When the Ford Foundation gathered its worldwide program staff together, November 16-21 in NYC, PhilanthroMedia was part of the team implementing new media tools to enhance the gathering.
PhilanthroMedia’s Scott Riehs helped Ford Communications staff videotape more than 20 interviews
in which program officers were asked to describe the work of their “most courageous grantees.” The interviews were then edited and immediately made available, via an interactive Google Map platform that Ford developed, on computer kiosks placed throughout the building.
Ford’s Director of Communications, Alfred Ironside, noted, “We want to acclimate our staff to using video more and, I have to say, we found them quite energized by the chance to tell stories about the courage of their grantees. ”
PhilanthroMedia’s Dana Variano and Alan Smith also spent the week capturing footage that resulted in a video highlights summary (an excerpt of which is featured below) shared with participants at a plenary session late in the week. “While we created the highlights video strictly for fun, the final product speaks to the passion, diversity and thoughtfulness of our people.” As such, Alfred noted, “It is definitely something that can also be adapted for our website.”
According to PhilanthroMedia’s President, Susan Herr, “Ford is breaking new ground on several levels. First, they are experimenting with the potential of web video, as well as augmenting it with tools like Google Maps. Second, they are mining the incredibly rich perspectives of program officers whose insights are often limited to write-ups in foundation board books. Third, they recognize the imperative to get content out quickly, while also cognizant of how staff might repurpose it for a variety of uses.”
