Vision for an online magazine

Background:

In early 2005, I was nominated to apply for the Clarence and Lilly Pickett Endowment for Quaker Leadership. I decided to dream up the best project I could under the restraints of the very limited Pickett grant sizes. While the endowement was approved, the Pickett trustees decided to award this project a token amount, in fact only a fraction of their average grant size. I was about to turn it down, since I couldn’t start anything on the $500 they were offering. But before I wrote them back, I talked about vision and the troubles and received a terrific show of support—in only a week’s time contributions from dozens of Friends doubled the Pickett Fund grant size!

Still, it’s a whole lot less than the $7800 I calculated I would need to launch this new site. Here then is an edited version of the proposal I presented to the Pickett Fund in Third Month 2005; it has subsequently been approved by the Overseers of my meeting, Atlantic City Area Monthly Meeting.

What involvement have you had in Quaker-related activities/service projects for the betterment of your community/world?

Ten years ago I founded Nonviolence.org, a cutting edge “New Media” website that now reaches over a million visitors a year. I have been involved with a number of Philadelphia peace groups (e.g.,Food Not Bombs, the Philadelphia Independent Media Center, Act for Peace in the Middle East). I have served my monthly meeting as co-clerk and as a representative to yearly meeting bodies. I recently led a well-received “Quakerism 101” course at Medford (NJ) Monthly Meeting and will co-lead a workshop called “Strangers to the Covenant” at this year’s FGC Gathering. I have organized Young Adult Friends at the yearly and national levels, serving formally and informally in various capacities. I am quite involved with Quakers Uniting in Publications, an international association of Quaker publishers, authors and booksellers. Eighteen months ago I started a small Quaker ministry website that has inspired a number of younger Friends interested in exploring ministry and witness. For the past six years I have worked for Friends General Conference; for two of those years I was concurrently also working for Friends Journal.

What is the nature of the internship, creative activity or service project for which you seek funding?

I’ve served with various Young Adult Friends groupings and committees for ten years. In that time I’ve been blessed to meet many of my peers with a clear call to inspired ministry. Most of these Friends have since left the Society, frustrated both by monthly meetings and Quaker bodies that didn’t know what to do with a bold ministry and by a lack of mentoring eldership that could help season and steady these young ministers and deepen their understanding of gospel order.

I would like to put together an independent online publication. This would address the isolation that most serious young Friends feel and would give a focus to our work together. The publication would also have a quarterly print edition.

It’s important to build face-to-face relationships too, to build an advisory board but also a base of contributors and to give extra encouragement to fledgling ministries. I would like to travel to different young adult communities to share stories and inspiration. This would explicit reach out across the different braches of Friends and even to various seeker movements like the so-called “Emergent Church Movement.”

What amount are you requesting and how will it be used in the project? What other financial resources for your project are you considering?

$7800. Web hosting: $900 for 18 months. Software: $300. Print publication: $3000 for 6 quarterly issues at $500 per issue. Travel: $1600 for four trips averaging $400 each. $2000 for mini-sabbatical time setting up site.

The Pickett Fund would be a validation of sorts for this vision. I would also turn to other youth fellowship and yearly meeting travel funds that support the work.

What is the time frame for your project? 18 months, to be reviewed/revisioned then.

When did/will it begin? This summer. When will it end? December 2006.

In what specific ways will the project further your leadership potential in Quaker service?

It’s time that I formalize some of the work I’ve been doing and make it more of a collective effort. It will be good to see formal monthly meeting recognition of this ministry and to have institutional Quaker support. I hope to learn much by being involved with so many wonderful Friends and hope to help pull together more of a sense of mission among a number of younger Friends.

To Help

You can donate to this project here.