Application for News Challenge grant (original draft)

* What makes this idea unique? * (no more than 350 words)
Inclusiveness, democracy, and convergence make "Community News Of, By, and For People Who Give a Damn" unique.

The goal is community news and information for everyone. We intend the pilot project for the ordinary suburban town of Natick, Massachusetts, where we already have a critical mass – but we could even launch pilots in parallel in New York City and San Francisco. Most exciting is growing into neighboring towns especially next-door Framingham, 'the largest town in America' and used in studies as an excellent cross-section of the United States.

What makes us think we will grow?

Inclusiveness: PWGD Community News will be technologically and organizationally open to everyone. Not only will we solicit news and information from existing sources and newcomers alike, but we will invite everyone to share the editing roles.

How will this work?

Democracy: Existing newspapers, town government, or the guy down the block can recommend stories. People can choose to subscribe to their own mix of stories, by 'editor' and by category. Everyone will also have the opporunity to comment on, criticize, and highlight aspects of the things they are reading. At the same time certain items can be considered so important by the participating community (through a petition and 'jury' vote process) that even people not presently receiving, for instance, Joe's newsletter on lost animals will get his alert about the rampaging elephant.

How will this support itself– and good journalism?

Convergence: PWGD News' model allows for all parties with a public interest, personal, or financial stake to come together for mutual benefit. Not only will PWGD be able to cover its own expenses through modest transaction fees (on local goods and services exchanged through the site, not information), but PWGD can help local reporting and investigative journalism be financially sustainable. Donations or advertising revenues, for instance, could be divided among content providers based on the number of people subscribing to or seeing the content through votes of importance– a method that escapes 'click fraud' and shields specific news sources from sponsors or advertisers trying to influence content.

Who else would want to use it, and why? *
(no more than 150 words)
People, organizations, and businesses in towns and neighborhoods (that may or may not be true communities yet) will use Community News.

People who want to blog about the night life or report on local issues will use this; people who want to get all their local news and information in one place will want to use this. Town governments, civic groups, businesses, religious and other organizations that want to reach their members through a source people will actually read – a person's own newsletter might include the senior center bulletin,

Organizations could further make use of PWGD's collaborative editing and democratic decision-making tools to actually produce their newsletter for members or general news.

A centralized place for community information isn't new, but the open, nonprofit philosophy and the sophisticated technology for enabling everyone to participate in both contributing information and deciding about it's level of distribution will be new.

[ your organization here! ]
[help us out– why, or why not, would you use PWGD News?]

We apologize for the lateness of this grant submission. We hope that the planning, care, and especially the partnerships we have forged proves Community News Of, By, and For People Who Give a Damn to be one for which you've been waiting!

We think the individuals and organizations already working with PWGD on this project are our strongest case for funding. Many of them can be found at http://pwgd.org/community-news-partners

Why are you the best person or organization to develop this project? *
(no more than 350 words)
If quality local journalism is to thrive in the 21st century, it will have to be in a mutually beneficial relationship with myriad other ways to share information locally. This coalition led by People Who Give a Damn is best suited to re-embed journalism in the local exchange of information.

A nonprofit dedicated to democracy is better suited for this task than a for-profit or even a nonprofit dedicated to any specific purpose.

We have an array of technical talent available that amazes us.

But the real challenge is bringing organizations that are just getting by with their current methods of communication and outreach to make the small changes needed to their practices in order for them to participate in a common on-line system.

This is where PWGD and our partners are so uniquely suited to build a vibrant on-line community that reconnects people to their physical community.

Common formats for what comes down to sharing news and information can be achieved on the local level in ways that have yet to be realized by the semantic web, metadata, and microformats. PWGD will be able to bring others to adopt open standards for on-line publishing because we can sit down and talk directly to the decision-makers (a nonprofit's communication director, a concerned citizen with a web site, a local newspaper editor, the town library director).

Our organizational and technical partners for the pilot project include Stephen Cataldo of SpaceShare, MyNatick.org, the Center for Information Awareness, and [your name here!]

Local news and information – increasingly lacking in many communities – will alone connect people to what's going on in their neighborhood (ask your local arts center, trying to compete with the television to fill the place every night), but planned PWGD enhancements such as community ridesharing boards and 'meet other people interested in _____' will explicitly encourage community-building in the real world. Amazing things can happen when most people in an area share a common space for information– especially, PWGD and an ever-increasing number of partners feel, if that space is fundamentally under nonprofit, democratic control.