Front Porch Forum is featured on Huffington Post today… http://huff.to/bihtKT
Question for FPF… why do you solicit funds from your subscribers? And, I thought you landed a grant recently.
FPF Response… The four employees of Front Porch Forum provide a free service to 20,000 Vermont households… this takes money. We raise most of those funds through ad sales to local Vermont businesses (thank you sponsors!). Much of the balance comes from voluntary member contributions. Please disregard the request if it’s not a fit for you. Some people get hundreds and even thousands of dollars of value out of FPF and they’re glad to contribute a fraction of that back our way to keep things running smoothly… but we don’t get that income unless we ask. Please consider pitching in!
And, yes, we did recently win a highly competitive Knight News Challenge award. Those funds, once received, will be used as one-time capital to rebuild our software to bring new features to our subscribers and allow us to expand to more communities (our existing software is constrained on these fronts). The Knight award is not intended to cover operating expenses incurred by our ongoing service.
Thanks to those who have asked. I hope FPF proves valuable to all our subscribers. This requires the help of many. Here’s how you can pitch in…
FPF’s mission is to help neighbors connect and build community. THANKS!!
Knight News Challenge award winner Front Porch Forum explained here… http://to.pbs.org/bbmK3o
From Scientific American about a recent meta-study…
… The benefit of friends, family and even colleagues turns out to be just as good for long-term survival as giving up a 15-cigarette-a-day smoking habit. And by the study’s numbers, interpersonal social networks are more crucial to physical health than exercising or beating obesity… The researchers analyzed results from 148 studies—which included a total of 308,849 participants—going back to the early 20th century…
Despite the hyperconnected era of Facebook friends and Blackberry messaging, social isolation is on the rise. More people than not report not having a single person they feel that they can confide in—up threefold from 20 years ago, the report authors noted…
… [regarding] digital social interactions, Holt-Lunstad says, “there are types of things you can get from an online friend, but there are other resources that you cannot.” Although online connections “might be better than nothing,” substituting time in front of a screen is likely not as beneficial as a phone call or face-to-face conversation…
I’d like to see a study along these lines of the health benefits of knowing and communicating with the neighbors.
Thanks to Jennifer Reading…
The first business featured in Cringely’s (NOT in Silicon Valley) Startup Tour… Vermont’s own Front Porch Forum! Robert X. Cringely rolled his family-packed RV through Burlington this month as he kicked off his tour. FPF was selected as one of the 24 featured start-ups out of 400 applicants (thanks to John Seiffer for nominating us!).
Bob is putting together a TV series and a documentary out of this tour… to rival his work on PBS. We’re thrilled!
He wrote today about the visit on his blog.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more