What are the best examples in your community of building community?

May 8, 2015 5:12 AM

I'm currently doing a fellowship, where I'm examining how public radio stations could provide membership to folks who may not be able to or want to donate financially, but would like to donate a skill, code, or their time to their local stations. I am looking for concrete examples from other industries - for-profit, non-profit, community - where organizations have granted membership or affiliation to people who give time, code, or a skill.

I'm currently based at Harvard, where I'm hoping to create the framework for a new model of membership within public media that would complement already-existing forms by offering membership to people who may not be able to donate financially, but would like to donate a skill or their time to their local stations. I suspect this will inculcate a sense of identity and ownership amongst listeners, allowing them to feel more invested in public radio's content, work, and mission, while also transforming public media stations into public community spaces that continue to fulfill the original mission.

I'm conducting the fellowship as a series of two-week-long sprints. In the first, I'm conducting user research with public radio stations and examining how other sectors and organizations think about membership or affiliation, and what that means.

I'm really hoping is that you know about something in your community that functions in this way. Churches, co-ops, libraries, airlines, online gaming communities, Stack Exchange, Code for America -- throw what you know at me, please.

There's more info in my profile link, if you're interested in learning more. I'm thrilled to be doing this and plan to make everything I learn public.

posted by melodykramer to Society & Culture (11 answers total)

I think our local community radio station, WMNF, does this sort of thing.
They do the usual pledge drives, but all the DJ's, engineers and producers are volunteers, and they have a large corps of volunteers who do other things like their website.

They have been around for a million years, and are a steadfast and vital part of the Tampa Bay community.

I hope you reach out to them and I hope this is what you're looking for!
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 5:30 AM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Membership isn't strictly predicated on such a thing, but in our Church we're encouraged to use the gifts given to us (time, talents, and treasure) to help support the parish and its various missions. Someone who couldn't help with regular financial support but instead spent time helping with back-office work, visiting shut-ins or working in the food pantry would be considered every bit a steward as a regular contributor. Both are necessary to the life of the church.

The time/talent/treasure idea is captured in the notion of stewardship, for which there is piles of essays and whatnot out there. The scriptural impetus is the Parable of the Talents, Mt 25:14-30. Stewardship a powerful idea - that we're ultimately obliged to take care of the things given to us for the use of those coming after. It places the relationship between the person and the thing (institution/community/Church) in the context of time past/present/future.
posted by jquinby at 5:39 AM on May 8, 2015 [6 favorites]

Would worktrade or bartering systems be an example of this? Many many leftist/politicized orgs and practitioners offer barter for services -- not always a membership though. Many private schools require mandatory donation OR volunteering in the classroom. Like churches, synagogues have a sliding scale membership that can sometimes be payed in the form of volunteer hours or goods. Membership in a CSA?

I work at Harvard, welcome!
posted by femmegrrr at 6:32 AM on May 8, 2015

I live in a smallish community where there are a ton of different ways to be involved in your community and/or ways to be involved in group things that aren't money. It doesn't totally relate to your question because a lot of these groups never get to the formal level of having memberships to begin with, or have de facto membership because people are all part of the same geographic community so are affiliated by default. The way I see your question it's: what are other non-monetary ways that people can contribute to membership organizations that still help the organization overall? And I'm one of those fussy people who doesn't (usually) like to just write a check (though I could) but would prefer to participate in some sort of tangible way, so instead of me working to earn money to give to the org I can just give my work to the org directly. Two examples from my town.

- Free Lunch - I have a whole essay-in-my-head about all the ways you can get free lunch in my town and the great thing is that they're available for people who "need" it or don't need it or rather need is determined in a different way. We have a Culinary Arts Program at the local vocational high school. Once a month they prepare a community lunch which is by donation. It's a full meal+drinks+dessert sit down affair. The kids learn to prepare food at scale, the school pays for the up front costs of the meal but money brought it by donation helps support the program and make it a fundraiser. The space is donated by the local Crafts Center who has a mission to serve the community. People who go are a range of seniors, people on fixed or really low income, work-from-home people like me who need to get out, some of the local developmentally disabled folks who can benefit from low-stress socialization opportunities, local politicians and business owners who get to meet and greet these sectors of people. The event winds up being good PR for the school, the Crafts Center, the local kids in the community, everyone, it's win-win-win.

- Food Shelf - the town has a food shelf for people who need food. Need is (mostly) determined by whether you say you need food. Pretty low key. They accept (and can always use) donations but they also need people to unload food, stock shelves, staff the place during open hours and do the other work of running a food shelf. They have maybe one paid staff member and pay rent on a space. They do a fundraiser (a Food for All walk) where people can 1) donate 2) participate 3) cook food for walkers 4) publicize. It's pretty standard as the models go but everyone who stocks, walks, eats or staffs the place is considered a part of the food shelf. There is no Us/Them division of the people who interact with it.

The big thing to me are whether everyone within the system has "access" to the people who make the decisions. In both of these cases, the people who run the organizations are the people you see at the events so whether you're a person eating a free lunch or getting food from the food shelf, you have the same access to the people planning and designing the programs as you would if you were a big money donor (not that there are many big money donors but you get my gist)
posted by jessamyn at 6:57 AM on May 8, 2015 [4 favorites]

My city has a time exchange, where membership is granted upon your first offer of one hour of presence and/or service, so it's a very "all in this together, giving and receiving" kind of vibe. I love their mission statement:

Milwaukee Area Time Exchange is a network of neighbors building safe and vibrant communities through the exchange of our greatest natural resources: our knowledge, skills and talents. One hour of service equals one time credit, exchangeable for other members' services. Members might provide a music lesson, take care of someone's pet, do a home repair, volunteer at a community center, or help someone get to a doctor's appointment. With timebanking, we all have currency. Let us cultivate our safe and vibrant communities, one hour at a time.

posted by divined by radio at 8:00 AM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

This might not be of interest to you in the US but hospital radio is widespread in the UK and staffed entirely by volunteers (some well-known British celebrities have come up via that route).
posted by humph at 8:48 AM on May 8, 2015

(That should maybe read "was widespread..." - the numbers are declining.)
posted by humph at 8:51 AM on May 8, 2015

The meditation center in our city does something like this - if you can't afford the fees, you can offer to do some work in exchange.

Mr Vitabellosi grew up in the projects, and from a poor person's perspective, his feedback to them was a gentler version of "fuck you" - poor people are the least likely to be able to "afford" the time to "work" - on top of their current hustle for starvation wages - to gain entree into what is a pretty elite crowd.

His suggestion is that the mostly-very-well-off members of the meditation center pay the fees for membership and volunteer to work in order to create entry for poor people. Or just cut poor people a fucking break and give them free membership.
posted by vitabellosi at 1:19 PM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure if this fits since I think universities tend to have institutional, built-in communities, but UC Davis has KDVS 90.3, which is one of the longest running free form radio stations. If you volunteer for 40 hours or fill a specific niche, you can get your own radio slot playing music or doing public affairs. Everyone also participates in a yearly fundraising drive, which usually hits their estimated goals.
posted by yueliang at 2:20 PM on May 8, 2015

One thing to keep in mind for these sorts of ventures: many of the same people who can't afford to donate are the same folks who don't have excess time to volunteer. The working poor and middle class folks are working a ton of hours, often plus childcare and/or eldercare. Of course there are many folks who DO have time to donate for a variety of reasons, or would rather donate their time and skills instead of money, but it's something to keep in mind as you are studying the constituents who would be considered members according to that rubric.
posted by barnone at 4:10 PM on May 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: @barnone - the idea is to make public radio station spaces community spaces, much like a library. I'm optimistic that this could lead to a more diverse pool of stories and sources — and provide the community with spots to record audio and take classes.
posted by melodykramer at 8:55 PM on May 10, 2015