Practical Tips on Using New Media to Inform Communities

Feb. 19, 2009, MIAMI — Tips from media experts and civic leaders on how to use technology to engage and inform communities are now available at www.informationneeds.org, a Web site of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The resources, which include videotaped presentations and downloadable breakout session reports, were part of the Media Learning Seminar, an event held Feb. 16-17 to exchange ideas on meeting the information needs of communities.

Highlights from the seminar, sponsored by Knight Foundation and the Council on Foundations, include:

• Advice on using text messaging, mobile devices applications and social networks to engage communities;

• Resources community foundations can use to engage young people with web 2.0 tools, cross the digital divide and reach the disenfranchised – and find the donors to fund those and other information projects;

• Examples of projects community foundations are launching to ensure all residents have the information they need to make informed decisions;

• Visitors can also view PBS correspondent and author Gwen Ifill’s keynote speech on the new era in black politics. Ifill’s comments were based on her bestselling book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, which all seminar participants received.

The Media Learning Seminar is premised on the belief that information is essential in a democracy, that is a core community need. In that vein, community foundations, which were created to meet core needs, should also support news and information projects.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of the U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Knight Foundation focuses on projects with the potential to create transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

About the Council on Foundations
The Council on Foundations is a Washington, DC, area-based nonprofit membership association of more than 2,100 grantmaking foundations and corporations. The assets of Council members total more than $307 billion. As the voice of philanthropy, the Council works to create an environment in which the movement can grow and thrive, and to provide Council members with the products and services they need to do their best work.