, if you prefer your own technology or think Facebook Pages really work over the long-run (you need 20x the “Likers” for comparable activity so we use rather than rely on Facebook at our core), that’s awesome. Take our lessons and run with it because millions remain unserved. Also join the Locals Online community of practice that we host with hundreds of people doing local good online.

Additional Slide Options

Download options: PowerPoint – Full Version, PowerPoint – Short VersionPDF Online Viewing, PDF Print Full Page, PDF Handout 6 to Page

Watch/listen with extended audio:

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Special Update: We created a new position available for Latino outreach in St. Paul – now through Dec. 15, 2011. Apply as instructed below by September 15. This position will focus primarily on the West Side of St. Paul.

Are you excited? We are.

With the support of four foundations, including year two funding from the Ford Foundation, our important Inclusive Social Media effort is going into full recruitment mode. Numbers. Numbers. Numbers … with real diversity in voices and members.

Update: The resumes are coming in. Keep them coming. Here is a new presentation with project background. Thank you.

We’ve brought on Corrine Bruning as our Outreach Coordinator first focused on Phillips and Powderhorn and then on St. Paul. Executive Director, Steven Clift is leading efforts to launch as many new forums as possible (volunteer to start a new forum in your neighborhood today!) as noted on tcneighbors.org which will also assist Minneapolis-wide outreach.

Next up, we are seeking candidates for our five part-time ~100 hours outreach contracts to recruit deeply among our neighborhood Latino, Native American, East African, Hmong, and African-American communities. As far as we can tell from experience, we need our Diverse Community Outreach Leaders to recruit people one at a time to be effectively inclusive.

Please pass this contract job posting on far and wide to we can match a talented person up with our inclusive community building initiative: http://pages.e-democracy.org/Diverse_Community_Outreach_Leaders

Here is the text of the official job posting copied on to the blog:

Diverse Community Outreach Leader Contract Job Description – Resumes/letters being accepted now through Monday, June 6, 2011 to: – Use the subject line: Community Outreach Leader Application

E-Democracy.org is hiring a number of focused part-time one to two month contract outreach positions over the summer in 2011 to specifically recruit diverse community participation across our Neighbors Issues Forums across St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Do you care passionately about building community? Do you believe in inclusion and raising diverse voices? If yes, then join our digital ground breaking Inclusive Social Media effort and team.

We seek resumes and/or letters of interest from those who can help us lead very grass roots outreach to the:

• Latino community – Focused on Powderhorn and Phillips in Minneapolis as well as potentially the West Side in St. Paul
• Somali and East African communities – Focused on Phillips, Seward, and Cedar Riverside (Cedar Riverside is a model where the forum is successfully ~half East African today)
• Native American community – Focused on Phillips (we also be posting a Community Outreach and Information Leader position for Leech Lake later as well)
• Hmong and SE Asian communities across St. Paul with special emphasis on the North End, East Side, and Frogtown
• African American communities – Minneapolis and St. Paul generally, special work in Summit-U, the East Side and Frogtown in St. Paul

Duties:

• Recruit diverse communities in-person – community events, festivals, door-to-door in target areas, libraries, parks, computer access centers, ethnic shopping malls, etc. – Our primary and most effective “technology” is the paper sign-up sheet where we gather the first name, last name, e-mail address, and neighborhood forum(s) of interest. There will be minimum recruitment goals (at least one person per hour contract required with good faith targeting of diverse or lower income communities) with a bonus for every additional 50 people recruited to join a forum on paper.
• Recruit diverse community leaders and cultural organizations – whether recruiting in-person, via e-mail, or telephone – if you have deep connections to the communities above securing new members is the goal
• Post (multi-lingual) signs and fliers in cafes and other public locations
• Promote participation in the forum via locations that provide public Internet access such as the local library and community centers that cater to diverse communities

Skills Desired:

• Good communication and organizing skills
• Outgoing personality and a willingness to engage and involve others
• If your outreach focus includes a more recent immigrant community, bi-lingual applicants in English and languages such as Spanish, Somali, Oromo, Hmong, etc. are desired
• Self-directed – As part of the contract process we will ask invited candidates to outline a simple work plan

Duration: One to two months within June, 2011 to the end of September, 2011. As a contractor, you are responsible for your self-employment tax (1099) and any insurance.

Rate: Depending upon experience, the contract rate is up to $15/hour with approximately 100 hours in each contract and at least 100 new forum members recruited. Bonuses will be based on results.

To Apply: Send a short letter to Steven Clift, Executive Director, E-Democracy.org describing your interest, community activities, and contact information now through Friday, June 3, 2011. Attach a resume and two references if available. Use the subject line: Community Outreach Leader Application If you do not receive a confirmation with 48 hours that you applied for this position, please call 612-234-7072 during business hours.

Related Volunteer Opportunity

We also have volunteer positions where we will provide a limited number of gift cards to those assisting our general tabling outreach at community events, libraries, and festivals. (A single $20 gift card for at least 2 hours of active assistance will be available at key events.) These important volunteers will assist our Outreach Coordinator, Corrine Bruning and our diverse community outreach leaders. Let us know if you are interested in being on a list of potential outreach volunteers:

If you apply, but are not hired for a lead contract position, please let us know if you would like to assist us as a volunteer with the gift card stipend.

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From schools and crime to parks and “free stuff,” it is time to unleash the power of neighbor to neighbor communication online.

Today E-Democracy.org hosts over 20 Neighbors Forums across the Twin Cities with thousands of members. Some have over 600 members and others are in “start-up” mode. See tcneighbors.org for a full list of existing forums as well as independent forum not part of our official shared public network.

With your interest, we can open non-profit, volunteer-run forums across Minneapolis and St. Paul that could someday connect 30,000 households daily simply based on our 15% of households participation rate in our existing largest forums.

To get there, we first need only five “charter” members in the same neighborhood who say “Yes!”, we will set-up a new start-up forum immediately so outreach can begin.

Forums then open with at least 50 members and a volunteer Forum Manager in place.

REQUEST NEW FORUM – So, fill out the 30 second survey here today!

If you are already a member of an existing forum or have filled out the survey, invite others to fill it out from here: http://tcneighbors.org

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By Boa Lee,
Community Outreach and Information Leader, Greater Frogtown Neighbors Forum

This year, E-Democracy intensified outreach to two Twin Cities neighborhoods – Cedar-Riverside in Minneapolis and Frogtown in St. Paul.

This blog post marks the conclusion of that year-long effort, summarizing four key points learned in Frogtown:

• 1. Trust and relationship-building is to be highly regarded;
• 2. Model with caution how to use the forum;
• 3. Diverse communities (communities of color and immigrant communities) require special focus and strategic outreach; and,
• 4. E-democracy has the potential to increase civic engagement and accountability.

1. Trust and relationship-building is to be highly regarded

At the beginning of the year, the first project blog laid out how we might build upon the relationships we already had in the neighborhood – with neighbors, businesses and community organizations.  We began the year with the intent of continuing to nurture those connections through active listening and partnership – asking others what they needed in a communications vehicle and trying to connect this to what we could provide here on the Frogtown Neighbors Forum.

Yet, we understood the complexities involved with what we wanted to do.  We knew most people do not traditionally associate an online forum with civic participation; most people would still consider attending an in-person meeting to be the primary way to get involved in their neighborhood, for example.  We did not seek to change or compete with this fact but instead enhance it – providing a medium for neighbors to discuss important issues like the ones explored or debated at those meeting.  In 2010, E-Democracy invested in on-the-ground staff – a face or two to an otherwise abstract entity like an online forum – to carry that message to the greater Frogtown neighborhood.

Organizational Participation

By the end of our pilot outreach project, we returned to some of the organizational leaders we met with at the beginning of the year.  While we saw greater participation (posting versus just reading or “lurking”) among a few community organizations, we also noticed that a few never participated at all or rarely posted.  The reasons varied but one organization told us they simply were not ready to participate.  One organization wanted to preserve the quality and depth of dialogue on the forum by first having solid research and details to share with the community, its executive director said.  Another organization we met with began using the forum to regularly post meeting and event announcements.  We heard that at one of its meetings, when people were asked how they had heard about the meeting, the majority in attendance said they had seen it posted on the Frogtown Forum.

We have never expected all community organizations to participate on the forum.  We know the pressures community organizations face and, in particular, their reservations about technology and online forums – chiefly that with their base in a lower income neighborhood not all of their constituents are online.  We have used this past year in service to these organizations – helping to post their meeting announcements on their behalf on the forum.  We look forward to having them participate on a greater level in the future and in a manner that is helpful to them.

Residents

Residents are the life blood of this forum.  They are our volunteer forum managers and most active posters – rightly so, as much of what happens in a neighborhood will be felt by those living in it.  This year, we spoke with some of our most active resident participants, as well as with those who did not post as frequently or ever.  By actively participating in the affairs of the neighborhood – attending events and meetings and conducting one-on-one outreach – we learned about the communications holes neighbors felt existed.  Some forum members told us that if it had not been for our presence in the neighborhood, they would not have known about the forum, nor would they have trusted the forum enough to participate on it.  In other words, because people saw us in the neighborhood, they lent us greater credibility.

2. Model with caution how to use the forum

The E-Democracy.org website

Technology is fast-changing.  Many people are using the Internet to connect with one another – through e-mail, chat, social networking websites.  The forum is one vehicle we hoped communities could use to connect with one another – “over the digital fence” as we like to call it sometimes.  With the prevalence and ease of joining and using websites like Facebook, however, comes the expectation of what a 21^st century website should offer or look like.  We heard from many Frogtown Forum participants that the E-Democracy website simply wasn’t usable.

Many told us they no longer bother going to the E-Democracy website because it is too cluttered (too many links), they do not like the layout of the website or thought the platform “too 1990s” to use.  Most told us they only respond and view messages through their e-mails (the default feature of the forum allows posts to appear in a member’s regular e-mail inbox each time a post occurs or as a daily digest).  While participating via e-mail is one feature many told us they liked best, it also has some drawbacks.  By not visiting the E-Democracy website, people did not know what was happening on other forums; did not realize that pictures or video could be uploaded to the forum; and, we theorize, did not post as often as a result.

We are now working on redesigning the E-Democracy website to increase usability.  Some changes have already happened.  (Editor’s note: New group home pages and one-click sharing to Facebook and Twitter are just being released). We also took time to explain to people, in person, how to use the website.  Had we had more time, we would have also offered free, short tutorial courses at Rondo Outreach Library on how to navigate and use the E-Democracy website.

Discussion seeding

During our year-long effort, we also hoped to show people the many ways they could use the forum.  We attended meetings and events and posted summaries, photos and video.  Frogtown is unique in that it is one of few neighborhoods that does not have its own neighborhood newspaper.  We found that community members were increasingly relying on our reports as a news source.  Some participants told us that because we had gotten so good at posting “news” on the forum, we had probably intimidated others from posting their own summaries, photos or videos.  This was clearly an unintended consequence; we wanted to seed topics for discussion  – not necessarily become the neighborhood “newspaper.”

Going forward, we must be cognizant that our discussion seeding effort does not become so overzealous.  We also have to be clear that our outreach and information coordinators are not journalists and that while discussion seeding can become a “news source” for community members, the forum should really be a place for true engagement where people can discuss community issues with one another in a democratic way, rather than using the forum as a one-way vehicle to share information.

3. Diverse communities (communities of color and immigrant communities) require special focus and strategic outreach

We spoke with many who said they welcomed more voices of the greater Frogtown Hmong community on the forum.  This past year, we were intentional in being at meetings, events and locations where we could interact with members of greater Frogtown’s diverse communities.  We spoke with many people and collected names and e-mail addresses of people from these communities who wanted to participate; yet, participation and posting in particular from the diverse communities was still below our desired level.

We know communities of color and immigrant communities are online.  The most active of them are under age 30.  We can make some reasonable assumptions about the low participation rate: issues appearing on most neighbors forums are uninteresting to the most likely participants or we just have not interfaced with those who would potentially engage, etc.  Regardless, we must do more.  We need to do more research with members of these communities; we should organize focus groups to capture these communities’ needs and their opinions about the forum.  One person we spoke with suggested we send a flyer to every household to inform them about the forum.  We are currently exploring participating in radio programs and advertising on websites and in publications of these diverse and immigrant communities.  There is much more work to be done to reach out and build relationships and trust with these groups.

4. E-democracy has the potential to increase civic engagement and accountability

Having already shared several lessons, the best insight gained from our intensive outreach in 2010 is clarity in the potential of the neighbors forum to increase civic engagement and accountability.  We learned that elected officials pay attention to posts appearing on the forum, even if they do not post.  Neighbors told us the forum has provided them with new information and alternative viewpoints.  We believe all of this is a testament to the hard work of community members – those who participate and volunteer to keep the forum alive.  The range and depth of conversations on the forum is dependent on forum members’ willingness to share their opinions, ask questions and seek input from people of many backgrounds.  Thought another way, the success of the forum is circular, where the participation of all members sparks newer, far richer and increased numbers of conversations, and the circle can expand and become emboldened.

Editor’s Note: On behalf of E-Democracy.org, I want to thank Boa Lee for all of her hard work and dedication this year. First some great news, the Ford Foundation has renewed our grant for 2011. This will allow us to build our Inclusive Social Media work in Frogtown, the Eastside, Cedar-Riverside, and more lower income, highly diverse neighborhoods. Because our pro-active “digital voice for engagement” work for inclusion in such neighborhoods is nation-leading and essentially non-existent elsewhere, the Ford Foundation wants us to package up our lessons to share them around the country. Boa’s excellent blog posts are part of that practical story that we hope will inspire others to bridge the digital civic engagement divide and help direct our own work and expansion. We wish Boa the best as goes to graduate school full-time and joins our ranks of dedicated participants on our forums. – Steven Clift, Executive Director

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By Julia Nekessa Opoti

When I first started as an outreach coordinator for e-democracy, I thought that my work was cut out for me. After all, I had been writing about the Cedar-Riverside community, particularly its large Somali population, for several years. It was not long before I realized that I would have to re-think my strategy. However, not all my efforts have been in vain. I will share here what I have found and over the next several months I will share how I navigate these challenges.

Over the last several months, I have met with community activists, health care advocates, university employees, students, and residents. I walked from store to store discovering a mall I did not know existed. I even attended neighborhood meetings, neighborhood safety meetings and community events. I spent time at the Brian Coyle Center where I got further acquainted with community organizers. Every Tuesday, I would buy my vegetables from the small farmers’ market. These opportunities allowed me an almost-insider’s look into the community.

For the small business I quickly learned that many of the owners did not have an online presence nor emails. In some instances, the store owners and their employees did not speak English making communication a challenge.

Still, I gathered emails where I could, but haven’t seen an increase in member’s posting new content or responding to forum topics. However, a quick glance at forum stats shows that readership is steadily increasing. I also found that many of the community organizers are already registered on the forum, but only lurk. I sought to know why.

At an informal meeting with several Somali women I learned that the negative press and abrasive online comments on websites such as the Star Tribune newspaper have resulted in a complete distrust of non-Somali websites. One woman said that as a community organizer, her daily battles are constant, and she did not have the energy to constantly “defend her community.” While e-democracy forums are facilitated, and users are required to use their real names protecting members from such diatribe, these women are still hesitant to participate.

What about softer, cultural issues like explaining Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting? Again, they spoke about online attack fatigue. As I look ahead to future postings and building trust it will be important to include topics that do not rile up controversy such as profiles of businesses and people in the community; and resources.

E-Democracy is a unique position. Unlike many organizations the forum doesn’t want anything from the community. Not in the literal sense anyway. Of course, for the vibrancy and the posterity of the forum, participation is key. A key factor is making sure that people understand the the forums diversity is only as rich as its member participation.

When Brian Noy posted on the forum about the low sales in the Brian Coyle Center’s farmers’ market, I met with him to see how he could best promote it. He was creative in his postings by featuring a weekly vegetarian recipe. However, the reality was that the people who needed to see it most were not accessing it. His best approach, it turned out, was speaking to community organizers housed at the Brian Coyle Center that I introduced him to who would in turn communicate to their different constituencies.

As I continue with my outreach efforts I am keen on developing strategies that would allow the community to trust this particular forum. For a community that is very oral with most information relayed through word of mouth and community gatherings; how does e-democracy fit in? For literate Somalis digital engagement is actually not an issue as there several popular forums (Hirraan, Somalia Online, Somali Life, SomaliNet) and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. However, how do we engage them in a wider issues forum like the e-democracy one? Considering digital inclusion, how does e-democracy make a case for communities with little or no access to the Internet?

PS. There are other communities of color, like immigrants of Oromo, Ethiopian, Eriterian, Korean and Mexican descent, in the Cedar Riverside Neighborhood that I will be profiling over the course of the year.

Kids at National Night Out at Riverside Plaza. E-Democracy.org recruited 15 new forum members that evening using paper sign-up sheets.

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Special Invite – Note the Pew Internet and American Life report author special Q and A discussion on the Locals Online community of practice.

According to the just released Neighbors Online report from Pew Internet and American Life, 27% of American adult Internet users (or 22% of adults overall) use “digital tools to talk to their neighbors and keep informed about community issues.”

This is an amazing number and a great starting point.

Today, we finally have baseline for the growing neighbors online movement. The other week we hosted a webinar on how  to use technology for community building and (June 2011 update) here is our Neighbors Forums presentation. This week we have some real numbers to help us develop strategies to broadly serve and connect as many people as possible not just those who easily show up – because if we don’t we will soon be talking about how we red-lined neighborhoods out of the community and democracy building opportunity of a generation.

In summary, to reach the 27% of Internet users engaging locally online:

• 14% read a blog dealing with community issues at least once in the last year (while the frequency of visits wasn’t measured in this survey, 1/3 of general blog readers check blogs each day)
• 13% exchanged emails with neighbors about community issues (think informal “to:” “cc:”)
• 7% say they belong to a community e-mail list (this intensive and typically daily experience is the cornerstone of E-Democracy.org Neighbors Issues Forums experience) – this equates to about 10 million American adults connected most days with their neighbors online in community life!
• 5% joined a social network site group connected to community issues (like Ning and Facebook)
• (10.5 % are what I call crucial “Joiners” of Community e-list/forum/SNS combined)
• 6% communicated with neighbors by text messaging on cell phones
• 3% followed neighbors using Twitter (note the embryonic trend of geo “hashtags” like #nempls – we feed it too)

Aaron Smith, the report author, in a private exchange noted to me that 2/3 of respondents only did one of these items. This bolsters my view that the “there there” very local spaces online is almost a natural monopoly – so making a unified online space available via multiple technologies is essential (we use e-mail, web, web feed, Facebook, and Twitter in an interconnected way for example) to reach more people.

Update: Aaron provided Locals Online with a special cross-tab on the “joiners” which is quite interesting. Access from here. Here is one tidbit: 74% of those who talk digitally with their neighbors (77% of e-list members) have talked face-to-face about community issues with their neighbors compared to 46% overall

The Inclusion Challenge

It has been our experience that the vast majority of “organic” local online places started by passionate volunteers (some placeblogs are quasi-commercial, but outside of such blogs, this is not an adjunct of journalism) serve middle and upper income communities – urban homeowners. The people who know about neighbors forums – LOVE THEM – based on the feedback we’ve received on our forums (including the one I host) and the all the new volunteers emerging to serve the 10+ new communities (often jealous of what they see just next door to them).

First some good news focusing mostly on 7% on neighborhood e-mail lists (although we do see local social networks, blogs, etc. all blending together at some point anyway):

• Whites and Blacks participate equally at 8% of Internet users
• Urban participation  is 10% and suburban isn’t far behind at 7%
• Women participate strongly at 9% in fact, we could say we need more men who are only 5% (this is not the case with political interaction online where white men dominate)
• With the community blog numbers, both young adults (16%) and African-Americans (18%) Internet users have read a blog with community issues at least once in the last year compared to 14% overall.
• Update – Some further analysis specially provided by Pew on the 22% of all adults who use “digital tools to talk to their neighbors and keep informed about community issues.”:

Household income comparison – percentage within each group who “talk digitally with neighbors”:

Among all adults
Total: 22%
Less than $30,000: 12%
$30,000-$49,999: 20%
$50,000-$74,999: 26%
$75,000+: 39%

Among internet users
Total: 29%
Less than $30,000: 19%
$30,000-$49,999: 26%
$50,000-$74,999: 29%
$75,000+:41%

We launched our Inclusive Social Media effort with Ford Foundation and St. Paul Foundation support to develop inclusive Neighbors Issues Forums in lower income, high immigrant neighborhoods – or what we felt are areas that are completely missing out from the community building power of local online engagement. We see the Internet as the most cost-effective “ice breaker” opportunity out there that can create new bridges and sustained bonds. With intervention and resources for real outreach and inclusion, neighbors online will do far more than just reflect existing social capital.

So now we have numbers on the digital participation divide we must close – among Internet users (not just the general population, so we are talking connected people):

• Only 2% of those with household incomes under $30,000 are on a neighborhood e-mail list, still only 3% up to $49,000 while between $50-75,000 it is 7% and over $75,000 it is a whopping 15%
• Only 3% of Hispanics (both English and Spanish Speaking) are on a neighborhood e-mail list – while they don’t measure Asians or immigrants specifically, our guess is that the percent would be even lower – our efforts target the highly East African Cedar Riverside neighborhood and the plurality ~40% Southeast Asian (Hmong) with African-American (20%) and White (20%) Frogtown neighborhood)
• Only 2% of rural residents belong to a neighborhood e-mail list (while terminology may have been a factor here, we’ve learned a lot from our Rural Voices effort to launch 4 community forums in rural communities and would like the opportunity to invest more in this area – in fact we’ve recently submitted small grant proposals to bring the majority Native American and also lower income Cass Lake Leech Lake forum into our Inclusive Social Media effort which will put a simple one hour a day Community Outreach and Information Leader on the ground)

Next Steps?

Here are some rough thoughts that we add to over time:

1. Inclusion Matters – As an organization, E-Democracy.org needs to focus on bring these powerful online community building opportunities to all – especially the people and communities being left behind. We need more partners and funders to make this happen in the next phase of our Inclusive Social Media effort in 2011 and beyond. Interested in helping? Contact us. In the near term, we need to find resources to work with the vibrant Powderhorn Park Neighbors Forum to build on their expressed interest in recruiting more Latino participation. They have had some bi-lingual postings, but the community in looking for ways to build more connections as they confront in part a summer of youth/gang related violence.
2. We Need a Good Directory Look-up – Most people don’t know about online community spaces (I think). If they did far more would join. We need to create a technology/format agnostic directory with geographic and map based look-ups for these two-way local online communities. We need to build on the work of Placeblogger and the UK-based GroupsNearYou site which isn’t actively being developed.
3. Neighbors Online Week – With a good directory, we can then promote such sites nationally/globally. I want the President of the United States to be able to say (like the White House did with the launch of Serve.Gov), go to X site, connect with your neighbors – ACROSS the political spectrum – and build your community.
4. Move the Field – OK, so while we’d love to have many more people start a forum with us, most of you will do your own thing. It is human nature. As part of our inclusion-oriented Participation 3.0 initiative we’ve convened dozens of local “hosts” for peer to peer exchange on Locals Online. Let’s make it hundreds, share effective practices and lessons, and inspire thousands of new “hosts” to start or effective grow local online spaces that work. Based on the Pew numbers, we estimate that there could be 30,000 neighborhood e-mails list hosts for example. They are almost all working in isolation. Time to connect!
5. Neighbor.be Open Source? – I think there is a need to connect nearest neighbors online and wonder what we could do collaboratively with interested developers.

Closing Remarks

If the Internet was first about going to the world, then connecting privately with friends and family via social networking, the revolution is finally coming home to everyday public and community life. We don’t want the Internet to replace a face-to-face conversation over the back fence, we want it to make those real connections among neighbors possible for everyone in a busy modern era where getting to know your neighbors is extremely difficult. We don’t want the hyped location-based mobile technology to be viewed as the way to connect with your existing friends because you are surrounded by uninteresting strangers. We’d rather use technology to have fewer strangers starting from where you live everyday. In short, meeting your neighbors online might just be the best opportunity to connect a nation in public life and counter those intent on pulling us a apart with online partisanship and political diatribe masked as online interaction.

Special Invite – Join the Pew Internet and American Life report author in a special Q and A discussion on the Locals Online community of practice now!

UPDATE – Q and A Discussion with Report Author Aaron Smith on Locals Online

• Neighbors Online Q and A Introduction
• Question – Who is posting?
• Question – Neighbors Online v. Online Government Participators
• Question – Regional Differences in Neighbors Online and Online Government Participators?
• Question – Political Views Impact?
• Question -  Neighbors Online “Joiner” Attributes

UPDATE – Coverage and Discussion Round the Internet

• Jeffery Smith – CivSource
• Marisa Trevino – Latina Lista
• Kevin Harris – Networked Neighbourhoods (UK)
• Leonard Witt – Public Journalism Network
• ReadWriteWeb – Led to the most Tweeting about it …
• Chicago Sun Times
• Next American City

Fun to watch “neighbors online” tweeted around the web. Hmmm. PewInternet should adopt a hashtag with the release of each new report.

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Listen and watch the presentation. Or click through the slides-only further below. The audio alone is available in MP3 format (~90 minutes).

If you are involved in local community building online or want to use these approaches and tools in your neighborhood, be sure to join your peers on our new Locals Online community of practice.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click the word “Vimeo” to watch a larger version or the four arrows icon to go full screen.

And the slides without audio:

High Tech Meets High Touch: Using New Technology for Community Building (Webinar)
Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Grassroots grantmaking is high-touch work in an increasing high-tech world.  We have seen what happens when citizen leaders get together in the same room for peer learning or dialogue on issues.  What new possibilities are opening up to further connect residents within and across neighborhoods using new technology? What is happening under the radar today and how can we make it more inclusive and benefit all communities?

Join us to talk with Steven Clift, Executive Director of E-Democracy.org, the cutting-edge national organization working on this question.  For some background now, see: http://e-democracy.org/inclusion and http://stevenclift.com.

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Please offer your comments on the blog or via our short survey.

The other week, the Pew Internet and American Life Project released an excellent report on Government Online. When I left Minnesota state government in 1997 after launching our main portal in 1995, I left because the sense I got was a clear interest in “services first, democracy later.” Like many years later. My heart is in democracy and community building, not collecting taxes online or automating service delivery.

So I did a victory dance when when “48% of internet users have looked for information about a public policy or issue online with their local, state or federal government” topped  Pew Internet’s survey list, just above “46% have looked up what services a government agency provides.”

It turns out that Americans are demanding both services and democracy online. In fact, according the study, 87% of American feel it is very or somewhat important for a government agency to “provide general information to the public on its website” and 85% believe government should “allow people to contact agency official through the website.” Wow. Americans don’t normally agree that much.

Getting informed and having a say on public issues is not what most government websites give publicity to today. It is still a services first world that treats citizens as customers. This is particularly true at the local level where city council and school board decision-making information and data related to transparency and accountability are often more difficult to find than needles in the haystack. Agendas and minutes can usually be found, but not always in a timely manner and often missing are the key public documents and handouts used by our elected officials (some model governments makes everything available systematically). While many provide information on their democratic processes, it is not what it could or should be if you believe in the public as participants and with government “of and by” not just “for” the people.

So what should it be? What do we as citizen ask of our governments online?

There are many fresh reports on what a government could do with so-called social media, but what is actually so important that we should grade our governments on their activities online?

To that end, E-Democracy.org is working with the national League of Women Voters to assist them in framing a new guide in their Openness in Government series tentatively titled Sunshine 2.0. The guide will be geared toward use by local League chapters in evaluating and starting a local conversation on local online support for democracy.

My personal sense (as an “expert”) is that we need to start somewhere. Finger in the wind alert.

That means we need to figure out what to measure and to try to give some ranking to what is most important. I’ll be taking the first cut at a draft. While we could identify hundreds of measures to judge the role of our local governments, civic organizations, and media online with their support for online transparency, participation, and collaboration (yes, the pillars in the Federal Open Government Directive), you have to start somewhere. We also need to be open to more rigorous standards over time. Just as students must improve with each year, so must the institutions of democracy.

So, to get the conversation started (please comment via the blog, our short survey, on the CityCamp Exchange, or on GovLoop), here are some proposed “indicator” measures that should separate the wheat from the chafe. There might be 100 measures, but I’d like to start with measures that show increasing levels of attention to creating important opportunities for effective and meaningful public participation.

Rough list of ten “indicator” digital sunshine features to quickly determine if your local government is a leader.

1. Government has a simple e-mail newsletter (and/or blog) with regular updates about “what’s new” on the website and other key news. (Bonus: Updates also provided via Twitter or a Facebook page.)

2. Government provides all elected officials a government e-mail address and lists them publicly. (Bonus: Requires its use for all public business.)

3. Government has a uniform calendar of all public meetings and provides all meeting agendas online. (Bonus: Agendas include links to all meeting documents and are placed online as soon as they are distributed to public body members.)

4. Most public meetings are webcast live in video or audio and available on-demand for at least one year. (Bonus: All public meetings are digitally recorded and placed online.)

5. There is an easy to understand “get involved” or democracy section available from the home page. It explains the governing process, how to participate, and how to contact/connect with elected officials if you seek to change how something works (versus channeling a service question or complaint to the right department.)

6. Government site provides personalized e-mail alerts of other notices on “what’s new” across their site. (This is normally the number one tool I recommend for government to provide the public “timely access” to government information when they can still act on it.)

7. Each elected official has their own section on the website for them to use in governance to communicate with their constituents that they (the official) can edit/have easily updated. (Bonus: The government provides an e-mail announcement list for each elected official to use and/or a blog with an e-mail notice option.)

8. The government links to community sites including local media sites, civic organizations, local online forums/blogs, etc. (Bonus: The government has worked out relationship with local library or other organization to maintain civically focused directory of local links and community content.)

9. The government uses online survey and input options beyond the general web comment form or e-mail box.

10. The government hosts two-way interactivity among the public and the government OR the government participates actively in two-way opportunities for community dialogue (and link to those places in their community links directory). (Bonus: Government has adopted social media policy which clearly encourages civil servants to provide information and answer questions online just as they would do in-person or on the telephone.)

11. Government provides open data sets for unrestricted download and use. OK, so there are 11. I want the open data promoters to tell us why this is more important than the items above.

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Below are some excerpts to give you a sense of what is in the Word, PDF, or Open Doc format versions of our report.

Your further input and comment welcome.

For additional insights see our 15 rural voices related blog posts and in terms of where we are going next, see new efforts.

Steven Clift
E-Democracy.org

A couple of excerpts …

1. Please restate the goals of your grant.

Promote the voice of rural Minnesotans through the Internet within their local communities…by creating meaningful connections among local people using online tools.

2. What progress have you made toward these goals?

1. E-Democracy.org with local volunteers helped launch four local Issues Forums in rural Minnesota successfully:

• Three directly supported by the grant in Bemidji, Cass Lake/Leech Lake, and Cook County
• The fourth in Grand Rapids in conjunction with KAXE’s Northern Community Internet Project

1. We demonstrated the value of in-person outreach efforts to reach the 100 members required for successful start-up. This included the effective use of paper sign-up sheets to recruit people for an online forum.
2. We introduced the use of “citizen media” to raise rural voices through our regional in-person citizen media outreach meetings/events in Fergus Falls, Winona, Bemidji, Cass Lake, and Grand Rapids. Attendance varied from 5 to 20. Ironically, the smallest event in Cass Lake/Leech Lake led to the most successful forum launch.
3. We hosted a citizen media/Issues Forum webinar with over 30 attendees.

• The slides with audio are available on-demand from: http://e-democracy.org/webinars
• Our updated Issues Forum Guide is available as a working draft from: http://pages.e-democracy.org/Issues_Forum_Guide

1. We leveraged project outreach to include Issues Forum volunteers in the Blandin-sponsored Minnesota Voices Unconference: http://e-democracy.org/unconf
   
2. Bemidji and Cass Lake received second site visits in fall 2009 that included volunteer interviews, “information seeking” training, and forum picnics.
3. Issues Forums are creating meaningful connections that are opening up and influencing the direction of local public life – although it is important to note that these forums are in their early days. As these are designed to last for years at a low actual cost, we expect that future research, and evaluation of the long-term results of this rural expansion and the full Issues Forum network and experience will be extremely useful.

… skipped a bunch …

F. Lessons Learned

1. What lessons have you drawn? What helped or hindered your efforts?

Many of our lessons are interspersed above. Below are a few additional reflections:

• Support for the local Forum Manager is what matters most. Local committees mostly function as start-up teams. The resources to establish them as something more like “service clubs” are more effort than is required for a basic start-up. We are streamlining our model to allow just one person to take charge of this idea locally while focusing the local team on start-up. This new approach is detailed here. While we would like to invest in full local committee activities, during these economic times we do not see the support emerging for that level of effort.
• The tepid response from rural elected officials is the most dramatic difference from our urban experience. Grey-area questions generated by general legal advisories provided by the League of Cities (https://www.lmnc.org/media/document/1/electroniccommunications.pdf) are likely part of the cause. Such commentaries lump public online forums with private group e-mail communications, and suggest the exposure of even one elected official’s interactions with the public to a quorum of members could violate the state Open Meeting Law. With future launches, we recommend making brief presentations to elected bodies and encouraging resolutions that support such online efforts in their community. At various times our forums have been linked to by local government websites and in one case a forum start-up with directly sponsored by a city government as part of its community visioning effort; those kinds of connections should be sought again.
• While not specific to this project, we remain bullish on the value of Issues Forums hosted by E-Democracy.org, but are considering ways to better train and educate others on how to adapt our lessons and techniques to build other types of forums in their own communities. To further our mission, we are exploring a relationship with the http://GroupsNearYou.com site hosted by mySociety.org to promote local online communities, as well as hosting a peer-to-peer learning space for all local forum managers (http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/localsonline).If 90% of the actual cost of Issues Forums is covered through volunteer capacity, the continued necessary subsidy of the other 10% for 25+ forums across 15 communities must be addressed before we can expand aggressively to new communities. We do not yet have the capital required to experiment with business models that generate sufficient revenue, even $5 per participant per year, through sponsorship, advertising, or participant donations.We are experimenting with a volunteer-built service called Neighborly, at http://e-democracy.org/neighborly, which would allow people to connect privately in small groups with those who live nearest them. We see this working in rural areas as well. This service would connect people into public issues forums where they exist, but going to scale would require a path for local sponsorship and advertising combined with the ability to serve people without needing volunteer teams to get started (you could support them later).

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