Create and Maintain a Database of Community Partners
Community outreach coordinator Kathy Kelley updating the Gordon Parks Community Database, modeled after one used at VV.
VV has a particular staff member whose job is to maintain a database about partners, projects, and social campaigns as well as the people who are involved with these efforts. This database is then used as a tool for VV to recruit potential CCs, and also as a networking tool to make connections that support filmmaking. VV’s database is cloud-based and accessible by all staff, just like the one we made at GPHS after learning about the one at VV!
Teachers at GPHS can search the database when considering instructional topics for their classes, as they consider guest speakers and expertise needed. After organizing community collaborations for six years, we had amassed a huge resource of social capital but we didn’t fully realize it until we created the database. The database was an opportunity for us to condense our experience with the intersection of community and curriculum. It also creates institutional memory, and protects the curriculum from staffing changes. We don’t want all the connections to disappear if a person leaves our staff.