Across Native lands, radio is unique in its ability to reach and connect people on a daily basis.

Native-owned public radio stations operate in a context that stresses culture, connection and relationship.  They are a contemporary platform for the traditional transmission of news and story, especially in a changing and complex cultural landscape. However, the constituency for Native stations is distinctly different from their non Native counterparts.

Native Public Media is partnering with Public Radio Capital on a project to help Native stations deliver radio programming that has greater impact in their communities and that improves the lives of listeners by engaging them in the issues and culture of their tribal homelands and in the larger world that public radio brings to them.

The Native community context is enriched by relationships as the primary method of community building and community coherence using culture and traditions as a yardstick to measure value. Identity is a primary indicator of individual and community mental health.  Without cultural identity, Native communities lose their distinctiveness.  Story is the primary modality by which news, culture and identity is transmitted and preserved in a changing context. Within that medium, aural transmission is the most profound and important modality of teaching and learning about the world.

The New Horizons project examines how Native stations are already using their capacity to influence the well being of their communities, and determines and creates benchmarks to measure, implement and sustain best practices for maximum community service across the spectrum of Native stations.  New metrics for public service are being defined to align future station strategies.  The information will allow Native Public Media to generate business plans to develop replicable strategies for Native station public service and help stations reach new goals and have greater impact.

Contributing to Healthy Native Communities

The key question for the New Horizons project is "What can be done to ensure that new and existing Native public radio stations are delivering the news, information and cultural programming that will foster a healthier community?"  The urgency is driven by several factors:

• Lack of Qualitative and Quantitative Measures of Success and Impact

Compared to other public radio stations nationwide, Native stations do not have either qualitative or quantitative measures of success and impact, including basic audience data and common data that defines performance and value beyond the limits of financial metrics.

• Governance of Native Stations is Varied and Complex

Tribal governments, school boards, private foundations, and community boards govern stations in situations where leadership changes, budget challenges and local politics are commonplace.  Stations managers need baseline data to create support for their enterprise.  With strategic support, station managers can learn to channel governing board and community opinions that lead to well defined and executed programming, operations and revenue producing strategies.  Native public radio and Native communities can enrich and increase their community engagement and impact, at a time when the gaps in indicators of community health such as education, employment, and public health continue to place Native communities in the least advantaged positions.

• Increasing Radio Programming that Fits Their Communities

Native cultures are often lost within the sea of mainstream cultural production.  Native communities, and by extension, Native media, are islands that gather and represent the Native view in the face of a massive tide of influence from popular and mainstream culture. Native media is faced with the challenge of meeting many diverse needs within their communities.

• New Stations Coming On Line

More than 30 new Native stations are expected to come on air in the next three years. This is because construction permits, the key precursor to new FCC broadcast licenses, have been granted as a result of the non commercial filing window in 2007.

The project will rely on the talents of organization development consultant Chris Corrigan, who has both media and Native Nations experience, combined with the public radio expertise of Public Radio Capital's senior consultant Dennis Hamilton.

The impact of the New Horizons project will be sustained principally by the Native stations themselves.  The identification and adoption of agreed upon measures of public service success and best practices for achieving them will be a catalyst for audience and revenue growth as public service improves and as Native stations have evidence of their impact on their communities.

The New Horizons project is funded by a grant from the Annenberg Foundation to Public Radio Capitol in partnership with Native Public Media.