I'm working on supporting on-the-ground community building with an online local community website focused on sustainability, transition, resilience. I hope to bring together the many people and orgs working on energy, food, transportation, housing, etc to help accelerate community responses to climate change.

What suggestions would you offer? How can people be encouraged to work together online as well as off since having online access reduces travel and increases the ability to be in connection between face-to-face meetings and allows sharing of knowledge easily across communities?

What funding sources for a project like this would be most workable?

Other thoughts?

Thanks for any and all insights!

Karlie Cole

SustainingCommunity.org

Deb Wisniewski is a serious expert in this! You can contact her directly via the link to the right - under "Stewardship Team." She's amazing.

Basically, online engagement is directly related to value. If the site/community is valuable to people, they will engage.

People will engage online much more frequently and meaningfully if they have a chance to meet in person prior to joining the online community, or at least to experience a common event - maybe a farmer's market, the President's speech today, a climate change convening, etc.. This in person piece and common experience pre-loads the value of engaging online. Once folks are interested in connecting online, then there are lots of ways to keep those connections interesting and useful. This is Deb's expertise.

Ron

YES! That is the plan that is formulating. Any pointers on how to engage at the event(s) - what questions, etc? That could be mirrored on the site. We're thinking we'll record community assets in a crowd-source fashion on the site starting at the event(s) and then developing from there - with a directory of all assets visible to the communities.

Karlie - are you thinking of creating a platform/software for doing this? There are already some interesting ones out there that you might want to check out. Before moving ahead with either creating or using something that's already there, I encourage folks to think through some questions first... Here's part of an email I just sent to someone else about this very topic:

I'm also a firm believer that we should be thinking about some of the questions you bring up before we jump on any technology bandwagon... Who will use the tech? what will they use it for? what degree of privacy do folks want? what are they currently using (always a biggie that people miss, e.g., Facebook)? How tech savvy are they? How tech-comfortable are they? How will people access it (e.g., home desktop, mobile, library computer)? Who's excited about figuring this out and will hang in there with it? what's the simplest type of tech we can use that will meet our goals?

A great resource for learning more about this all is a wonderful book called Digital Habitats, by Etienne Wenger, Nancy White and John D. Smith. It really helped me start to think about how online platforms can be used to build community. Chapter 10 of the book is a planning chapter that takes you through some of these questions, plus more. The best part is that Chapter 10 is available online.

Hope this is helpful!

Deb

Yes I am thinking about all that. I do have a site built that provides for all manner of crowd-sourcing with simple user interfaces. I'm more struggling with how to present it - look/structure/pitch - to gain engagement. It is integrated with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn though it still seems difficult to get people to work with some additional platform on a regular basis. I have option to make it mobile accessible as well - it is now as a website but I mean with more of an app appearance. I'll check out that chapter - thanks!! We are working on funding to pair the tech tools with on-the-ground events in various communities that share interest in being able to map their local assets.

Engagement online is always a great challenge. One resource to check out online is Rich Millington. He talks alot about engagement. I often get ideas, food for thought or a spark for looking at things a bit differently. He knows a bit about ABCD (I've been in touch with him about it). His blog is calledFeverbee- go to hisResources page for an organized list of topics that may address what you're looking for. His new book, Buzzing Communities, is very good as well... very practical.

If you find some ideas about funding, let me know... that's the hardest part to address - People want online communities, but organizations aren't necessarily willing to help fund them.

Thanks - I have been reading Millington. Trying to wrap the funding for the tech part as support for on-the-ground efforts in our Community Asset Mapping efforts. With the right tech, we can map in a way that is visible not only to our community but to many others as well. Without it, it just becomes another printed page in some binder somewhere...

Hoping to build to community innovation and even crowd-funding for neighborhood initiatives - but first things first...

Thanks!

Great point about the Asset mapping. One of my pet issues is when someone does a great asset map and then it gathers dust on a shelf... Good luck and keep us up to date on how things are going.

Hi- Interesting timing that I just found this website and you are having a discussion on the subject i am most closely involved with. I have a weebly version that is mostly an outline at this point, and i have been working hard to get it to a point where I am comfortable showing it. I have considered several incarnations but this one has at its heart growing food locally. I feel this is the logical centerpiece and then you add in further avenues of community networking once you get some succees growing food. The first section is on site preperation, second is the plants and their characteristics and then the third is communiy networking. Community networking is in a sense how to create capital, insurance, and trading systems for produce. But this topic can quickly lead to larger discussion of value, happiness, health and the attitudes which effect our approach to trade and commerce even at the local level.

I need to add my dissapointment that there is not more discussion on this subject in the general culture. Everyone talks about going out an doing things locally or getting involved with GoLocal or Transition movements. GoLocal organizations seem to be dominated by an unresponsive national organization, and the Transition movement seems to be lacking much explicit DIY type information other than attending thier workshops. Perhaps workshops seem fine but I am more interested in supplying as many online resources and explanations as possible and then augmenting with in person workshops. I also find them a little reluctant to coordinatye with those wporking on similar projects but not officially under the transition label.

I assume Karlie Cole may be wotking on local sustainability in a more urban environment than the one I am dealing with here in Napa, and in general this site seems more aimed at urban conditions. I would nonetheless hope their is room for discussion between those who are growing food where land is not as resttricted as it is in the uran environment. Anyway really hoping this can go somewhere, and i can leave the link to my partially completed site if anyone is interested

It would be great to see what you're working on, Matt. I think it would give us a better idea of what you're hoping to accomplish.

As for urban discussion, I think that the people on this site represent all types of communities, from around the world. I know, for example, that some of the people from my home state of Wisconsin are from very rural areas.

Thanks for posting.... this discussion is very interesting...

OK here is the link to the the page at my site that has the best introduction I have so far. It is actually not listed as the main introduction, but is rather under the "Larger Issues" menu at the site. I have a little embarrassment in that it is not ready for prime time, but I get in this dilemawhere I amwaiting to finish more things on the site and showing other people on what I am working on

http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php

I should add that whether or not anyway thinks my particualr layout is effective is a secondary question to that of a more general question of whether an online based resource focus to community organizing is possible. And if it is possible then what might it look like?It would seem that "producing something" at the local level is a key component that many of us share, and that such a productive focus can concureently rekindle new and more intimate relationships for the members of the community.My feeling on the question of what such an effort is a kind of; combination discussion of local economics and the multiplier effect etc, permaculture or other sustainable technologies, the share and gift economies, peer to peer technologies and open source copyright, the potential of alternative health practices adopted at the local level, the issue raised by the public banking institute and our ability to create capital at the local level, how resiliency practices can be assisted by working with local government, and looking closely at how we can create local media alliances, local papers. local kiosks etc. From my perspective I am trying to put to the side the argument on climate chage, resource depletion, collapse, economic inequality and a lot the issues that we tend to become polarized by in our seperate camps. The issues are critical of course and a ommunity must eventually tlk about the subject since one might not see a need for local production if they think the larger economicsystem and environmental impacts of said econoomy are just fine. The main idea is to try to focus on what can we produce at the forefront and try to avoid or delay the discussion of the larger issues that tend to polarize us for a later date when we might have a diferent attitude aboiut themIt is a hard thing to explain quickly, but that is my best shot for starters

Here we have started working with City Environmental Commissions for community outreach to citizens via events supported by an online asset mapping and community networking site. They already have the mandates for sustainability focused actions and the need to connect to residents which they have been doing using one-way communication. Our approach is building horizontal communication. We are also moving beyond the climate change denial conversation toward action based on city sustainability goals. People will likely debate those as well - we will try to focus the conversation toward supporting a variety of actions rather than staying stuck in argument over "the right way" as likely no one really knows which ways will work best and we need to accelerate to try lots of initiatives, and see what works and what is possible.

The link seemed to just go to the main weebly site. Food can definitely be a central focus and we have lots of work going on here in the Twin Cities in that area. It looks like we will be piloting our project soon. We are starting local and will extend it out to rural areas as we get the whole thing more solid. It will have crowd-funding and sharing economy features as well as tools to do community visioning online and to support in-person events as the site builds from the initial pilot stage. The tech is largely built and will be integrated as we get adoption from communities. It looks like we'll also be working with Chicago and have had interest from Los Angeles. If our pilot works well, other communities may not need to re-invent the online platform wheel as it could be iterated for other communities.

Sorry about the link but if you go tothe Larger Issues" menu which the furthest linkto the right of the seven menus which appear below the header of Napa Food Cooperative. I very much agree about the ability to iterate our projects to other communities, and again wish people would coordinate. And again to diffentiate a bit from what I hear others saying. our effort is to try to set out the various subjects in a coherent way that offers the seemingly salient questions, and then offer a series of resourcesfor individuals to access in response. It very much goes to the belief that a diversity of inputs from a large community is a better mechanism towards the synthesis of a new localism than is anything to formulaic. Clearly a tightrope exists between a strong protocol or formula towards community networking, as opposed to a more organic and dispassionate observer and coordinator role. You have to trust to some degree that human nature and the examples of a fewcanhighlight the right priorities for othersin all of this IMHO

I'd love to see what you're working on but the link just goes to the weebly home page - advertising weebly. No menu there. Could you try posting a link again or could it be that your site is not publicly published yet?

Again Sorry. Try this

http://www.napafoodcooperative.weebly.com

Ours is at SustainingCommunity.org - most of the tools are functional right now. Some areas need better descriptive text and will be getting an improved look. The site will be pared back some to start and then sharing economy and other tools added as participation grows. We plan to add local micro-crowd-funding as well.

About page has a pretty good description: http://www.sustainingcommunity.org/pages/about

Deb-I was kind of hoping for some feedback on my site if possible. Karlie- Thanks for sharing your site, and I hope we can at least compare notes as time goes on

sorry Matt - I've been swamped with work and family commitments. I'll try to take a look at it sometime over the next week or so... I really am interested in looking at it.