E-Democracy has been working in rural communities to promote and support local online discussion. It was a project sponsored by the Blandin Foundation. They developed online forums in four communities:

• Bemidji (129 members)
• Cass Lake/Leech Lake (186 members)
• Cook County (211 members)
• Grand Rapids (109 members)

In the spirit of full disclosure I should add that I’m a long time volunteer for E-Democracy; although I did a lot more 10 years ago I still try to keep up with what they’re doing. It was fun for me to watch their progress in these areas.

The E-Democracy model is to encourage email-based discussion (also available on the web). They start by requiring each community to sign up 100 list members. That often involves a lot of each person, reach a person kind of grass roots work. They provided some in-person training and continued support to list members.

The good news is that the four lists are now up and running. The conversation on each list is different – as you would expect – but the conversation seems to be going. You can check out the topics on the various list, I’ve seen everything discussed including broadband, transportation and rummage sales.

You can learn more about the project, what was learned and what is going to happen now in the final report.