With TCCF, You Too Can Win The Cable Lottery!!!

Half a million dollar donation, half a million dollars!!! No that is not a typo, in the middle of recession announcements, bailout packages, and the reality that programmatic and staff cuts are here, we at Cable Positive are pleased to highlight the donation of $522, 350 in free airtime (or 10,477 spots) from Comcast to Legacy Community Health Services in Houston, Texas.

A Tony Cox Community Fund grantee Cycle 2 of 2008, Legacy Community Health Services received a $5,000 grant to produce a public education campaign entitled “Get Tested.” The project’s goals were to promote HIV awareness and HIV testing to the residents of Houston, Texas. The free HIV testing event promoted through Legacy’s public service announcement occurred on National HIV Testing Day and was promoted through advertisements in OutSmart magazine, Houston Style magazine, and the Houston Press; through posters and palm cards distributed throughout Houston; and through event information and a link on Legacy’s webpage and on their YouTube page, where the PSA was also available for viewing.

The “Get Tested” campaign shows different groups of people and asks the viewer what they have in common. The PSA featured representations of the target populations at highest risk of HIV/AIDS in Houston: a racially mixed group of men, a group of African American and Hispanic youth playing basketball, an older African American woman walking with groceries, and a young Latino couple. After showing all the different groups, the voiceover states that what the different groups have in common is that they may have HIV and they don’t know it. The PSA was so successful in getting the word out to the community about the National HIV Testing Day event that Legacy scheduled a second testing event for Sept. 20th at their satellite clinic in Houston’s predominately black neighborhood of Fifth Ward and the new information’s date and locale were tagged at the end of the “Get Tested” PSA. Unfortunately, the event had to be cancelled due to Hurricane Ike; which left Houston with massive power outages that lasted weeks.

The amazing community partnership that was developed and fostered between Comcast and Legacy Community Health Services is a prime example of the creative, innovative, and longstanding partnerships that can occur through the Tony Cox Community Fund grant. Think about Legacy and Comcast the next time a grant deadline comes around and you think, what can my agency do with $5,000? The answer would be A LOT!

Translating Media into the Real World

Connections. We all have them. Whether we are connected by family, friends, or mutual interests we are all connected to each other in many different ways. Now let’s add into the mix virtual connections; which are just another way that we associate, communicate, and meet or stay in contact with people. Virtual connections have made it possible to stay in touch with friends across the globe, and educate millions of people using only ONE tool.

This one touch system is what agencies strive for in attempting to connect with their communities. HIV/AIDS prevention education has traditionally been a multi-tiered process starting with engagement, to outreach, through to referral, then to intake, continuing with an assessment, then program enrollment, and then delivery of prevention education. This complicated process has made for programmatic cracks through which individuals fall through before ever achieving the end goal of education.

New media can help us fix some of these cracks by providing education in a faster manner. Through the use of technology, HIV/AIDS prevention education programs can educate using tools that can greatly complement an agency’s already existing programs, services, and outreach efforts. Through our Tony Cox Community Fund grant, some agencies have been able to bypass the old education system and integrate new media into their HIV/AIDS prevention education campaigns.

One such agency that was able to translate media into action is Covenant House AIDS Residential and Resource Program in Charleston, West Virginia. A Tony Cox Community Fund 2007 Cycle 2 grantee, Covenant House produced a public education campaign entitled, “Lies.” The public education campaign was strongly rooted in community relations and strengthened community ties with its subsequent airings. Due to the strength of “Lies,” Covenant House experienced an increase in phone calls for general HIV information, increase in clients coming to the agency, an increase in outreach and volunteerism requests, and experienced a huge turnout at their extremely successful ‘80s Night at the Broadway, a local gay club is now a partnering organization and with which they are producing “theme nights” promoting HIV prevention on a regular basis. Covenant House’s “Lies” public education campaign won a Positively Outstanding Programming (POP) award for Outstanding Community Partnership.

Covenant House used the exposure they received from the “Lies” public education campaign and was able to translate it into true outreach success; thanks to a generous donation from Suddenlink Communications, it was aired a total of 6,578 times on 35 different cable networks. “Lies” was placed on Covenant House’s YouTube page and sent to all their community contacts, while it has been viewed 58 times, it has been emailed between agencies consistently and Covenant House sent many DVD copies of “Lies” to their non-profit partners across that state, increasing the number of people accessing Covenant House’s HIV/AIDS prevention education.

Access “Lies” on our new and improved website, www.cablepositive.org; you know you want to see it!!!

New Media, We Are Convinced… Now How Do We Start?

By Jennifer Medina

Myspace. Facebook. Twitter. YouTube. Just how does an agency fold these websites into their overall HIV prevention/education marketing plan? How does an agency make content that will attract their target population, while also educating and empowering them? These are just some of the questions faced when an agency decides to start to phase in new media into their outreach plan.

The silver lining is that many companies/organizations have already adopted new media as part of their HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns and these examples can help to frame an agency’s understanding of exactly how to do it. Mind you I say frame, not copy!! By understanding what has already been developed and implemented, an agency can work on not reinventing the virtual wheel.

One corporate example of pushing new media to new heights is MTV’s social networking community, ThinkMTV, www.think.mtv.com. Launched in September 2007, MTV is working to educate its’ build-in audience around such issues from voting to HIV/AIDS. Using their vast audience, ThinkMTV is using a multi-platform approach to educate young people around issues that matter to them. The website allows for youth generated content (in the form of vlogs, blogs, videos, and much more) to coexist alongside primary source material, providing a comprehensive understanding of an issue from many different points of view; all on one website!!

An international example of true incorporation of new media into HIV/AIDS prevention education is the “Condom, Condom!” cell phone ringtone (www.condomcondom.org) launched in four phases by the BBC World Service Trust, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This organization’s understanding of how cell phones are used by their target population allowed them to develop a prevention/education campaign that used in the best way possible one of the most portable vehicles of new media, the cell phone.

Now that we have looked at national and international examples of new media prevention/education integration, local examples are next. Make sure to tune in next week, same Bat time, same Bat channel….

How Connected Is Your Agency?

The internet has transformed our lives. It has allowed us to do research in minutes, send information and pictures in seconds, and connect with people across the globe in real time. Access and utilization of the World Wide Web has allowed for ideas and theories to cross physical miles and become part of a virtual network for which there is no sense of spatial or time limitations. First seen as a place for techies and information gathering, the internet has evolved into a “place” where social and behavioral change can occur.

While integration of the internet and new media (think text messaging, blogging, vlogging) into our personal lives has completely occurred, those of us in the AIDS service field have not always used it to its’ full advantage in our professional lives. Yes, I know that there are barriers: our employer does not allow access to the internet while at work, our office computers might have the slowest internet connection on earth, providing direct services does not allow us to integrate the internet into our professional lives, etc, etc.

I know these barriers because I have lived them, but, let me tell you that once you have the professional opportunity to integrate the internet and new media for client recruitment, outreach, feedback, and evaluation, you will never look back. New media is the vehicle through which the world is now communicating and is one of the major avenues through which social change is occurring.

Sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, may not sound like obvious places to conduct HIV/AIDS prevention education, but they are places where hundreds of thousands of people congregate on a daily basis; what better audience to have? These four entities are much more than just websites; they are the vehicles through which the world is now communicating and modes of social change. Take a chance; set up a case management blog, twitter your daily prevention education activities, promote an HIV/AIDS 101 workshop on Facebook, you might be very surprised by the feedback you receive.

Thank You Sarah Palin…

Who would ever think that Sarah Palin could make me think about new media, but she did!! I have to admit that I was riding Kingda Ka at Great Adventure when Sarah Palin appeared on Saturday Night Live and unfortunately, my husband and I do not have DVR. While I was really anticipating what it would be like to see Sarah Palin and Tina Fey on the same stage, I was not worried as I knew that I would find it online after its’ initial airing on Saturday night.

Needless to say, Sunday morning I ran to my computer to look for the SNL clips that I know were already available online. Lo and behold, they were uploaded and ready for viewing and I spent quite some time at the computer (with my mother, father, and sister) laughing at the antics of quite a cast of characters.

What can SNL, Sarah Palin, and Tina Fey possibly have to do with HIV/AIDS education? The answer is everything!! The fact that I missed the initial airing of that Saturday Night Live episode did not mean that I would never see it again or would have to diligently watch the re-run roster for the next year; viewing it was as easy as sitting in front of my computer. This is the true definition of new media, information at your fingertips when you want it, how you want it.

While watching videos on the computer is nothing new, the speed and efficiency with which I can now find any and all types of media content online is new. According to the Associated Press, 10.2 million people watched the season-opening “Saturday Night Live”, an additional 1.2 million people recorded it on their DVRs and the skit was accessed online more than 13 million times. Remember that these are the numbers that NBC can track, while going viral through their company website, NBC has no way to track the number of times that it has been posted or emailed through hundreds of other sites. This is the nature of information in our new media world, once posted online, information has the opportunity to go viral within a few hours.

Now imagine if just a quarter of the people that went online to view the SNL clips went online to obtain HIV/AIDS information? What if they spent time with their family in front of the computer looking at HIV/AIDS related websites, public education campaigns, and various available programming? It is plausible and more than possible for online media to be at the forefront of HIV/AIDS information and to become the newest medium through which individuals and families can sit together and talk about what they are viewing on the screen.

This is the ultimate goal of Cable Positive’s different grant programs, to provide agencies with the funds and insight to translate their promotional and education campaigns onto multi-media platforms. With the correct use of new technology, HIV/AIDS information and education can be readily available through the press of an On-Demand button or the click of a mouse; when HIV/AIDS education goes viral online, it will be something viral that we can all celebrate.

Refocusing….

Let’s face it, times are hard. CNN’s red arrows continue to point to an economy that is responding to the greatest financial crisis of our time. It is hard not to become overwhelmed by the ever surrounding news of foreclosures, falling house prices, and the looming presidential election. It is enough to make to even the most uninterested American sit up and take notice, or at least change the channel from I Love Money to Anderson Cooper 360^o for 15 minutes.

It is a tumultuous time for non-profits across the country. Funding is being reallocated and/or lost, jobs are being cut, and sites are closing down; all while agencies must continue to prove their worth to the community and their funders, while doing more with less or less with less.

While our economy and job market continue to flounder, the CDC recently updated their 2006 new HIV infection rates to reflect an increase of 16,300 people living with HIV/AIDS, reaching a total of 56,300 HIV infections in the US compared to the previously reported 40,000. What does this mean?

It means that now, more than ever, is the time for innovative and flexible HIV prevention education. With less money to go around, a real possibility in a strapped household might be to have to choose between toilet paper and milk; personal protection items such as condoms, lubricants, dental dams, etc are left on the back burner. This is a very important time within our HIV/AIDS prevention community, back are the days when you teach people to make a dental dam by cutting up a plastic glove.

Also gone are the times of 500k, multi-year grants from the city, state, or local governments. Agencies must once again look to small foundation/private grants (who will to supplement funds to provide direct service and to market these services. I bring this up because the deadline for the Tony Cox Community Fund 2008 Cycle 2 was on September 12^th, 2008 and out of all the ASOs in the 50 states, we have a grand total of 25 applications. While I understand that a grant application can be an unwelcome addition to an already overworked and underpaid staff person’s job description; the benefits of up to $7,000 worth of unrestricted funds cannot be denied.

While the initial grant application may seem taxing, the results can be tremendous, including: a partnership with a local cable system (that can only grow), increased agency clientele, agency branding, increased agency recognition within your community (and in the surround areas), increased participation in agency events, increase in potential grant monies from PSA exposure, etc. etc.

Cable Positive’s motto, “we have work to do,” has never echoed stronger or with such urgency, do your research and apply for small grants, the worst that can happen is that you are funded!!!

Grant: $3,000, Outreach: In-Kind, Bronze Telly Award: PRICELESS

When AIDS Service Organizations apply for the Tony Cox Community Fund, they are usually thinking about how they will best utilize the unrestricted media funds. Outreach is planned, storyboards are set, and PSAs are filmed. At best, the resulting marketing campaign not only educates those in the community about HIV prevention and the services of the ASO, but also provides volunteers and donations for an agency event. Programmatic and agency accolades are part of the process of a job well done, but outside agency, or even outside industry, recognitions come few and far between. For this very reason, I want to share with you the very exciting award recently given to Northland Cares and Cable ONE in Prescott, Arizona.

Northland Cares, a 2007 Cycle 2 grantee of Cable Positive’s Tony Cox Community Fund, and their cable partner Cable ONE, were recognized with a Bronze Telly Award for outstanding achievement for their short video entitled “Bud’s Story.” (FYI, the Telly Awards honor outstanding local, regional and cable TV commercials and programs, film production, and web commercials, videos, and films. This year’s competition had over 13,500 entries from all 50 states.)

The video tells the story of a community member, who, since accessing treatment at Northland Cares has undergone a physical and mental transformation to become the center of his family and an activist for those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in the Arizona region. The video was the highlight of a community event in Flagstaff, AZ, and at the organization’s annual World AIDS Day breakfast. In addition to “Bud’s Story,” Northland Cares also made a series of Public Service Announcements that aired on Cable ONE, as well as marketing materials that were made available in distribution channels previously not reachable by the organization such as libraries and area colleges.

After the release of “Bud’s Story” and a Public Service Announcement, both produced by Cable ONE, Northland Cares’ client roster increased by 10% and due directly to the video, the organization augmented their donor pool by an additional 15%. In prior discussions about the benefits of being a TCCF grantee, I have spoken consistently about “value” and what the true total value a PSA can bring to an agency. With its’ increased community awareness, extensive HIV prevention education, increase in client and donor base, and a Bronze Telly award, Northland Care’s and Cable ONE’s multi-pronged approached to HIV education, outreach, and media distribution is truly a shining example of how a small $3,000 grant can snowball into a mighty avalanche.