Summary
This post, my second update post as Democracy onAir Executive Director, focuses on Virginia onAir – our model state elections and governance Hub created and managed by GMU alumni and students and curated by Virginia students throughout the state.
We welcome your feedback, suggestions, and donations to assist us in establishing the Virginia onAir Hub as the first of many go-to elections and governance Hubs.
Thank you in advance for your contributions.
Tim O’Shea – tim.oshea@onair.cc
OnAir Post: November 6, 2019 VA onAir Update
Content Updates
- We’ve started recording even more interviews with Virginia politicians and candidates, including Heather Mitchell, Ibraheem Samirah, Terry Modglin, and Marcia Price.
- We’ve upgraded and expanded our Issue Overviews, including a new Issue Overview on Virginia Abortion Laws.
- We’ve created focused content on competitive races for both House of Delegates and State Senate races
- We’ve begun maintaining weekly Virginia News posts with content relevant to all levels of Virginia politics.
Network Updates
- We’ve been recruiting Curators from around the state, including Northern Virginia, Richmond, and Blacksburg
- In the two weeks prior to the Virginia state elections, the site was visited by nearly 1,500 unique users, over 85 percent of which arrived via organic searching
Partnership Updates
- We’ve launched our official Crowdrise page as our first funding push! Donate today to help fund our operations.
- We’ve partnered with student groups at Mason’s Volgenau College of Engineering and College of Humanities and Social Sciences in order to improve our Hub’s cyber infrastructure and user experience, respectively.
- We held an Honors Colloqium at George Mason University to discuss technology and civic engagement with Honors College freshmen students
- We’ve agreed to act as the primary resource for GMU Student Government’s Mason Lobbies initiative, where students directly lobby their state legislators on issues relevant to the university
