"Building the Civic 'Net": Now Accepting Grant Applications

Building the Civic ‘Net awards small grants to institutions, organizations and / or individuals that propose a creative way to use social media to improve our civic life in Northern Oakland County, Michigan. The program is sponsored, in part, by The Village of Rochester Hills. You can learn more about the program from this recent Village Square YouTube video, or from this article published in the The Oakland Press. You can also learn more about the work of our most recent grantee, the Rochester Oral History Archive, in this recent article in The Oakland Press

In addition to the grant money, recipients will become part of a broader “Building the Civic ‘Net” community. Through social media tools as well as live events, grant recipients will be encouraged to interact with past recipients, program partners and project supporters.

APPLICATION

Propose a creative content program that utilizes social media to contribute to our local civic culture. Demonstrate how your project might do one or several of the following:

• Nurture, protect and teach our families
• Build our creative culture
• Deepen individual connections in our communities
• Provide goods or services to the less fortunate
• Foster entrepreneurship and corporate innovation
• Strengthen our civic institutions
• Promote lifelong learning

Submissions are due by October 10th, 2010. During the month of October, we will choose finalists, conduct interviews, and announce a new round of grant recipients who will receive cash awards ranging from $1,000 - $4,000.

APPLY HERE

August 28th Oakland Press: Oral history project seeks to capture Rochester memories

"Thanks to a start-up grant from Building the Civic Net, a Rochester Hills-based philanthropy, in February Oakland University launched the Rochester Oral History Project as a pilot project for the department of writing and rhetoric, where Pokrzywa teaches. Oakland University’s Meadow Brook Writing Project provided a matching grant.

The project seeks to record and preserve memories about Rochester from people age 55 and older. They can be memories from any time, even recent ones. The completed interviews are easily accessible and can be shared via the university’s Web site, Facebook and YouTube ..."

Read more at The Oakland Press

"Building the Civic 'Net" Awards Grant to the "Rochester Oral History Archive"

The Building the Civic Net (BCN) philanthropic initiative today announced that it has awarded a $2,000 grant to the Rochester Oral History Archive (ROHA). Sponsored in part by the Village of Rochester Hills, Building the Civic Net supports local social media initiatives that strengthen the community’s civic culture. The announcement was made by Dr. G. Scott Aikens, Vice President of Leasing for the Village of Rochester Hills and Building the Civic 'Net founder.

Funding for ROHA will be supplemented by a matching grant from Oakland University’s Meadow Brook Writing Project (MBWP). MBWP is a local site for the National Writing Project.

The Rochester Oral History (ROHA) Project will begin collecting oral histories of Rochester residents ages 55 and older for archival on a public access website in early 2010. Residents are invited to participate in the project by sharing memories connected to local historical sites, events and communities. Oral history collection dates will be scheduled at numerous locations throughout April 2010.

Patrons will be guided through a series of prompts to capture their stories using digital media tools. Researchers will upload materials to the ROHA website. The project mission includes making technology accessible to seniors while building a resource for citizens of all ages involved in local history projects.

Visit the ROHA Web page hosted by Oakland University. Get involved in the project by joining the ROHA facebook group.

The ROHA project is administered by Cornelia Pokrzywa, Special Lecturer in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at Oakland University. Pokrzywa, who specializes in teaching first-year, technology-intensive writing courses, is a long-time Oakland Township resident, graduate of Rochester Adams High School and Oakland University alum.

“The greater Rochester area is home to many long-standing traditions and institutions, which act as settings for countless personal stories and memories,” said Pokrzywa. “The ROHA project will create a lasting archive of oral histories tied to people, places and groups.”

Dr. Aikens says of the grant, “We're hopeful that ROHA will create community content online that deepens community understanding. By embedding this content in new social media tools such as Facebook, we also hope to spark a lively conversation in the community about personal memories, community memory, and local history.”

Meadow Brook Writing Project leader, Marshall Kitchens added, "The MBWP is committed to supporting and promoting community projects
such as this that preserve the personal narratives of local residents
and make them available to a broader audience through digital
technologies and social networks. We are pleased to partner with
Building the Civic 'Net to make this possible."

Building the Civic 'Net: Now Accepting Grant Applications

Building the Civic 'Net, a philanthropic program committed to support local social media projects in the public interest, is now accepting grant applications. You can learn more about the program from this excellent article recently published in the Oakland Press or from this program introduction.

Two times per year “Building the Civic ‘Net” awards several small grants (anywhere between $1,000 - $2,000) to institutions, organizations and / or individuals that propose a creative way to use social media to improve our civic life in Northern Oakland County, Michigan.

We define social media as a participatory use of the Internet through interactive forums such as a web log (blog), video log (vblog), or online services such as youtube, facebook, flickr, etc. .

In addition to the grant money, recipients will become part of the “Building the Civic ‘Net” community. Through social media tools such as facebook, twitter and youtube, as well as live events, grant recipients will be encouraged to interact with past recipients, program partners and project supporters. As the power is in the network, we believe this participation may be the most valuable prize for grant recipients.

APPLICATION

Submissions are due by October 7th. During the month of October, we will choose finalists, conduct interviews, and announce the new grant recipients.

APPLY HERE

The Oakland Press reports on the "Building the Civic 'Net" philanthropic initiative

The Oakland Press published a terrific article today about the "Building the Civic 'Net" (BCN) philanthropic intiative.

The initiative, sponsored by the Village of Rochester Hills, helps local groups and individuals in northern Oakland County with social media projects in the public interest.

You can learn more about the four recent grant recipients, as well as the program, by reading this recent Village Square blog post.

You can become involved in the program by joining the BCN facebook group, following the BCN blog, and / or following the BCN Twitter feed.

National Contest Offers Funding for Foundation-Backed Local News and Information Projects

Aug. 11, 2009

(Miami) The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is accepting applications from place-based foundations for the second year of a matching grant program seeking to inform and engage residents on pressing issues through news and information projects. The deadline for the Knight Community Information Challenge contest is Sept. 23.

"In a democracy, access to information is essential for a community to function properly. It's a core community need - and one we believe place-based foundations should be addressing at this critical time," Trabian Shorters, Knight Foundation's vice president for communities, said.

More local foundations are doing just that: a Knight-funded report by J-Lab: the Institute for Interactive Journalism, recently found that 180 community, family and other foundations have contributed nearly $128 million in grants to news and information initiatives in the United States since 2005.

Knight Foundation created the $24 million, five-year Challenge to help place-based foundations find creative ways to fund media projects to inform residents about the issues that matter most to them. To help foundations identify opportunities, techniques and technologies that could benefit their communities, Knight provides free consultants who are well-versed on tools and projects from across the country. Also, Knight Foundation will host its third Media Learning Seminar March 1-2, 2010, where place-based foundations can learn more about media trends and the information needs of communities in a democracy.

In the challenge's first year, $5 million was awarded to 21 projects. The ideas included asking donors to fund news beats at a non-profit Internet start-up, launching neighborhood news bureaus run by citizen journalists and creating "digital public squares," or online news hubs where people can view and discuss important local information.

The challenge is part of Knight's Media Innovation Initiative, whose seven projects include an effort to explore national media reform, increase broadband access nationally and transform journalism education, among others.

To apply, or learn more about the challenge, visit www.informationneeds.org.

For more on Knight Foundation's Media Innovation Initiative, visit http://www.mediainnovation.org.

Contact: Marc Fest, Vice President of Communications, 305-908-2677

Meadow Brook Hall Young Writers Camp

The Meadow Brook Writing Project's first week-long camp for young writers at Meadow Brook Hall is now complete. Two more sessions for children between 3rd and 6th grades are set for July 6 - 10 and July 20 - 24.

With the help of their grant from Building the Civic 'Net, project leaders have so far produced two videos available here for your viewing pleasure.

This first video gives an overview of the program:



This second video focuses on a day in the life of camp attendees: