Aspiration was delighted to design and facilitate a focus group for Craigslist Foundation's latest project, code-named What Works, in San Francisco at the end of January. The goal of the project is to assess the degree to which stories and ideas about successful community change can help others achieve success in their own communities. And to the extent that they do, to then investigate how to better get that information distributed where it needs to go. The agenda addressed topics including what motivates people to share their success stories, which organizations are already doing work in related areas, and what audiences and communities might be most in need of this kind of improved information flow.
Participating organizations included Bush Foundation, Causecast, Craigslist.org, IBM, Google.org, The Open Planning Project, Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement, Wikimedia Foundation, WiserEarth, as well as social media sensei Beth Kanter, Fellow at the Packard Foundation.
A more complete writeup of the San Francisco session and a related event in Washington, DC, can be found on the Craigslist Foundation Blog. Anyone interested in learning more about the initiative can contact Arthur Coddington at the Foundation.