Learning to Share at Netroots Nation

My grandfather worked for Harrah's Lake Tahoe, so I spent a lot of time in casinos growing up -- childcare while the elders were attending floor shows; lunch with my grandmother while she played Keno; or just trotting through the smoky, slot-machine-filled lobby to pop in and visit my grandfather at work. However, once I turned 18 and started college, I never stepped foot back into a casino. Maybe because casinos are not very child-friendly, I guess I associated them with boredom. And one lesson that I learned from my grandfather was that the house almost always comes out ahead, so gambling struck me as a waste of money and time.

Why am I sharing that story? How does it relate to social change and community organizing? Well, more than you might think. . .

This past July I had the privilege of attending the Netroots Nation conference. This year's conference was held in a Las Vegas mega-casino called the Rio. So for the first time in more than 30 years, I was back in a Nevada house of gambling -- with déjà vu experiences flashing right and left.

Netroots Nation is an annual conference, that, in its own words, "amplifies progressive voices by providing an online and in-person campus for exchanging ideas and learning how to be more effective in using technology to influence the public debate." The conference is a powerhouse: this year's conference featured a personal video address by President Obama and in-person appearances -- with questions and answers sessions -- by Congressperson Nancy Pelosi, Senator Harry Reid, Elizabeth Warren, Senator Al Franken, Van Jones, and many superstars from progressive sectors. You can see a video archive of many of this year's panels here.

One thing that became clear to me through the conference was the power of sharing the stories of our lives, especially through the online mediums of Facebook and Twitter. Netroots guru Deanna Zandt puts it succinctly in her book, Share This:

"Storytelling has been the most powerful building block for social change since the beginning of time -- think how long humans have been sitting around the campfire telling each other what's going on."

That's why I shared a bit about my personal story. According to Zandt, "Stories create empathy, and empathy is a building block of any kind of social change movement regardless of whether someone's politics are left or right."

At North Star Fund, we use social media to tell the story of our work as a donor organizer, as well as a funder of grassroots community organizing. In recent years, we've been focusing our donor organizing efforts on professionals of color as well as younger, 'emerging' donors with inherited wealth and/or 'significant earned income.' And that's exactly the constituency that uses social media - a lot. Take Twitter for example. A recent report by the Pew Research Center's American Life Project shows that Twitter users are more likely to have an advanced degree and a higher income than the general population. But one finding of the report that has received a lot of commentary is the claim that 24% of Twitter users are Black, double the 12% proportion of Black people in the general population. The Root, an online magazine that comments on current events from a variety of Black perspectives, explores the ramifications of this finding in an article entitled ("Are That Many Black Folks Really on Twitter?") According to the article, "[T]here's a high probability that young, well-educated, high-earning, young African Americans love Twitter, the Internet and social networking sites. That's not really news. It just means they are a lot like young, well-educated, high-earning people from virtually every culture in the world." For an amusing and insightful discussion of how Black culture and politics is broadcast on Twitter, check out this video of a panel I attended at the conference entitled, "Tweeting the Revolution: How Hip Hop transformed 140 into 360." (I'm the guy near the front of the audience with the big, shiny bald spot.)

At North Star Fund, we've activated our Twitter feed to capture the story of progressive social change in New York City in real-time. Through our connections to our diverse board and community funding committee, our donors and the grassroots groups that we fund, we catch wind of compelling actions, events, and articles. Rather than languishing in our inbox, we're sharing them. As we put together events, like our Community Gala, we're sharing real-time updates on our honorees, our illustrious host and honorary committees, and other details as they break. We're even posting news of what's happening in our office and the many interesting groups and workshops that come through it.

We started a a Facebook page in 2008. Now we've ramped it up, and invite more interactivity among all of our donor and activist friends. So if you have something to share that relates to progressive social change and grassroots organizing, we invite you to join the conversation.

At North Star Fund, we don't believe that online organizing will ever replace face-to-face community organizing in marginalized neighborhoods and constituencies. But it is a tool, and a powerful one, that we have to use strategically, with our eyes -- and our minds -- open and aware.

So, subscribe to our Twitter feed. Become our friend on Facebook. We're online and looking forward to hearing from you.

What would you like to know about us? And what's your story using social media?

Oh, and nope, I didn't drop a nickle into any of the slots at the hotel.  But it did bring back fond memories of hanging with Grandma and watching the Keno board.