ColumbusNeighborhoods.org and Ohioana Authors

Many nonprofits and public institutions are constantly challenged to demonstrate collaboration and innovation. However, local examples of success are rare, and even more so when it comes to collaborating for online experiences. WOSU Public Media and the Columbus Metropolitan Library have stepped up to the challenge by working together on a new community site, columbusneighborhoods.org. Columbusneighborhoods.org is a significant component of a community engagement project featuring the special qualities of neighborhoods throughout Columbus. The online component is designed to provide a space for residents to interact and share their stories; past, present, and future. It serves as an repository for CML and a mechanism for telling and sharing local stories, images, and video for WOSU. Another successful project we spearheaded was ohioana-authors.org, a joint venture with the Ohioana Library and the Humanities Council. A 52-week radio series (three-minute radio stories) was paired with a website featuring our finest Ohio authors. Our three organizations worked together to choose the authors, and the WOSU Book Reviewer, Kassie Rose, recorded a three-minute piece on each author. We directed folks to the web site for more information including a biography and a bibliography. Ultimately, each institution we’ve worked with has applied what they do best in the new interactive age.

These projects demonstrates how nonprofits and the community benefit through collaboration. They successfully leveraging resources (time, talent, networks, promotion channels, and finances) to create a long-term, local resource for the community. Our presentation will define our process for collaboration and our plans for rolling the site out to the community in Feb 2010.