Access Sacramento

The Open Media Globe
Submitted by roncooper on Thu, 03/04/2010 - 14:41
Contact Information
Organization Name: 
Access Sacramento
Applicant Name: 
Ron Cooper
Address: 
4623 T Street Sacramento, CA. 95819
Phone: 
(916) 456-8600 #112
E-mail: 
rcooper444@aol.com
Website URL: 
www.AccessSacramento.org
Why is your organization interested in increased broadband usage among your members and community: 
Access Sacramento (inc. 1985) is the public access radio, TV and Internet nonprofit organization for Sacramento County with an annual budget of $650,000. More than 600 volunteers routinely create 4,500 original radio and television programs per year, serving 250,000 cable homes. Our training workshops annually teach production skills to more than 1,000. Completed television & radio are streamed at www.AccessSacramento.org and on www.SacBee.com/Access_Sacramento, our commercial journalism media partner. Our mission statement reflects the challenges of a diverse community and multiple media outlets. It reads: “Access Sacramento gives voice to the thoughts, dreams, opinions and community events not otherwise seen or heard on commercial and public radio, television, and other popular forms of media.” Using this experience and broad based community support, Access Sacramento is working to increase usage of broadband access to the Internet by helping those households with the lowest incomes and greatest ethnic and cultural diversity in South Sacramento County. We propose to offer training, equipment, and a common purpose to these communities by establishing "Neighborhood News Bureaus" in partnership with five, established "brick & mortar" sites. Access Sacramento, in partnership with County government, two Universities, on-line Sacramento Bee plus many culturally diverse and youth focused nonprofit organizations, shall train volunteer “community reporters” to investigate, write and report “hyper-local” content in culturally varied South Sacramento County. Training & reporting will be in multiple languages from “news rooms” physically located in neighborhood & youth centers and also directly posted on-line. Stories, complete with visuals, audio, hypertext, and metadata, will be submitted to open source web site www.AsIsOnline.tv. Revenue to sustain project shall be derived from a multiple revenue stream, community media ecosystem plus sales efforts targeting diverse businesses and grants. We know this approach will make a difference. Citing the March 2, 2010 study, “Broadband Adoption in Low-Income Communities -- Stories from the field create a better understanding of barriers to broadband adoption”, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) was commissioned by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to analyze the factors shaping low rates of adoption of home broadband services in low-income and other marginalized communities. At the broadest level, it finds that: • Broadband access is increasingly a requirement of socio-economic inclusion, not an outcome of it. • Price is only one factor shaping the fragile equilibrium of home broadband adoption, and price pressures go beyond the obvious challenge of high monthly fees. • Libraries and other community organizations fill the gap between low home adoption and high community demand, and provide a number of other critical services, such as training and support.
Demographic Information
Service Area Congressional Districts: 
California Congressional Districts 3, 4 and 5
Does your organization serve a federally recognized tribal entities? If yes, please identify: 
no
Number of hosehold subscribers: 
250000
Estimated population size of your service area: 
1394154
Please provide demogrphic information for the population you serve: 
Statistics for Sacramento County White (not-Hispanic) 51.9% Black 10.5% American Indian 1.3% Asian 13.4% Hispanic 20.2%
Supporting Vulnerable Populations
Please describe the specific affirmative steps that your program will take to engage and serve the groups identified: 
Access Sacramento currently serves an active volunteer base of more than 600 individuals from all major ethnic groups located in Sacramento County. More than 50% of our community television and radio programming, numbering more than 4,000 programs per year, is provided by persons of color. On average, 25% of the programming is in languages-other-than-English and include Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Tongan, Hmong, and Chinese. In our new "Neighborhood News Bureau" project, we have partnered with five "anchor" organizations serving distinct communities in South Sacramento County. Meadowview-Pannell Community Center serves primarily an African-American population. The Asian Resource Center focuses upon Asian populations from Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, China, and Cambodia. The La Familia Counseling Center features outreach and family services to primarily the Hispanic and Latin communities. The Florin-Creek Center is active with youth in the African-Amercian and Hispanic communities. And the Valey-Hi Library serves a ver diverse senior community and is directly across the street from the entrance to Cosumnes River Community College and 10,000 South County students and faculty. The web site we are designing will be bi-lingual (English and Spanish) and will expand to include other languages over the first two years of development.
Please describe the ways your center will be accessible to people with disabilities and technologies will be used: 
All the five "NNB" sites adhere to all requirements for physical access under the American Disabilities Act as does the Access Sacramento site in the Coloma Community Center (a City of Sacramento facility). Each site also includes adaptive technologies to accommodate participants who are challenged by limitations in physical movement, sight, and hearing. The primary focus of our training will be to encourage all interested participants to master devices including cell phones, computers, netbooks, and production tools including cameras, microphones, and recording devices. Much of this equipment is already available to many participants and has been adapted to meet their personal challenges. Those in need of further help will be proved access to the technology appropriate to their needs. As each trained individual is able, each will be directed to add "digital content" of the web site AsIsOnline.tv designed to accommodate content ranging from text entries from Twitter to blogs, video, audio files, and other forms of digital communications. We expect this versatility will be able to serve all participants and be flexible enough to adapt as needed to new, individual challenges, on a case-by-case basis.
Do you offer, or plan to offer, multilingual training and outreach? If so, please describe and identify languages it will be in: 
Classes will be taught in English and Spanish. The web site will be designed to accommodate both languages. This experience will be utilized to widen the number of languages to include others over the first two years of the project. Our commercial media partner, the Sacramento Bee, has both English and Spanish versions of their newspaper and will help in marketing the workshops and services.
Local Drupal Development Commitement
In addition to what the OMF will provide through this grant, we estimate that a successful implementation will require a minimum of 80 hours of local drupal support (through trained staff, contractors, or volunteers).
How many hours of professional drupal development support can you commit to securing between Oct 2010 and Oct 2012: 
80
What is the estimated Cost (or value, if volunteer) of this commitment: 
5000
Current Capitial Equipment Commitment
If your organization already has some or all of the equipment required to implement the Open Media Project, or the capital budget necessary to acquire it, that value will be included as part of your match. If not, grant funds will be used to acquire the equipment you require.
What is the value of current equipment you could dedicate to your local implementation of the Open Media Project? (if equipment is not owned, or available to dedicate to the OMP, enter $0)
Current Webserver: 
15000
Current Digital Broadcast Server(s): 
20000
Current Dedicated RAID Storage: 
0
Other Current Equipment Value: 
200000
If other, please explain: 
Access Sacramento believes expanding our services by providing greater access to the Internet via expanded use of broadband resources is consistent with our mission: "Giving voice to the thoughts, dreams, opinions and community events not otherwise seen or heard on commercial and public radio, television, and other popular forms of media." Therefore, our current video, audio, and Internet resources are critical to the long term goals of this project.
Future Capital Equipment Commitment
If your organization already has some or all of the equipment required to implement the Open Media Project, or the capital budget necessary to acquire it, that value will be included as part of your match. If not, grant funds will be used to acquire the equipment you require. How much Capital Equipment budget could you devote towards the acquisition of the following equipment:
Future Webserver(s): 
5000
Future Dedicated RAID Server: 
10000
Future Digital Broadcast Server(s): 
20000
Other Future Equipment Value: 
30000
Technical and Administrative Support
We estimate that a successful implementation of the OMP will require a minimum of 80 hours of technical and administrative support (through involvement of your ED, bookkeeper, engineer and other staff). Any time contributed will count towards your in-kind match.
How many hours can you commit to securing between Oct 2010 and Oct 2012: 
100
List each staff member, position, number of hours committed, and hourly wage (or equivalent, if salary): 
Ron Cooper, Executive Director 20 hours = $675 Kristian Manoff, Web Site Developer 40 hours = $1,800 Dr. Diego Bonilla, Web Design 40 hours - $2,000
Video Content Commitment
Partners will be supporting Sustainable Broadband Adoption by addressing the primary hurdle identified by non-adopters: a perception that broadband is not relevant to life, especially in low-income and minority communities. What is the value of the staff time and resources you are willing to devote to supporting the production of video content that will address 'broadband relevance' from the perspective of members from disconnected communities"?
Staff Time: 
250
Resources/Equipment: 
25000
Broadband Training Program
If you intend to provide training or education, how many people in total will your program(s) reach: 
1000
How many hours of training do you expect to provide per person on average for your program(s), through completion of training: 
10
How many Full Time Employee (FTEs) will you employ for broadband and digital literacy training purposes: 
2
Describe the qualifications and training of full time employee instructors of broadband and digital literacy training: 
The News Bureau Managing Editor will have a BA degree in communication media and the Assnt. Manager will have a minimum of a community college degree in a communications or computer related field. One or both will be fluent in English and Spanish.
Job Creation
How many indirect jobs will be created from this project: 
2
How many direct jobs will be created from this project: 
25