[WSIS CS-Plenary] Inclusive Social Media for Civic Engagement Evaluation Report, May 16 Webinar, New Knight Grant and Locals Online Community

[Steven Clift]

Greetings,

I wanted to let you know we've published our 60 page evaluation report
on inclusive online community engagement in lower income, highly
diverse, high immigrant neighborhoods. The Inclusive Social Media
pilot project was funded by the Ford Foundation.

Read the executive summary and full report here:

  http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/1420

RSVP for an online event/teleconference on May 16 for a Q and A discussion here:

  http://inclusivesocialmedia.eventbrite.com

Also, we've just launched a "take it to scale" project in St. Paul
with major funding from the Knight Foundation! Our goal is to
_inclusively_ engage 10,000 residents ~daily across a network of
online neighbors forums. By inclusion we mean forums that reflect the
local racial and ethnic diversity in each of the 16 neighborhood
forums we host with local volunteers. Reaching lower income residents
is important as well. St. Paul is 44% people of color. It is all about
creating _bridges_ among diverse neighbors.

  http://beneighbors.org - Public outreach
  http://e-democracy.org/inclusion - Dry project info, grant details

  http://e-democracy.org/se - Example Minneapolis forum with about
1,000 members or 20%+ of households

Part of the three year grant also includes lesson sharing. We are
planning future webinars and exploring e-training options for 2013.
While we will host neighbors forums based on volunteer capacity in
communities beyond the 17 we currently serve (US, UK, and NZ
currently), we see sharing lessons for independent adaptation as key
to our mission.

Our "free" option for peer to peer knowledge sharing that is open now
is the Locals Online community of practice. I encourage you to join us
if you either host a local online group, blog, social net, etc. or if
you'd like to start one and have access to 300+ of your peers.

   http://e-democracy.org/locals

We also host the global Digital Inclusion Network online community
which is related:

  http://e-democracy.org/di

We look forward to your input and questions on the report.

Sincerely,
Steven Clift
Founder and Executive Director, E-Democracy.org