Remarkable Community Engagement is happening around us—in public broadcasting, the non-profit community and, even, the for-profit commercial world. In her presentation at the Public Radio Development and Marketing Conference (PRDMC), NCO Director Maria Alvarez Stroud discussed these trends and what it means for public broadcasters. Read her presentation below to learn more and to get a broader context for your own engagement work. Then check out the additional resources and links from an NCO-led breakout session "Beyond your Airwaves: Mission-driven Community Engagement at your Fingertips."

A Cultural Tipping Point for Community Engagement
Presented to Radio General Managers at PRDMC, July 16, 2008

By Maria Alvarez Stroud, NCO

 

Opening Statements:
Let me start out by saying: Community Engagement is ours to own. We have countless examples of engaging listeners, both on-air and off, and if we went around this room we would all be more than impressed with what we would hear from each of the stations. How we engage citizens locally is, in fact, one of the notable strengths of Public Broadcasting.

We might not have been calling all that we do “community engagement,” but it surely has been part of the public broadcasting DNA for sometime.

This concept of Community engagement for many of us in public broadcasting has been a process of evolution. NCO is a good example. As the name implies, National Center for Outreach – at our inception eight and a half years ago, we thought the word “outreach” best described the increasing non-broadcast efforts and services of stations. But with the introduction of new technologies and increased station sophistication, we seldom use the word outreach as it implies one-way rather than two-way communications and relationships. Today we are much more inclined to talk about “community engagement,” encouraging stations to design their efforts to connect with citizens to be two-way, with much more open-ended interactivity. In many ways it is a broader way of thinking, as much as doing.

Tonight, I want talk with you about three things:

• The trends that have and are influencing citizen engagement in the United States
• The broader perspective of community engagement and what I call a Cultural Tipping Point for Corporations, Non-profits and Foundations
• And last, why and what it means for public broadcasters, in other words why we should care

 

Trends Influencing Citizen Engagement

Much of what I’m about to cover is familiar to you but important to understanding why we have reached a tipping point. What we know, all of us sitting in this room, is that… Online engagement is on a steep incline, while in-person engagement has been flat and since the 90’s never recovered from a sharp decline.

It is called “Social Networking” and in many ways this is about having different kinds of relationships. From Facebook to Yahoo live and YouTube or Twitter, folks are engaging like never before, but via the computer and not in person. This online engagement probably isn’t going to change and will likely continue to grow. But what we should be thinking about is…how can we help those engaging online become people who engage in person? How can we create pathways to make this happen? How can we change a longstanding trend of not joining and gathering less?

• Corporate Social Responsibility, or fondly called CSR, is becoming a standard for all kinds of businesses.

Remember Ben & Jerry’s and their bold step to have a social mission back in 1989? It was unheard of then. They stated clearly that they aimed to raise the profile of social & environmental matters and record the impact of their work on the community. Today, it is a trend.

From Starbucks to Target, we could probably go around this room and we would all be able to point to what they do for community and efforts they take to authentically engage consumers. Go in the Starbucks here in the hotel and you can pick up their brochure encouraging you to engage with them for the benefit of “community.”

• Let’s add to the mix what I’ll call the Peak of Hyper-connectivity

I brought my 18-year-old daughter with me to this conference and she came loaded: lap top, I-pod, camera phone and on the way here was texting, calling, checking My Space and sending photos to friends. She is not alone, as we all know, and it isn’t just the young that are “staying forever plugged in.” Recent research shows that all ages are engaging online.

• Boomers:

In my office all I have to say is this and eyes roll… we are not exactly doing anything like any generation before and, as we all know, aren’t about to start. And like my daughter, we are staying plugged in.

So this is the backdrop and probably the driving force to what I call…

a Cultural Tipping Point for community engagement that is taking place across the country. From corporations, to foundations and non-profit organizations, community engagement is a hot ticket item and has never before been so much in the forefront of thinking.

• Corporations: It started with “community” and, in the past year, has become community + engagement. Again, they talk about it as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Let’s go back to Starbucks who — as I mentioned — does a good job of producing slick brochures telling consumers what they have done for them lately. But they are going deeper. For example, they are teaming up with Nike on this summer's Human Race 10k. On August 31, they expect more than a million runners for charity in 25 major cities around the world – yes, around the world. They are encouraging people to use local Starbucks stores as meet-up locations to run together to train for the Human Race. Starbucks has leveraged their local presence in other ways as well, like holding book readings or allowing their stores to be used as meet-up locations for other social issues.

Target has ramped up their efforts as well. Since 1946, Target has a long tradition of giving 5% of company income to local communities. Through partnerships with organizations like "Reach Out and Read" as well as PTO, Target sponsors and encourages a variety of literacy initiatives such as family reading nights at your local school or Reading Buddies — a program where Target employees volunteer to read on a regular, one-to-one basis in schools, libraries, and hospitals in their communities.

And even Doritos doesn’t want to miss out. This summer, bags of Doritos tortilla chips feature inspirational individuals by sharing their stories. The Doritos bags feature a photograph and profile of each Brick Award winner and finalist. The Brick Awards - soon to be renamed the Do Something Awards - are the premiere national award given to young change-makers who have committed themselves to making a difference in the world. The stories also refer readers to DoSomething.org where young people can be inspired to get involved in their own communities.

• Non-profits:

We are not alone in trying to figure out how to stay relevant and connected. You just have to look at some of the leading non-profit organizations to know that they too are going through some reinvention and know that engaging their communities is part of what they believe will ensure their survival.

We can all pinpoint some of the turbulence when we think of the two of the largest and most recognizable organizations: United Way of America and American Red Cross, brands that are only as trusted as the least trusted affiliate.

The United Way Story:  From “I gave at the office” mentality to embracing the concept of mobilizing communities by engaging citizens every step of the way to solve community problems, the United Way of America is encouraging local chapters throughout the country to embrace a new model that harnesses the power of civic engagement as a fundamental shift to enhancing community life. The premise here is “engage first,” give financially next.

The Girls Scouts of America is doing the same. Not just about selling cookies, they are changing their business model to address their mission, which is aimed at impacting the lives of girls. Part of that transformation is engaging potential leaders and girls in new ways:

• restructuring the volunteer process to enable busy women to volunteer more easily and effectively
• creating a new leadership program targeted at both girls and adult leaders in partnership with several other national organizations
  
• Foundations

The headline here is that foundations too have drunk the Kool Aide and are, more than ever, pushing grantees to stretch themselves to engage people in new ways—clearly an expanded expectation from outreach to community engagement. Take the Ford Foundation for example. In the past 55 years, the foundation has provided $448 million in support of public service media! At the same time they are funding efforts to help non-profits not typically thought of for engaging citizens like art organizations. In fact in 1994, they provided a commitment of 16 million over a period of ten year to art institutions to find new ways to engage citizens in dialogue about contemporary issues using art.

Atlantic Philanthropies is another example. They have provided funding to civic ventures to the tune of over $15 million to first build the field of service by older Americans and then to support a civic engagement award program for social innovators in the US who are 60 years of age and older. Not wanting to loose the creativity of those no longer working, but keeping them engaged in the communities they live.

Ashoka’s Changemakers.net is another example. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation created this new non-profit in 2006 (originally called Geeks for Good) and it is a new kind of company/organization. It could be considered a take-off of the frenzy for competitions that we see on commercial television, this organization creates online competitions to find solutions to specific social problems. Like American Idol, anyone can be a judge and vote for their favorite entry. The difference is they encourage collaboration, which makes for unique solutions.

In their three-year history, 1,400 innovations have been proposed from 100 countries. Their mission is global engagement for the social good. From a Mexican man in prison to Proctor & Gamble and soldiers in the army stationed in S.E. Asia, individuals and organizations are engaged in finding solutions. In the eyes of RWJ, Changemakers has been very successful and so you can be sure that more of these new organizations will be coming.

Of course, everything I have been talking about reflects change, change that is happening on multiple fronts and at a pace we have never encountered before. So, looking through the lens of community engagement, we can see that all of this is also about changed relationships; relationships that go deeper are more pronounced and of course are true and authentic.

Why We Should Care

Let’s go back to my opening statement I said: This is ours to OWN. This is also ours to LOSE.

We are not alone, as there is great interest by commercial media in community engagement (like Discovery and even MTV) and the number of new public media entities is increasing. So just a couple of examples:

LinkTV was started by funding from the Ford Foundation in January, 2000. Their mission is “to connect Americans with the world by engaging, educating, and motivating viewers to action.” Does their mission sound familiar? LinkTV has 29 million people watching and that number is growing.

OneWorld.net is another example that is doing similar work by creating non-profit networks to strengthen each other and civil society worldwide. An online portal, OneWorld aims to be the place global citizens turn to for news and views from around the world not covered in mainstream media. It has worked to become a key hub that Americans use to find and interact with like-minded individuals and organizations from around the world. Again, this is a mission that is similar to or can compliment efforts of public broadcasting.

So, the question becomes do we partner, collaborate and work together or run away? My answer would be that the time is NOW to really think about what all of this means for you and your station and for our industry. I say that Community Engagement is ours

One reality check for many of us is to really look at our relationship to our communities and consciously build a stronger orientation or even reorientation to community. Do we really know what the needs are of our communities or are we making assumptions? And just as importantly, what are the aspirations for the community? To ask these questions means to do so with the community station-wide, top down, bottom up and with a perspective where the community is put first, placing a priority on having dialogue with citizens that can guide what is done and what isn’t.

And then another reality check is this—do our communities even know that we are so much more than what’s on air? THANKS TO CPB, with My Source we have an increased ability to tell our stories of impact and we have to start thinking about all of the stories we have and can have. These stories then need to be told far and wide; not just on our own air but in person, in conversation, as a means to building deeper ties and deeper relationships.

Our ownership can stay strong because one of public broadcasting greatest assets is our foundation of rich and varied relationships with citizens. While corporations may be seizing community engagement as an opportunity to sell, it is our job after all to keep it real, to keep it focused on what citizens need and want, and to keep community front and center.