On October 24, Portland Media Center held its annual meeting, marking 38 years as a media resource to the greater Portland community.  This meeting was preceded a week earlier by a special event for our donors to launch our Civic IQ initiative.  Both events were held in the front two rooms at 516 Congress Street, the rooms that were formerly PMC’s reception area and conference room, but have been transformed into a new co-working space and storefront TV studio.  This renovation marks PMC’s first visible step in realizing PMC’s Civic IQ initiative.  PMC Board President Tim Wells and Executive Director Tom Handel spoke at both events, first thanking our supporters for the support that has brought PMC this far, and then outlining PMC’s future with Civic IQ.  Tim talked about how the strategic planning started in 2022 set an overall vision for PMC to expand our services, connect with local schools, extend our outreach to all sectors of the community and improve our facilities.  Tom then described the three major goals for PMC’s fiscal year 2025:

• Establish a collaboration with King Middle School;
• Add 6 beginner media production workshops to our curriculum; and
• Produce a pilot Civic IQ TV series as an experiential platform for participants of our new educational programs.

Both events gave us an opportunity to hear from our supporters and stakeholders and get feedback and insights on our plans for the future.  PMC will be relying on increased support from our donors as well as seed grants from foundations to fund the first years of this exciting initiative.  We have already secured a $10,000 grant from the Davis Family Foundations and have grant applications pending with three other foundations with more grant applications yet to come.  Stayed tuned to future articles in Airwaves as we make Civic IQ grow in the months ahead.