The Davis Community Network is pleased to announce that Rian Graves has joined its staff for a one year assignment as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer.

Graves came on board in late April and has been familiarizing herself with both DCN and the Davis community.  She is from Portland, Oregon by way of Guinea, West Africa where she served a two-year stint as a Peace Corps volunteer.

"We are very, very pleased to welcome Rian to our community and especially pleased to be working with her over this next year," said Kimball Sargeant, DCN board president.  Sargeant added, "She brings an incredible commitment to community service and in just a month has shown great initiative and energy for this project.  We expect this to be a very productive year for us."

Graves is part of the CTC -- community technology centers -- branch of VISTA, which places roughly 30 volunteers per year with organizations like DCN.   The program is very competitive, with volunteers placed in communities demonstrating a combination of initiative, need, vision and an ability to successfully support community-based technology efforts.  The CTC VISTA program focuses on a number of community-based technology objectives -- in particular, projects that provide technology assistance to nonprofits.  Graves will be working with DCN on projects designed to use technology to build the capacity of Davis area nonprofits.  She'll be helping to develop a "toolkit" which will help small nonprofits use the internet and web to better achieve their community-serving missions.

Kari Peterson, a community media consultant working with DCN, said Graves comes along at a significant moment for the organization.  "DCN is one of a number of community technology organizations nationwide who has figured out that the explosion of new web-based tools -- like YouTube and MySpace, blogs and wikis -- will have a profoundly positive impact on the nature of community-based communication.  When Time Magazine named 'YOU' person-of-year for 2006, they were saying that this new-generation web, and its so-called 'participatory' culture of user-generated media, has turned communication on its head.  This means a whole new way for people, and nonprofits, to use the internet and the web to reach out and engage.  We are very eager to figure out what that means for Davis and its nonprofit community."

For the last year, DCN has been working to define its role in this new media culture.  In recognition of a need to re-structure its services in order to be of greatest service to local organizations, DCN applied for a CTC VISTA volunteer.  With Graves on board, DCN is moving full steam ahead into an exciting future.

Graves and Sargeant will travel to Boston later this month to participate in an intensive training program for all CTC VISTA volunteers and attend the national conference on "Grassroots Use of Technology 2007."  The conference will present tools intended to ease the challenges nonprofits face in meeting their missions.  Graves and Sargeant will bring that information back to DCN as DCN prepares its programs services for the coming year.

 If you are a representative or volunteer for a local nonprofit with an interest in exploring how web-based tools can enhance your organization's work, please contact Graves, rian.graves@gmail.com, Sargeant, kimball@dcn.org or Peterson, kapeters@dcn.org.