As reported earlier, on November 12, Global Kids hosted a Fall 09 Roundtable on Virtual Worlds and Nonprofits on MacArthur Island in Second Life (teleport link). Representatives of five leading nonprofit organizations gave brief presentations on their initial explorations of Second Life and other virtual worlds, and how they are thinking of integrating these virtual tools into their organizations' respective missions.
Specifically, the following organizations presented:
- KC Swopes and John Englander of Facing History and Ourselves
- Theresa Dawson of Jacob Burns Film Center
- Mark Belinsky of Digital Democracy
- Emma Lloyd of Eyebeam Art and Technology Center
- Bruni Burres of International Center for Transitional Justice
Each of these organizations had just completed the Global Kids' Virtual World Capacity Building Program, a four-week intensive exposure to virtual worlds for public good institutions. The following are my rough notes from the presentations.
Thanks to the 50 participants who came to the roundtable, to the MacArthur Foundation for supporting this project, and our awesome presenters Mark, Bruni, Theresa, Emma, John and KC!
Facing History
KC Swopes and John Englander of Facing History and Ourselves presented first. They began by presenting a short video about Facing History. John described Facing History as a professional development organization the works with a network of 28,000 teachers around the nation. They teach kids about history, that history isn't inevitable, but created by choices people make.
KC described an online workshop on civic dilemmas they recently ran, focused on the French headscarf debate. (See "What Do You Do With the Difference" and "Stories of Identity" Religion, Belonging and Migration in a Changing World.)
What would it be like to have our 250 people participants talking with each other live about these issues? We are doing this workshop again. We are thinking of using an SL space to facilitate those conversations.
We also have a touring real world exhibit on "Choosing to Participate." We are thinking about creating a virtual exhibit to echo the real world one.
Jacob Burns Film Center
Theresa Dawson of Jacob Burns Film Center presented next, beginning with a video about the Center. The Jacob Burns Film Center is a nonprofit cultural arts center, presenting best film and documentary media, teaching 21st century skills and making film a vibrant part of the community.
We have a program that works with incarcerated youth where we have them produce videos (read press release). We also do nonprofit professional development, teaching nonprofits how to use film in their work (read press release). I think that either program might work well in a virtual world setting. What do you think might work better?
My discussions about virtual worlds with my staff have been very interesting. I was talking with our director of internet programs about coming into SL with me: "That's such a slippery slope for me. If I log in, I'll get all involved in finding good hair. I don't dare get back in because I have no self-control."
Other staff members told me that they had installed SL and wandered around a few times, but forgot their password and didn't come back. My executive director is actually inworld today, to give you some idea of our interest in this space. So my question is how have you gotten your staff, members and board interested in virtual worlds, and how?
What really interests me about SL is the potential for participatory culture where notion of where you are in the world is not a bar to making media. But I do have to ask how steep is the learning curve for other nonprofits? And do other nonprofits really use SL as a tool for action?
Digital Democracy
Mark Belinsky of Digital Democracy presented next about their experience in virtual worlds and new media. Digital democracy empowers human rights activists around the world with technology.
I was working on the border of Thailand and Burma with youth democracy activists. There we found a correlation between internet access and self-identification of "activist." We are interested in supporting activists like these with tools to help them do their work.
Our SL interest comes from hearing about the virtual Camp Darfur. We were interested in moving beyond an exhibition to direct connection to refugees.
In a refugee camp I worked with youth on a photo project where they chose the topic. (see Video about Digital Democracy "Project Einstein"). We created a Digital Pen Pal program between youth in schools in US and youth refugee camps. We would love to have a wall in in SL where people could post questions and messages and those could be answered by refugees.
We are working with Eyebeam to develop a virtual classroom where youth can communicate their stories to a larger world. But in countries with minimal tech access, what is the possibility for interaction in these spaces? Cell phones, cameras, other mobile tools.
We are creating a small space to exhibit some of their projects in SL (Teleport link .)
Eyebeam
Next up was Emma Lloyd of Eyebeam Art and Technology Center. Eyebeam is a leading nonprofit tech center in the US dedicated to exposing new audiences to new technology and media arts while demonstrating new media as genre of cultural production. We support residencies and fellowships, educational programs for youth, artist professional development, public programs and exhibitions.
We have a long standing presence in SL (Teleport Link to Eyebeam island.) We have an artist recreating Warhol's "factory" in SL to see if he can garner the same kind of community that Warhol drew in NYC. We also have a virtual sweatshop that produces real world jeans to explore issues of labor, exploitation and value.
Some questions that I have:
- Is this a useful venue for disseminating our public events to audiences not located in NYC?
- Could we run educational series through SL to hit a different group of students?
- Could we showcase projects created at Eyebeam?
- Could we use SL to reach our alumni around the world? Developing community around Eyebeam seems key within this environment.
- I imagine that creating programs in SL takes a lot more time that organizing real world programs. And it requires maintenance and attention over time. How do people manage this?
International Center for Transitional Justice
Bruni Burres of International Center for Transitional Justice was our final speaker. ICTJ was founded to assist societies emerging from conflict through legal and non-legal assistance.
We feel it is important to involve victims and the larger public in the process of transition. You need to make their stories come alive so people an engage with them. "Pivot Pictures" tells stories with documentaries, radio, theater and possibly with online and interactive media. Stories need to reach audiences to have an impact.
We have a longstanding project in Columbia where we are assisting the truth commission there. We are producing a documentary the deals with issues of impunity and the rule of law and is aligned with a campaign focused on youth. (Video about ICTJ's Columbia Project.) How do we engender engaged audiences to connect with this powerful media?
