Facebook Community Journalism Grant Program

Bob Borchard, Editor/Publisher
Yosemite Gold Country

Yosemite Gold Country Grant Application

November 6, 2019 is the submittal deadline for the last round of funding for the Facebook Journalism Project Community Network – Grant Application. Being the wordy guy that I am, I just could not get my message down to 100-words, but I think this information in is important.

I have learned a great deal since we first ventured into the community promotion game for Mariposa. As I read through the “ancient” posts on this Blog page, I’m reminded how our $500k annual promotion budget has let our business community down over the years. On the up side, if they had been doing what we needed them to do, with the millions of dollars of our County funds, I would never have felt the need to venture into this business.

Now, I am applying for a grant to help build the “Network” into a self-sufficient enterprise. This message is intended to the read by the good folks at Facebook but I think it is part of the on-going record that I’ve created with this Blog that may be of some interest to others who might want to follow into the world of 21^st Century communication/promotion and advertising.

2MC Productions is the video production element of our network. The broadcast element is primarily on Facebook and YouTube but we use other social media platforms as well. In recent years I’ve come to refer to the “Yosemite Gold Country”_TM Network as the combination of production and broadcast elements of our message machine.

Some background. My wife opened a restaurant in downtown Mariposa, and I took on the task of promoting it. In a visitor driven economy, I need to promote the community and launched the Old Town Mariposa promotion campaign. We explored multimedia and Central Valley TV and discovered Internet and social media marketing with video. We evolved! April 26, 2014 KAIL show interview/introduction Old Town Mariposa with Chuck Leonard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX9HCoIE9uI, 220 videos in this series

The learning curve was steep and in the early days it was a collaborative effort with Saturday morning Donuts and Coffee at my wife restaurant. Multimedia Blog, in the beginning http://oldtownmariposa.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2014-06-15T16:17:00-07:00&max-results=7&start=10&by-date=false 2014. Our concepts were refined, we developed a style for our productions, and we decided to create a multimedia studio here, in Old Town Mariposa.

My background, as a City Planner, gave me some insight into the importance of communication. Who am I. Robert Borchard Blog https://www.blogger.com/profile/14337163472160946704 . In my career as a Planner, I developed some skill at documentation and I invested a considerable amount of time documenting the lessons learned, and insight, into creating a communications network for a community.

A few years ago, my wife sold her restaurant, but I continued to produce community video and promote our town and region. The concept of “Yosemite Gold Country” was born and we included the Yosemite “Gateway” communities in our productions. We developed a Travel Blog, for mobile phones, and last year begin publication of weekly “Update” focusing on events, adventures and activities going on in the greater Yosemite Gold Country region.

My vision for this message service came into sharp focus during a government shutdown when Park Service Staff were NOT available to pick up after the millions of visitors to Yosemite. The TRASH in OUR Park got National media attention and my attitudes of “stewardship” became a crusade.

For the past three years this operation has been funded with my Social Security check! As my resources are limited, investing in critical elements, such as promotion, has been a limiting factor. If this crusade is to succeed, it needs to become more than a passion funded with my Social Security check! It needs to become a self-sustaining enterprise. Professional journalists have been advising me on a workable business model and with the support of the Facebook Grant, we can promote education and build awareness of the human connection with the larger natural world. Thank you for your time and consideration,

Robert Borchard.