Open Media Foundation

Impact Statement

Goals and Objectives
Reaching Disconnected Communities: Access Stations are in the business of providing communities with access to technical equipment and skills to use them. Deproduction was created to teach members of the Denver community how to use video media as a means to achieve social change, to improve their own lives and communities. To achieve this goal, we offer:
• Media Education: We offer a series of workshops tailored towards youth and low-income demographic groups whose access to media creation is limited. Accomplished: to date, we have offered over 100 classes over a six (6) year time span, serving over 500 people in Denver. We also provide organizational trainings aimed at teaching nonprofit organizations how to make and use their own broadcast-quality media.
• Equipment Access: We provide all of the necessary tools and training to individuals and community focused organizations that wish to create video media. Accomplished: to date, we have over 40 pieces of video production equipment that we have loaned out almost 2000 times to over 100 members.
• Low-cost production services: Our discounted rates allow non-profit organizations to access broadcast-quality video production services. Our professional production values, combined with our access to broad distribution through Public Access and other partners, our clients are able to use media to promote their causes on a level previously unattainable to small, grassroots organizations Most often, these groups lack the financial means to access traditional production services. As a result of building media production skills and having the means to broadcast their productions via our public access stations, these groups are able to harness the power of the media to promote their causes through increased visibility, information dissemination and self-empowerment. Accomplished: to date, we have created hundreds of video productions serving over 50 local non-profit clients.

Needs Statement

Open Media Foundation has needs in the following areas:
1. Board Development
2. Community Outreach
3. Financial Recording and Reporting
4. Fundraising Development
5. Disability Assistance with Technology

Background Statement

Open Media Foundation, formerly Deproduction: The [denverevolution] Production Group, began as an independent arts and progressive events calendar (www.denverevolution.org). The founding members of [denverevolution] came together around the common belief that the influence of mainstream media on our communities was the single biggest hurdle to achieving positive social change. The founding members wanted to find a way to counteract the pressure on individuals to isolate themselves, become apathetic towards their communities, and to allow their primary contact with society to be limited to a profit-motivated media system.

At the end of 2003, Kevin Price joined Tony Shawcross to focus full-time on Deproduction. In the spring of 2004, with an increased focus on our educational programs, Deproduction began a series of workshops and classes and moved its offices to Denver's PS1 Charter School -- officially becoming a 501(C)(3) in 2004.

In September 2005, after years of failed attempts to make Public Access TV in Denver self-sustaining, the Denver City Council shut down Denver’s Public Access Station and issued an RFP for organizations to re-launch Public Access TV in Denver under a new model that could sustain itself without the significant general-operating support usually provided by the city through Cable Franchise and PEG fees they traditionally have passed on to the Public Access Provider.

Deproduction responded with a model that would extend its user-driven, constituent-led business model to a new level, putting the community in the driver's seat. Developing interactive website technologies and voter-driven programming models, Deproduction has taken television media to a new level.

In 2008, Deproduction and Civic Pixel merged to form what became in 2009, Open Media Foundation. Today our mission is served by three key business areas: Professional Services, Education and Tools which encourages all constituents to eventually become self sufficient in using media to create positive social change.

Executive Director Statement

Open Media Foundation represents a unique value for donors for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, since our beginnings in 2003, Open Media Foundation has consistently leveraged a small amount of funds for a significant impact on our community. With extensive in-kind support, consistent earned income, volunteers, interns, and capital equipment funds from Comcast and the City of Denver, every dollar donated to Open Media Foundation for General Operations consistently leverages $5 to $10 in matched support from these other sources.
Second, our work is having a significant impact in independent media, public access TV, and user-generated content. But even individuals who do not consider media reform as a primary area of concern can see that our work is impacting countless other areas of social change. In addition to over 50 nonprofit organizations directly served by our discounted video production services, we have over 25 nonprofit organizations actively using our facility and resources to generate their own media, and their work has impacted countless other organizations and causes across every side of the political spectrum.
As Nicholas Johnson and Robert McChesney have noted "whatever your first issue of concern, media had better be your second, because without change in the media, the chances of progress in your primary area are far less likely."

Board Chair/President Statement

As a young organization with a non-traditional approach to social change, Open Media Foundation and Denver Open Media have struggled in reaching traditional donors. The Giving First program is a perfect match for our organization, both because it leverages new technologies for social change, and also because it centers on grassroots fundraising, leveraging support from a diverse group of individuals with a common vision for using media and technology in new ways to bring about social change.
Open Media Foundation and the Denver Open Media TV station are forging new territory, and without significant funding, have managed to maintain an organic rate of growth and expansion of services, responding to the true needs of their community, as opposed to the agenda of a major donor or foundation. With all the accomplishments the organization has made over the past 5 years, it is exciting to imagine the impact we can have with support from new allies like the Community First Foundation and the individuals reached through the GivingFirst program.