Digital Arts Service Corps - outreach

Marketing & Outreach

Bill Brown — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:43:53 +0000

This area is for any and all resources related to Marketing & Outreach.

"If we are together nothing is impossible. If we are divided all will fail"

Erica Jones — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:34:34 +0000

Great News just came our way, here at Quote...Unquote, Inc!

A major part of what I have been doing, and continue to do is raise community awareness around who we are as an organization, what we do and how other organizations can partner with QUQ to further enhance community alliance & promote their own organizational mission to the greater community.

Well, a recent endeavor I was working on for many months, along with another QUQ staffer, was to further strengthen and legitimize our newest arts, events & culture channel, Encantada TV, in the growing NM filmmaker community. An outreach effort that took persistence & following up on was with the NM Film Office. Seeing the NM Film Industry has been in a blossoming period, we figured what better way to get the word out about Encantada TV, to gain viewership and local film submissions was to partner with the NM Film Office.

Check out the update/news here on our Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Quote-Unquote-ABQs-Public-Access-Station-Encantada-TV/154012371952

I am proud to say our partnership is starting off in the right direction here. Beginning on June 11th until August 29th, we will begin a summer series on Encantada TV titled "NM Filmmaker Showcase Summer Series." This is a great step in the right direction, ideally building greater alliance amongst the film & media making communities here in NM.

I figured I would spread the love and great news with everyone. This took several months, so the moral is to never give up (i know, how cliche) and persistence really does pay off!

Cheers,
Erica Jones

"Freedom of Speech is Having a TV Show"

Erica Jones — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:09:51 +0000

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all doing well and may the warmer weather be treating you kindly and hopefully not causing your body to react to unfortunate world of allergens or even to the adjustment to the change in weather. My allergies are sucking bad right now, especially considering I do not even know what is causing this discomfort out here in the South West! GO NETI POT!

On a positive note, my service here with Quote...Unquote, Inc could not be going better. I am re-signing my VISTA membership with QUQ, YAY! I really feel confident in the work I am executing and I have a great staff support system, which is always reassuring.

I also attached a nice outline/spreadsheet that our fundraiser committee developed. Please check it out & provide feedback. This outline is proving itself effective as it is easier to organize which development ideas are more feasible than others.

Here is a list of some things I have been working on and developing (Every 2 weeks I send my boss a bi-weekly report of the things I have been doing, so it is easier to copy & paste that report into the field report):

-Researched an effective and efficient underwriting/membership tier system to assist with the fundraising committee to develop a membership package. This model will be used by Amelia Salas, who is QUQ's Underwriting/Sales staff person. When she meets with prospective sponsors this will help with the sale.

-Compiled content from other staff for the creation of our monthly e-newsletter and sent it out to all subscribers (I have also created a "How To create an e-newsletter" that will be used as a guideline for it to become eventually sustainable).

-Mike Trujillo and I developed a contract/template to send to the NM Film Office which will help to clarify the terms in which QUQ receives programming for Encantada TV and ways to cross-promote each organization

-Had a meeting with Regina Chavez, Creative Albuquerque, discussing ways we can partner with eachother (cross-promotion)

-Had a phone meeting with Maresa Thompson from the Albuq. Convention & Visitors Bureau office about them submitting programming and QUQ receiving a trade membership that would allow QUQ to get listed on their website and to send out an article in their monthly e-newsletter

-Meetings about the Prometheus community radio tour--helping to develop the schedule for when they visit and how their presentations will pertain to QUQ and youth

-Fundraiser Meeting (every Tuesday) to update eachother about grant opportunities and to develop a strategies to execute some of these funding models

-Met with members of Enlace Comunartio and Citizen School to discuss ways QUQ can help them with creating a youth-focused PSA about healthy vs unhealthy relationships (focusing on domestic violence within teenage relationships)

-Had a productive phone meeting with Anne from Miro Community to discuss how QUQ is utilizing our Community Media Space to the best of our ability with highlighting local offices (ACVB) and giving Anne feedback on the site, advice

-Met with members from the NM Latin Dance Festival. John Ortiz & I discussed how we can help cross-promote each other. The exchange is that QUQ will work on media/videos for them and in exchange they give us advertising space

-Steve and I went to the NM Community Foundation website to create an organizational profile that as certain funding comes in through their office, when they do a search they match up projects with available funding. They basically have a searchable database that they use, they do not have an application.

-At the fundraising meeting, we delegated different grants to the members to research & report back their feasibility and application to QUQ (i.e. is it worth our time to fill out the application). I will include this in my "How to Outreach & Fundraise Guide."

-Also, Steve, Amelia and I finalized a draft for the "QUQ Annual Membership Package" which breaks down the membership into tier levels (different incentives for each category, more incentives for the "higher category"). This will hopefully be an incentive for producers to want to enhance their membership and purchase the higher of the categories. I will include this in my "How to Outreach & Fundraiser Guide."

-Attended the in-service training/staff development for the Prometheus workshop (learning about different communication models and how to effectively construct a message to convey to a particular audience)

-Attended the main Prometheus event at MACCS which presented more of a media literacy 101 and how to better understand your community and their issues

-Sent out outreach email through a media industry listserv requesting filmmakers to submit their programs to Encantada TV, I have received a few emails indicating their willingness to submit!

-Worked on compiling content/articles for the newsletter (which Steve and I decided to only send out once a month)

-I was brainstorming ways to better promote our community media space and I came up with sending out a monthly e-bulletin titles "Community Video Showcase." This will highlight a video from our CMS and send it to everyone on our newsletter mailing list. This had a high "open" rate from our subscribers.

-Had a follow up meeting with Maresa Thompson, from Albuq Visitors & Convention Bureau about finalizing our contract/trade agreement. QUQ will supply broll footage to ACVB and event/video coverage of the arts & culture festival "Savor" in June, in exchange we get a ACVB (valued at $400) membership

School outreaches

lauren bratslavsky — Tue, 01 May 2007 18:26:03 +0000

This is the first week in many months that I do not have any outreaches. I had two of them to focus on for the past several months. One was from a high school and the other was an after school program.

The high school group was a bit difficult. Most the kids were there by default, since the options they wanted were already full. But it ended up ok. I will say I tried to use a curriculum and that miserably failed. It partly happened that way since half the kids were already familiar with video production and some imovie (though they failed to tell me that during our first day, no wonder why they were not paying attention). It also may have happened because another portion of the group was completely uninterested in learning. Some of these kids have issues with instant gratification. They want results now. There was little interest in planning. And then when it came time to shoot, there was no planning to fall back on. I also hate to say this, but it was kinda a rotten group of kids. A couple of loud mouths and show offs detract from the rest of the group and impede on learning. But I guess that's a common complaint. One of the students even voiced her distaste for the class and completely disrespected the teacher. She called the teacher lazy and annoying and all these things right to her face. Maybe kids these days have little respect and little patience.

For one kid, all he wanted to do was hustle and make rap and beats and all that junk. I finanlly gave in, since he was not productive to the group, and let him play with garageband. I explained the program to him, gave him a tutorial. Even set him up. And he couldn't even figure it out. All he wanted to do was make beats. And we have that capacity. But he wanted it instantly- he sat at the computer for nearly two hours with nothing to show. geez.

Anyways, they did have some final results. There was a psa about basketball and physical activity. And there were grandios plans for a motorcycle fundraiser where motorcycle groups in the area would preform tricks and stuff. That fundraiser was cancelled. But at least there were two good interviews about motorcycles and safety and some other issues that were turned into a short movie. Nothing festival worthy, but I'm sure glad that they at least produced something. I also had some good talks about consumerism and why those nike air forces and michael jordans are so important. Puts the whole media literacy in perspective when trying to teach it to a bunch of urban youth who work hard at crappy jobs to earn the money to get the shoes and the looks to be socially accepted.

The other group at the after-school center turned out well, despite a few obstacles. The kids were making a video about their center to show parents at a community brunch. They got great footage and interviews. BUT lo and behold, one of the cameras I was using was freakin broken. And I had no idea until it was editing time because I never went over the footage. I guess the heads on the camera were misaligned resulting in digital glitches in the video and the sound. Also, one of the mics was malfunctioning.

LESSON: always go back and look at your footage. Ideally, import it into a computer.

In the end, it worked out ok. Kids got to use a camera, which most of them never have before. But there was little time for editing, which was what some the kids were really excited about. I think some of those kids are signing up for our summer classes too, so that was a good way to get more kids involved.

The next month will be spent fixing some other videos, preparing for summer classes, and working on the policies and guidelines for the youth media program here

Online Outreach Resources

danielle martin — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 19:05:05 +0000

What are some lessons learned through your year of VISTA around designing an outreach strategy (using media and technology of course) for your organizations?

Here's some resources from other organizations:

Developing a Strategic Communications Plan: "Developing a strategic communications plan will be less overwhelming if it is viewed as a series of steps. Here are some questions to ponder before you create your plan. If you know the answers to these, the creative process should be smoother."
Speak to Inspire: Designing Effective Outreach Strategies by the Advocacy Center. - includes handouts on message development and framing, and getting started with eAdvocacy.
Tech-Savvy Communications: A Toolkit for Nonprofits
A guide to developing and delivering an effective message for your nonprofit
(TechSoup/NPower Seattle)
The Spin Project's: Writing for Communications: From media advisories to delivering your message uncut on the Op-Ed pages, our publication will help you learn how to successfully write for communications, strengthen your organizing strategy, and offer you the opportunity to reach the hearts and minds of constituencies beyond your base. Click here for our new tutorial, Writing for Communications on message development and framing, and getting started with eAdvocacy.
Smart Chart 3.0: A Tool to Help Nonprofits Make Smart Communications Choices : "Whether you are just starting the communications planning process, checking in on a communications campaign already in progress, or interested in reviewing an effort you have already executed, the Smart Chart 3.0TM will help you assess your strategic decisions to ensure that your communications strategy delivers high impact."

Digest and outreach

Erin Taylor — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 23:08:24 +0000

Hey everyone, here's a quick update on some things at UMass.

With the Digest deadline quickly approaching, Danielle and I are working to get articles, bios, images, and video up in Drupal. If you wrote an article and have a photo that’s relevant, it would be great if you could send it to me or let me know where I can find it. It will be interesting to see how the Journal works as a finished product in the context of our new site. The Digest has been great because it’s allowed me to see a little more of Drupal and also created an appeal for web based documents and spreadsheets, neither of which I’d given any prior thought. I’ve been using Google’s versions and for my purposes they’ve been just as functional and easy to navigate as Excel or Word.

I’ve also been doing some outreach for the Project, researching local Community Media and Technology (or similar) programs to get involved with. Our aim is to strengthen both the university programs and the Project by sharing connections and resources and providing opportunities relevant to each other’s members. For example, people in these programs are presumably great applicants for the CTC VISTA Project and often these universities offer graduate programs that would be of interest to VISTA members. I’m going to be taking a series of workshops in November with Nettrice Gaskins at MassArt on InDesign so I can get some tangible materials together for some face-to-face meetings.

On the organization side of things, I’ve been searching for non-profits that could potentially use a VISTA in Detroit, MI. Recently, we’ve had more applicants interested in working in Detroit, but the Project doesn’t currently work with anyone there, and as I’m from the Metro Detroit area I was excited to do this. If anyone working in or from Michigan has any thoughts, let me know.

Hope everyone enjoys the weekend.