Diana R. Sieger is the president of the Grand Rapids Commmunity Foundation. For more information, visit Diana's President's pages or view her biography.

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President's Point of View: Building our community's assets!

November 26, 2007

A presentation made recently at a monthly gathering of the leaders of local foundations made quite an impression on all of us. It was rather timely for me as I was in the midst of a difficult media issue. What was said that day made tremendous sense if you are trying to promote the positive aspects of a community.

Paul Schutt, co-founder and co-CEO of the Issue Media Group (IMG) based in Detroit, discussed the background behind the firm’s E-magazines (E-zines is the more “with-it” term) that are in operation in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Grand Rapids and other cities. The local E-zine is known as Rapid Growth and Roberta King our VP PR & Marketing was one of its “early adopters”!

The basic premise of these E-zines is to provide an alternative voice that is more positive - NOT HAPPY TALK - but a way to help build the assets of our cities! If you have received a weekly copy of Rapid Growth you know what I’m talking about. Here is how Brian Boyle the other co-founder and co-CEO of IMG notes in a PowerPoint presentation found online:

“An alternative narrative for cities:
-A focus on non-traditional media themes (city assets, growth and investment, neighborhoods and solutions)
- Foster collaboration and connect efforts;
- Raise the profile of and enhance disconnected city based web sites.”

What Paul told us in his very informative presentation is that they are taking an approach that still gets at the news in a city, however it is without the edge that only tries to find the “real dirt”.

If you are interested in finding out more about “building critical optimism” as Paul termed it and help our communities build on its assets, this will take you to Rapid Growth.