A $50,000 one-time grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation will give a boost to a new website that will allow leaders in Akron to connect with community organizations or efforts.
The foundation has awarded the grant to Leadership Akron to develop the website. The platform, called LeaderSource, will customize information about events and opportunities for involvement based on each user’s unique combination of professional skills and community interests.
The platform allows leaders to create a profile with not only professional interests, but also civic interests, said Jennifer Thomas, Akron program director for the Knight Foundation.
It will allow for identification of leaders according to specific interests, give opportunities for nonprofit and community groups to post events and opportunities to target specific leaders and engage them with events or opportunities in their interest area.
Leadership Akron already has an initial version of the online platform up and running for its alumni, said Mark Scheffler, executive director. The initial version was thanks to resources from the United Way, PNC Foundation and Leadership Akron Alumni Association. The Knight Foundation grant gives the boost to upgrade the platform for release later this month, Scheffler said. The total investment in cash and related donations in the platform will be $75,000 to $100,000.
Scheffler said Leadership Akron looked at other social media, but didn’t find anything that did everything the group wanted.
“You might be an accountant with a passion for the arts, but one wouldn’t necessarily find that on your Linkedin profile,” Scheffler said. “This will map content for opportunities for involvement, community events, volunteerism and also career opportunities to the unique combination of each user’s community interests and professional background.”
The platform, which has been built in conjunction with Akron-based TRIAD Communications, will personalize the view of events and interests based on each person’s profile, Scheffler said.
Thomas said the technology will be piloted with active Leadership Akron alumni, but the hope is to bring it to a broader audience.
“Hopefully, once we get this great ecosystem, everything will work together,” she said.
Thomas said LeaderSource is another entry point to connect leaders and emerging leaders with community groups. Similarly, Knight grants to organizations such as the Torchbearers and Business Volunteers Unlimited: The Center for Nonprofit Excellence (BVU), both of which target younger audiences, offer many different access points for community engagement, she said.
“If we get a lot of products and angles and entrance points for people to engage, they’re more likely to do it,” she said.
The platform gives leaders a chance to connect with each other more completely, said Scheffler, who added that just the other day, he was speaking to a Leadership Akron alum who used LeaderSource to find out whether he knew anyone who was on the board of a local organization and found another alum.
“This is something like a printed directory. It’s what Google Maps is to a Rand McNally atlas. It helps people navigate the community more effectively in a digital environment,” he said.
LeaderSource will initially be limited to the more than 900 Leadership Akron alumni. It’s an active group, Scheffler said, with about 75 percent of graduates paying yearly dues and 80 percent attending at least one event in the last year.
Scheffler said more groups, such as Torchbearers, will be invited to use the platform. Leadership Akron has an advisory group for the platform that will navigate decisions about how to further engage other people and broaden the audience.
When asked whether there would be any concerns about privacy, Scheffler said there will be privacy settings for users to decide what to share.
The organization has demonstrated LeaderSource to other leadership counterparts and might explore whether it could be something to share or sell to others, Scheffler said.
The Miami-based Knight Foundation invests in communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers, including the Beacon Journal. The foundation also supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts.
Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com.