Non-profit media: Bread for the City’s ambitious community vision

One of the perks of my new job as communications editor at iFOCOS is listening in on conversations that Andrew and Dale are having. Yesterday, Andrew told a colleague he sees a dynamic future for non-profit media. He pointed out that for years, human rights and advocacy organizations have been producing in-depth investigative reports that journalists then publicize. Digital media, of course, opens the door for non-profits orgs to actually become media-creators themselves: no need to wait around for journalists to call.

One project in iFOCOS’ own Washington, D.C., metro area that has caught Andrew’s attention is Bread for the City, which is planning to launch a Community Media Project. Luckily for all of us, Bread for the City’s development associate, Adrienne Ammerman, will be at We Media Miami to share her thoughts and experience. Here’s what she has to say about her work:

Working at Bread for the City, a non-profit that provides direct services to low-income D.C. residents, I witness every day the critical need for food, clothing, legal, medical, and social services in the communities in which we serve.

I have also witnessed the sense of empowerment our constituents derive when they are able to write and tell their own stories, rather than having their stories told for them by someone else.

During my tenure at Bread for the City, our development office has shifted the way we produce newsletters, direct-mail appeals, media coverage, and content for our new website, which launched just last week. All of our staff, client, volunteer, and donor stories now come from one-on-one interviews, writing sessions, and relationship building. This has come from an understanding that Bread for the City’s stories and issues need to reach the public, but in a way that is empowering to our clients and community, and upholds our mission to be a refuge of dignity, respect, and justice.

I’d like to take our communications beyond newsletter articles and the occasional op-ed in the paper or a segment on the TV news. My goal is to develop a Community Media Project, using text, photos, video and audio clips, which together can become a digital community, a historical record, and an advocacy tool.

We will build a digital record of the changing face, needs, and hopes of the rapidly gentrifying Shaw and Anacostia neighborhoods through interviews, recorded on both audio and video, with community activists, partner organizations, neighborhood businesses, churches, public school students and teachers, and local policy makers.

Acting as a dynamic digital community forum, our media project will incorporate mapping, photo essays, digital storytelling, discussion boards, calls-to-action, neighborhood polls, and postings of community events, all in an effort to provide an empowering and cohesive communications strategy for neighborhoods in flux.

Putting together the initial Community Media proposal has been challenging, as I feel I lack networks and contacts to assist me with developing a strong project that incorporates best practices. This has been changing since attending the UPI Power to Change the World Summit in October. By attending We Media 08, I hope to engage with people from mainstream to community-based media and gain inspiration from other innovative projects in order to strengthen our own. I also hope to contribute to the broader discussion on digital media by bringing a grassroots community-media perspective to the the table.