**Voices of Hope Productions |THE EYE| March 2024::MEASURE OUTCOMES OR NOT?::Video Production**

>>>>OUTCOMES: TO MEASURE OR NOT TO MEASURE?
If you work at a nonprofit organization with funding from state or foundation grants, then you are familiar with following and delivering the objectives that have been outlined by the funders. Has your organization been proactive in asking the necessary, but difficult questions:

• Did we accomplish what we set out to do?
• Was there more we could have done?
• What other needs can we help meet?
• How can we improve our services to make a difference in more people’s lives?

Most groups find themselves asking these questions at some. As times change, the needs of the community change and it makes sense to assess those changes. The only way to ensure that we are meeting the specific needs of those we serve is to establish a means of evaluating the effectiveness the organization and measuring the outcome of services provided.

One of the workshops at the NYC Grassroots Media Conference last month set out to ask media-makers these same questions. The workshop, Community Video: Personal or Political? From Limited Access to Transformative Communication seemed to strike a chord in its standing-room only audience. One of the panelists opened up the room to discussion by simply asking should grassroots media measure the outcome of their work? What followed was a heated debate between those that thought a strategic plan should be developed and followed with outcomes measured, and those that felt that measuring outcomes was a tactic that only corporations employed.

When it comes to communications, a company's bottom line is relatively easy to measure and usually comes in the form of dollars and cents—return on investment (ROI) However, measuring the effectiveness of nonprofits’ work depends upon many factors. How many people were educated? Informed? Served? Engaged? Activated? How much money was raised? Did legislative policy change? Corporate policy? Public opinion?

A new study examining the increasing importance of the Internet to nonprofits revealed a surge of online donations along with marketing and advocacy benefits from building an Internet constituency. The ENonprofit Benchmarks Study is the first of its kind to look at the overall effectiveness of nonprofits using the Internet to raise money, build e-mail lists, and influence political causes. Contd.

"The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens" —Alexis de Tocqueville, a French observer of American life in the early 1800’s, noted that, more than any other people, Americans have always volunteered to help their neighbors and their communities. The government encourages and supports this spirit of cooperation.

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Website: HelpYourCommunity.org It’s a fact. Drug prevention makes a difference. By giving youths somewhere to go and something fun to do, they are more likely to avoid drugs. Right now, you have the power to help the cause - and it’s easy. That’s because there are many activities and skills that can help, and a relatively small commitment of time can have a big impact. It’s as simple as thinking about the activities you enjoy and then making a commitment to share your hobbies and interests with kids. Every moment you spend with a youth is a moment that he or she is away from drugs.

Film: Troop 1500 At Hilltop Prison in Gatesville, Texas, a unique Girl Scout troop, Troop 1500, unites daughters with mothers who are serving time for serious crimes, giving them a chance to rebuild their broken bonds. Facing long sentences from the courts, the mothers struggle to mend their fractured relationships with their daughters. TROOP 1500 follows five young Girl Scouts—sisters Caitlin and Mikaela, Jasmine, Jessica and Naomi—whose mothers are serving time. Once inside the prison bars, the girls of Troop 1500 fall into the arms of the mothers they seldom see.

Audio: OneWorld Radio offers services and networking for broadcasters and civil society organizations that use radio for human rights and sustainable development. This portal aims to be a tool for broadcasters - a place on the internet where they can find radio programmes for exchange and all the information from the sector of radio for development they need - news, funding and training opportunities and manuals. OneWorld Radio is a part of OneWorld.net, an international network of over 1200 partner organizations harnessing the internet to promote human rights and sustainable development worldwide.

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The BSA collaboration worked toward long-term cultural change in the workplace that made service to the community an integral part of American business culture. BSA member businesses and organizations made a collective commitment to employee volunteerism and civic engagement as a means of strengthening communities. Members also believed service to their communities help businesses to excel.
Commitment to community service was not a new concept for American businesses. The BSA campaign, however, represented the first time the business community joined forces to support and promote employee volunteerism widely.BSA developed a solid and compelling business case for service, illustrating how both communities
and businesses benefit from employee volunteerism. BSA member companies continued to report new and expanded volunteer activities, investments in their employee volunteer programs and increases in employee morale in the past year. Read Report ______________________________________________________________________

These latest developments underscore the fact that Ahmedinejad has fully embraced Holocaust denial as statecraft, and is utilizing all means at his disposal to spread this ‘big lie,’” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rabbi Cooper added, “We need to look no further than the recent Arabic language cartoon carried by IRNA, Iran’s official news service, depicting the Danish cartoonist as the Devil wearing a blue and white Star of David armband and saying, ‘I don’t accept the limits of freedom of speech except the Holocaust.’ Read Story
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>>>> BLUE SPRING FOR FASHION
It's blue skies ahead, with runways awash in America's favorite color as fashion designers presented their Spring 2024 collections. According to Pantone, blue dominated the palette, with three shades — Deep Ultramarine, Skyway and Blue Tint — placing in the top 10. Each season, Pantone surveys designers showing at New York Fashion Week, and the information is used to create a fashion color report. “After several seasons of ‘color! color! color!’, it’s time to relax a little," observes Leatrice Eiseman, executive director, Pantone Color Institute®. "Color this season is toned down, more muted –they’re not pastels, not brights, but a nuance in-between. We see this relaxation in the prevalence of Blues, neutrals, and the classicism of Black and White.”
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>>>>CAN CELL PHONES RING IN REVENUE?
(Variety.com) Networks are scrambling to sign deals for mobile phone content, but will there be anything worth watching -- and will consumers be able to find it if there is? In the last few days, CBS and ABC unveiled plans for news segments on mobile phones. Viacom debuted a service that makes available clips from a vast catalog of MTV and Comedy Central shows. Fox started a branded store that puts everything from original programming to clips of Family Guy and theatrical movies on the sliverscreen. Read Article
On another note....
"Consumers will reject music services that charge more than $1.25 per music download to multiple devices, such as mobile phones and MP3 players," said Scott Weiss, CEO, Usable Products Company (UPC). "Our findings are a wakeup call to Verizon and Sprint, who charge far too much for media downloads to multiple devices." A Key Drivers to Media Downloads study by UPC with 12 focus groups and 1,088 survey respondents showed that 56% of the respondents had no interest or would not pay extra for multiple device music downloads. However, 75% of the respondents were interested in or were excited to purchase event tickets from their mobile phones.

>>>>BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAUNCHES NCAA'S FIRST
VIDEO PODCASTS FOR ATHLETICS

"With the rising popularity of iPods, iTunes and audio podcasts, we saw a great opportunity to bring Boston University to the forefront of portable technology," said Boston University Director of Information Systems Planning and Support, Michael Giannopoulos. "The athletic department's diverse fan base of students, faculty, staff and alumni made it the logical launching pad to get this emerging technology off the ground, into people's hands, and onto their iPods. We are thrilled to be the first university to offer athletic content this way."

In using the iTunes Music Store, subscribers will be able to download video clips and transfer it to their iPod. For fans without iPods, all video clips can be viewed on both laptop and desktop computers through Apple's free iTunes software. Get Podcast

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