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NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.
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Not Just a Number
Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):
Not Just a Number is a violence prevention, community journalism website, created to give Oakland California a place to share stories, connect and develop solutions for social change.
Supporting organization:
Agape Foundation, Oakland Tribune, Insidebayarea.com
URL:
www.njnstories.org
City:
Oakland
State/Region:
California
Country:
USA
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
Last year 148 families in Oakland California lost a loved one to violence.
Not Just a Number (NJN) is a community journalism project centered on the topic of violence, and violence prevention, with a special focus on Oakland, California’s homicide epidemic in 2006. This interactive website is designed to give the people of Oakland a place to share stories, connect, and develop solutions together.
Often the media’s reaction to escalating violence comes far too late, with brief stories that just nick the surface. Rarely will the reader hear from the victim’s families or friends; learn of causal patterns of violence or be informed of the far-reaching community impacts.
Produced by 49th Parallel Productions in conjunction with, and with partial support from, The Oakland Tribune and their website affiliate insidebayarea.com, NJN was created to be easily updated on an ongoing basis by Tribune staff and community members alike. The website utilizes a variety of new media journalism tools including audio interviews, photo essays, and documentary style video footage, to explore the topic of violence and violence prevention. Forums, community boards, RSS feeds and other interactive web based technologies provide resources and serve as vehicles for people to discuss, think about and understand the causes and issues that surrounding violence.
NJN is a prime example of the belief that people telling stories places a value on the experience. It starts with giving voices to those who are disenfranchised or marginalized. But for real action to take place, it is important to create a way for people to participate, respond and have a sense that they have a critical role to play. The NJN vision rests on making this kind of social impact.
Sustainability (financial) model:
NJN is a fiscally sponsored project of the Agape Foundation; a long-standing Bay Area non-profit 501(3)(c) organization dedicated to nonviolent social change. Through our fiscal sponsorship, NJN is able to seek out grants and in-kind tax-deductible donations.
The Oakland Tribune helps support NJN by making their staff available to develop content for the site and by providing the website’s hosting needs and back-end maintenance.
Fundraising for dedicated personal, community outreach and, research and development is on going.
Potential obstacles:
- Transforming online action into real world action.
- Reaching out to community members who may not have easy access to the web.
- Insufficient finances to fully execute the vision of the project.
Resource Needs:
49th Parallel Productions is a multimedia storytelling company. Originally, we intended to produce a simple story. The idea of a community site developed from community members we met while researching that original concept.
NJN is a bit of an experiment for us. We have ideas but are a little out of our comfort zone.
Our hope is that through NetSquared, we will receive valuable feedback to improve NJN and better serve the community. The Oakland Tribune hopes to gain a better understanding of how the newspaper can better support the website.
Key Milestones:
- July 2006, original story idea conceived.
- September 2006, NJN becomes a community journalism project and content development begins.
- October 2006, initial design execution begins.
- January 2007, site programming begins.
- March 4, 2007, site is launched and coincides with a weeklong series of articles published in the Oakland Tribune directing readers to the website.
- May 2007, NJN works with the Oakland Tribune and community organizations to set up first town hall meeting.
- Summer 2007, work with local youth organizations to produce stories for youth by youth.
Project Summary:
Not Just a Number is a community journalism project focused on the topic of violence and violence prevention, produced by 49th Parallel Productions with support from The Oakland Tribune newspaper. Last year Oakland's homicide rate reached a five year high of 148 people. NJN was created to give Oakland a place to share stories, connect and develop solutions by utilizing a variety of new media journalism tools and interactive web based technologies.
Comments
Voice and advocacy
You mentioned that one of your potential obstacles is translating online action into real-world action, but I wasn't sure what type of real-world action you plan to initiate. Do you see this site as building an online community of folks who would then advocate for particular types of crime prevention? How would those solutions be determined by the community as a whole?
Even if that's not a part of your vision, I think the proposal is really strong and I like the end-run around the usual media narratives about crime and actually presenting the stories of those involved. It's a great approach.
--ivan (quixotic1.com/Genocide Intervention Network)
Hi Ivan, Thanks for your
Hi Ivan,
Thanks for your comment and feedback on the proposal.
I think there is a need from the community not just to talk about the issues but do something collectively. For example, when the site launched and the first series of articles were published in the paper a church contacted us and offered their space for a town hall meeting. Now one of the editors at the paper is trying to coordinate that event in hopes of making it happen.
We are really excited about those kinds of opportunities being offered by the community, but it takes a lot to coordinate. We are struggling to find simple ways to connect the discussions happening on the site with activities in the community.
This was part of the motivation behind the community calendar. Although, that hasn’t exactly taken off --- but, we have high hopes! :)
In a different direction:
We really like the ecotonoha site. People leave messages that form the leaf of a virtual tree. For every 100 or so messages submitted the company plants a real tree. It’s a beautiful site and an interesting idea.
-- cheers,