By James Cullum
alexandrianews.org
Want to donate to a cause in Alexandria, but don’t know how or which one? By December, ACTionAlexandria will provide the public with ways to facilitate community discussions, share information, donate to nonprofits and forge relationships in the City. For now, the website’s blog and the Twitter feed are operating at a steady clip – but they are merely a preview of coming attractions.
Launched by ACT for Alexandria, Alexandria’s community foundation, ACTion Alexandria is a new online civic engagement initiative with three goals:
- To create a vibrant online platform that inspires offline action, where challenges are posted, solutions are debated, successes and failures are archived, data is both disseminated and captured, stories are shared, and essential civic relationships are repaired.
- To improve the quality of life for our most vulnerable residents in a cost-efficient manner through a platform that provides everyone a voice and the opportunity to identify problems and offer solutions.
- To engage residents and business people in problem-solving to strengthen community ties and increase each individual’s stake in creating positive outcomes for specific community problems.
“This summer, when I moved back to Alexandria from Nevada, I had all of this canned food that I wanted to give away, but I didn’t know who to give
Tracy Viselli, ACTion Alexandria's manager (Photo: James Cullum)
it to,” said Tracy Viselli, ACTion Alexandria’s community manager. “It was ironic I experienced that while moving, precisely to work on generating more engagement from the community on issues just like that. People need to know what they can do about important issues like education, homelessness and charitable giving.”
According to the ACTion Alexandria website: “The citizens of Alexandria are a powerful force for collective action and know what needs to be done in their communities. But often, citizens don’t have the right tools, information, expertise, or enough hands to make the change we seek. ACTion Alexandria was launched to help provide citizens with an online platform and tools to make community action and problem solving easier.”
So far, the website has received funding from the City, ACT for Alexandria, the Bruhn-Morris Family Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
“The purpose of the blog is to lay the groundwork for ACTion Alexandria, to inform Alexandrians of opportunities to pitch in and solve problems in their neighborhood now, and to involve them in the process of developing ACTion Alexandria into a successful community resource,” Viselli said. “We’re also opening the door to a whole new generation who are using the Internet as their primary source of information…. Sometimes people need to know how they can help and why their help is needed in an organized way.”
To generate interest, Viselli is asking for feedback in ACTion Alexandria’s logo selection process. Three logos are posted on their website.