New features include video stories of grantmaking impact

Site introduces unique ‘Pittsburgh on Video’ community site

PITTSBURGH, Pa., June 7, 2010 – The Pittsburgh Foundation today announced the launch of its new website designed to better tell stories of the individuals, families and organization’s who contribute to the region’s philanthropy and focusing on major issues that impact the community.

Features of the site include video stories about the Foundation’s grantmaking and its special initiatives together with stories about local nonprofits and its donors and partners. The site also introduces a unique new video portal, Pittsburgh on Video, which serves as an independent resource to showcase on-line news and stories about the Pittsburgh region.
The new website retains the Foundation’s previous website address at: www.pittsburghfoundation.org and provides comprehensive information about the organization and its activities. The site also offers direct links to the Foundation’s Blog, PittsburghGives and affiliate organizations including The Pittsburgh Promise.

Expanded resources for new and prospective donors, financial advisors and grantseekers are available on the site. Overall navigation is enhanced and a new media area and library have been added.  The Foundation manages more than 200 scholarship funds and the site also introduces improved search capabilities and application procedures for students to easily locate scholarship opportunities to assist them in continuing their education. 

The Foundation began developing video stories among its grantees last year by providing easy-to-use FlipCam video recorders to a pilot group of nonprofit organizations, enabling them to tell their stories utilizing the emerging on-line medium. The videos that the group created are featured on the new site and the Foundation plans to expand the program to additional grantees throughout this year.

“Our redesigned website is fresh and innovative while using the latest technology to develop video as a cutting-edge story-telling vehicle for our grantees, donors and our broad community,” said John Ellis, the Foundation’s Vice President of Communications. “The site is designed to support the Foundation’s mission to offer ‘go-to’ resources for philanthropy in the region.”

About Pittsburgh on Video (POV)

With the growth of on-line commercial video sites such as YouTube and Hulu, the Foundation recognized that local journalism could reach more people by embracing online video. However, infrastructure did not exist to connect local video producers to a local audience. The large video sites were unable to meet the needs of a local community, so the Foundation partnered with Miro to build Pittsburgh on Video.

Miro is a free and open-source desktop video player designed to encourage decentralization of video hosting. The Miro project is part of the Participatory Culture Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Worchester, MA.  The project is funded by the The Knight Foundation, a national organization devoted to the improvement and sustainability of local journalism.

“Online video has changed the media landscape, offering new possibilities in education, entertainment and culture awareness,” said Nicholas Reville, founder of Miro. “A managed video site provides a unique opportunity for a local community to deepen its engagement with citizen storytelling without relinquishing quality control.”
Pittsburgh on Video, www.pittsburghonvideo.org, is a member of the Miro Community, and is an open-source, community-based video hub that connects local creators of video to the local viewers. With this new hub and the relationships that it forms, a vibrant local community of video can flourish.

The site is moderated for content by The Pittsburgh Foundation and videos can be submitted by any member of the community for inclusion on the site via popular video hosting sites such as YouTube, Vimeo or BlipTV as well as by direct upload on the Pittsburgh on Video site.  Submission instructions are available on the site.
Pittsburgh on Video features many advantages over large commercial sites including:

• The removal of advertising from videos and the restoration of video quality by removing compression standards employed by commercial sites to return video to native format
• Easy to search and find videos of interest with titles, images and tags as well as most popular and featured videos areas
• The ability to download the free Miro player software allowing favorite videos delivered via RSS feed directly to viewer’s desktop

The Pittsburgh Foundation is one of the oldest and 15th largest of more than 700 community foundations in the United States.

For further information contact:
Christopher Whitlatch
Manager o f Marketing and  Communications
412-394-2620
whitlatchc@pghfdn.org