Introduction

Community-Heritage projects offer the opportunity to engender community empowerment and develop social capital through working together in portraying “history from the bottom up”. One of the biggest issues that community based organizations face is having a minimal amount of social, economic, and technical resources.

This How-to guide with help in providing methods and suggesting digital tools in developing local history projects.

Digital technologies offer the opportunity for the documentation and dissemination of local knowledge and history outside of established chains of cultural transmission. Access to the internet with the multiple ways in which people can people can engage with the past.

Through usage of web 2.0 and social media a community has more potential to freely exchange ideas, expertise and connect with possible collaborators which democratizes the process of creating historical content which reflects society and a larger audience without the need for much capital.

It is important to develop an online resource of local, user-generated content offers a lot in terms of social cohesion and an enhanced localized sense of collective identity.

Memory and Communities

Every community requires memory and knowledge of its past. Projects that help commemorate local history helps people understand themselves and their surroundings.

Using digital technology can enhance community/local memory -- helping people share their own individual memories in new ways -- and in the process building better, stronger, more inclusive societies. This goal requires much work. But if everyone participates in building digital community memory than the work-load for any one person becomes small.

To help clarify what we mean by commemorating memory," consider these types of community projects:

1) Landmark preservation[1]

2) Exhibitions

3) Documentaries[2]

4) Oral History [3]

5) Monuments

6) Creation of a Digital History Website

Engagement with the community time line

When starting a Community based local history project it is best to plan community engagement, outreach and collaboration from the beginning for the project sustainability.

There are a range of activities that one can do to reach out to the local community, engage the people most critical to the project and motivate people to participate in the heritage that you are trying to preserve.

In creating your own engagement strategy for your project, this can serve as a visual aid to show you where certain activities fit in the planning process.

This guide will use the timeline below in in developing a community based history Project:

Project scoping

1. Develop Project Idea, Mission statement and scope

2. Develop Managing structure, levels of involvement

Research

3. Identify Stakeholders

4. Identify Resources

5. Set Community Engagement Goals

Implement

6. Outreach

Project Scoping

  1. Develop project Idea, mission statement and scope

Develop a mission statement for your project idea as it can help enthuse volunteers and engage the community by inspiring other groups with similar projects. The statement should convey the aims of the long term plan and be as concise as possible. Mission statements are essential in understanding the possibilities that your project could evolve into. A mission statement will also provide necessary constraints so that your project can stay focused. Your project could be focused on a time period, geographical region or subject matter.

Understanding the scope of the local history you would like commemorated as your mission statement could exclude members of the community especially if the local history you would like to convey does not help heal the community.

“Liberation is not the private province of any one particular group” ~ Audre Lorde

Mission Statement Example:

Introduce people to history of the Olde Town of Flushing Burial ground. Collect stories, Pictures and documents in relation that show the fight to change the name from Martin’s field. Gather archival and online material for an online exhibit.

2. Develop Managing structure, levels of involvement

Group projects will need a structure which can be expressed in a constitution. The constitution should be malleable to the needs of the group/project. As the group develops the constitution should develop alongside the changing circumstances.

Consensus decision making is an excellent way to create accountability within a group project. Despite lengthening the process on making a decision it allows everyone involved to have a say in the process.

This Flow Chart from Seeds for Change is a good example to use

In creating your group for your project try to identify those within your community that may be especially interested in local history. After finding these individuals you will want to work with them as leaders. These individuals could include church historians, longtime residents, community elders, active/retired teachers, active/retired librarians, local historians and genealogists.

In any group project it is important to know what skills people have in order to know what advantages your group has and to identify where some type of instruction/training may be needed to realize the aims of the project. Someone with/access to technical computer/internet skills as the internet is both a resource and platform that can greatly enhance group/projects in local history.

Determining what time people can realistically commit to a project in order to properly figure the pace of your timeline

Research

  1. Identify Stakeholders

Stake Holders are people, groups, organizations, or institutions that could be connected to your local history project. They may support your project, or be in some way adversely affected by the by your project, have the power to change the situation, or even be responsible for the problem you have identified.

It is important to list all of your stakeholders. You need to know everyone who has the power to influence your project and help make a change.

While looking for community stalk holders, engage diverse audiences that exist in the region. This includes age race/ethnicity, religion, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity language and educational attainment.

In relation to your local history project you should attempt to determine the demographic that you are working and attempt to look at the age, race, ethnicity, homeownership, language spoken, income and educational attainment.

Types of stakeholders

Research outside your project

  1. Informal interviews- Ask people within the community question that will help you determine stakeholders.
  2. Local papers/Magazines/Community Newsletters/Local Blogs. Scan These Resources. They’ll provide you a perspective on the issue and who’s who. It will also give you a listing of possible related past and upcoming events.
  • Allies - people and organizations who will support what you do.
  • Neutral - people whose position or attitude is unclear or who haven’t become involved/interested in the issue your project addresses.
  • Adversaries – people who oppose the change you want to see

After identifying stakeholders you should:

  • Understand each stakeholder's relationship to the project and your proposed solution
  • Define the relationships between different stakeholders
  • Determine the ability and willingness of stakeholders to help or hurt your project
  • Identify which of these stakeholders your project should concentrate on to create the desired change

4. Identify Resources

All Communities have resources. People being the most important resource as they can help replace other resources that you lack and will be the strongest force in sustaining your project through their continued interest.

You should map the resources that you control and think you need

Here are five types of resources to think about:

  • Social resources - people willing to volunteer their time
  • Human resources – persons with skills or can acquire necessary skills for a project
  • Financial resources- $$$ the know how or connections to gain project funding
  • Technical resources - software hardware and other technical equipment
  • It should be noted that having research skills are highly important as they can provide the know how to complete tasks that weren’t known before starting a project.

Technical Resources/ Sources

Particular technical tools need to be acquired for local history projects. The tools that will be listed are free to download or use at your local library.

1) Omeka - omeka.org - an open-source online content management system designed to allow people to "create complex narratives and share rich collections, designed for scholars, museums, libraries, archives, enthusiasts."

2) OpenOffice - - a full office suite, supports creation of spreadsheets, word processing, slide presentation and databases.

3) Google Docs- docs.google.com- provides the same services as OpenOffice and also includes Cloud computing which is helpful for collaborative efforts

4) Owncloud- Owncloud.com offers a more secure service than google docs

5) WinFF - winff.org - a free video conversion tool to switch between different video formats (such as avi, mpg, flv, etc.).

6) HTTrack - - Website crawler. Used to back up digital content already online.

7) Wordpress- Wordpress.com- a system for creating websites and blogs

8) Soundcloud- Soundcloud.com- An internet service that allow you to listen to and share audiofiles.

9) Audacity- is an Audio editor

10) Flickr- Flickr.com – A popular photo sharing site and one of the largest online image repositories

11) Xmind- is a software for project workflow

12) Zxing- is an open source barcode image tool

13) Ushahidi – is a highly Flexible platform for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping

14) Historypin- Historypin.org - is a way for people to come together to share and celebrate local history. It consists of a shared archive, a mutually supportive community and a collaborative approach to engagement with local history.

15) Facebook – Facebook.com – Social media website that can help connect your local history project virtually with people within your neighborhood and globally.

16) IFTTT- IFTTT.com- an easy to use online service which automatically undertakes an actions in response to a trigger and can automatically post to multiple social media sites while saving information and documents to cloud drives.

17) Amara- amara.org is a free online subtitling service

18) Book type- booktype.pro- is an open source platform for writing and publishing print and digital books

  1. Plan and design Community Engagement

Community engagement works when it is an ongoing process that grows and enabled relationships through the history/project. Engagements should be planned and designed with this thinking in mind and aim to contribute to the overall aims of the engagement process. With the stakeholders identified consider the method that you will use to reach out with different stakeholders:

  • Directly – phone or email
  • Meet in person
  • Do a presentation at an event
  • Online presence- Way to reach people and have information accessible to a wider audience
  • Community meetings- attend community board meetings at and around the area you are working in
  • Document -cause through oral histories, photos or interviews provide contemporary views on your local history/project .
  1. Outreach

What are you going to ask from your stakeholders? Do you want them to be informed or is that a call to action on a community centered issue? Can your stake holders actively participate in the project you chose?

Group to reach out to and how:

Faith –Based Organizations- Attend the services of faith based organizations. Also attempt a top- down approach and contacts to religious institution to get in touch with the sub-groups. These institutions may have very active congregations and could hold both historical information relating to your project through the activity in the community over the years.

Colleges/Academic Institutions

This is a great place to make contacts and meet people that are interested in supporting the community especially considering that if the academic institution is near the community they will have the definite longevity and responsibility in the creation of knowledge. Academic institutions are a network of civically engaged people that can be tapped into. Students are willing to take volunteer opportunities with projects that the can add to their resumes.

Related Departments – contact the head of the Department of Professors possibly related to the field of study your project relates to Ex: literature, marketing, History, Public history, Archeology, Urban Planning, Graphic Design (websites), Urban History

Research institutions- these are numerous student groups that are active on college campuses. Find ones that are active and relate to your cause or project

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