Champions of Curiosity Awards 2020: Best Listening During a Live Event
The Champions of Curiosity Awards is Hearken’s annual celebration of community listening, community building, and needs-based service approaches that make the world a better place. Throughout this challenging year, Hearken’s partners pulled through and delivered innovative projects that best served their communities, and we wanted to honor the impressive work they did.
How we picked winners: Our team at Hearken evaluated submissions based on the use of a Hearken service or platform, the creativity of the approach, solution, or offering, and the potential for others to replicate or model it. The winners are Hearken partners who’ve exemplified a commitment to engagement as good business through community-building and listening.
Winner: Democrat & Chronicle
What They Did:
This year Democrat & Chronicle mobilized to highlight Black & Brown voices and use their platform to call more attention to the effects of structural racism in their community. Executive Director Mike Kilian shared how he and his teammates, CJ Benjamin, Sheila Rayam and Matthew Leonard, brought the project to life:
- D & C team invited six Black activists and community leaders for a 75-minute Zoom chat guided by Rochester Community Engagement Editor Sheila Rayam to discuss systemic racism in Rochester, highlighted by the Daniel Prude case in 2020.
- They also invited members of anti-racism groups for a discussion with the Democrat & Chronicle team and staff. They chose not to open it up to the larger general public for fear of Zoom bombing.
- Based on the success of the conversation and the insights delivered, in the future, they plan to invite more members of community organizations to increase the pool of people who might comment or ask questions through Hearken during the discussion.
Why We Picked Them:
Democrat & Chronicle has been focused on better serving Black and Brown folks living in Rochester for some years now. They have steadily worked towards rebuilding a relationship from a place of shared trust and loyalty. Hearken was impressed with their commitment to doing this work, and their focus on co-creating content with members of the community they are serving, instead of telling community members what the paper thinks they want to hear.
After the pandemic forced us all into virtual spaces, Democrat & Chronicle pivoted quickly to continue the co-creation process, by hosting a Zoom panel informed by the stories shared by Black and Brown community leaders.
Key Lessons:
- Make room for community voices: Democrat & Chronicle highlighted the voices of experts in their community and allowed space for community members to engage. They modeled a “step-up, step-back” approach, where they stepped into this important conversation and made room for others to take the stage.
- Broaden the base: Engagement increases as more community members are meaningfully included in the conversation.
- Leverage the tools available in multiple ways: Hearken’s Engagement Management System allowed D&C to prompt insights on the topic quickly and at scale. Think about tools you might be using for other projects or initiatives and how you might leverage them to support other purposes. D&C has already begun to use Hearken for new vaccine-related questions, as in this case: Democrat and Chronicle: NY COVID Vaccine Appointment Questions
Read about other 2020 winners:
- Best Participation by a Question-asker, Community Member, or Steward
- Best Collaboration Between Organizations
- Best Use of Creative Visuals or Interactivity
- Most Creative Promotional Strategy
- Best New Hearken Use-case
- Best Use of Community Listening & Response in a Crisis
- Best Overall Service, Offering, Or Outcome
Want to become a Champion of Curiosity? We want that, too! Check out more about what we do and who we work with at wearehearken.com, follow us on Twitter @wearehearken, or sign up for our newsletter, The Hearkening.
