We appreciate your interest in inviting the Center for Black Digital Research to join in your event. We are particularly grateful for the opportunity to engage with other public, digital, and community projects with overlapping interests. As a collective project, we are intentional in the principles that guide the Center for Black Digital Research and share this guide to provide an understanding of the factors we require when considering any invitations.
If this is an invited keynote or talk, we ask your team to review the Engaging African American Audiences and Local Communities section below.
Table of Contents
Our Project Model
#DigBlk is founded on a set of lived principles that include a commitment to community-building, ethical collaboration, and shared and distributed leadership. We value, protect, and respect the contributions of members of all backgrounds. #DigBlk elevates and lifts the work of members of all “ranks,” racial, sexual, and gender identities.
#DigBlk Principles
Our work is guided by our lived principles. Specific to presenting, we highlight:
Principle 1: We seek to enact and expand on the values of collective organizing modeled by the movements and organizations we study.
Principle 2: We build and prioritize structures that support and honor our members’ contributions to the project through equitable compensation, acknowledgment, attribution, opportunities, and training.
Principle 6: We resist hierarchies that valorize singular leadership; instead we seek to create more equitable forms of leadership that share and spread resources and opportunities across our team and partners.
Read our full set of principles at digblk.psu.edu/about/principles.
Terms of Agreement
Please help us honor our project principles in the following ways:
1. We present collectively. We ask that invitations include at least two members and that your institution cover the cost of their food and board. We can sometimes pay for the second invitee’s transportation.
2. We ask that visiting CBDR members be treated with the respect that would be extended to faculty directors. These members are experts with extensive experience both in their areas of leadership and in the collective and collaborative model which guides our work.
3. We ask that honorarium-granting invitations offer an additional contribution to the Center itself to reflect our collective work. We prefer this in the form of a donation at raise.psu.edu/digblk. If that is not logistically possible, your institution can add it to members’ honorariums, and they will contribute to the Center directly. The Center donation amount depends on the honorarium offered.
4. In written promotional materials, we ask that your team please refer to our group as The Center for Black Digital Research. In social media promotions, please use @DigBlk and #DigBlk when appropriate.
5. We ask that your team share: photo files (in JPG or TIFF) and videos (MP4) by cloud link or direct transfer to the email digblk@psu.edu; and promotional items (flyers, email communications, etc.). We would like to help you promote this event! You can tag us on Twitter @DigBlk or send us a link to the event web page.
6. We ask your team to review the organizing suggestions below if this is an invited keynote or talk.
Event Organizing Suggestions
Event organizers who follow or build on these steps have been delighted at the community response.Outreach: Engaging African American Audiences and Local Communities
Guided by our principles that include a commitment to community building, we ask that your outreach includes some or all of the following audiences.
1. Local HBCU’s and their libraries, Africana studies, History, and English departments.
2. Africana or Black Studies departments in other local universities and colleges, especially community colleges.
3. Black museums or cultural centers in the area.
4. Black-owned bookstores in the area. Please make sure flyers are delivered there at least two weeks before the event.
5. Curators at local history societies and local public libraries.
6. Librarians in your school and in other local schools.
7. Special collections, DH centers and interdisciplinary research centers at your home university.
8. Local researchers or funders of Black history and culture.
9. AME church or churches where local conventions were held.
10. Local historical societies (within an hour’s drive).
11. Scholars in education departments who might be able to create curriculum as a partner.
12. Educators from the state who are interested in Black history.
13. Black centers at your home and at local universities and colleges.
14. Black faculty and staff caucus.
15. Black Student Association and Union, Black Graduate Student Associations, Black Law Student Associations in the area.
Event Coordination
These suggestions are ways to help promote the event and create connections with audiences.
1. Shared Document: Have someone from your team:
- Create a shared document (Google document, Office 365 document, etc.). Use this document during the workshop to capture ideas and group work.
- Clean up the shared event notes after the workshop and share with participant.
2. Contact List: Have someone from your team:
- Create a shared spreadsheet (Google sheet, Office 365 Excel, etc.) for future reference that includes names of participants, institutions, institutional roles, social media info and email addresses that will allow you to export addresses and create an email list.
- Continue to update the list as more registrations are received. This is a crucial step.
- Add the DigBlk@psu.edu email and the individual emails of the CBDR members who are presenting.
3. Social Media: Have a designated person or team who can:
- Set up a hashtag that represents the event/organization/institution such as #DigBlkNOLA, #DigBlkTenn, #DigBlk
- Take photos/screenshots and who is responsible for sharing/posting on social media with your event hashtags and tag us at @DigBlk.
4. Communication: Have someone from the home institution is responsible for:
- Setting up your preferred communication channel (ex. emailing list, Slack channel, or Microsoft Teams group, etc.)
Post-Event
These suggestions are ways to promote the event and deepen connections with audiences.
1. Share with us photos and/or videos along with photographer and videographer credits. We would love to add them to collections and share them on social media.
2. Send participants and registration list a thank you with a link to photos and/or videos. This does not have to be immediately and can coincide with your regular communication schedule.
We would be delighted if you decide to share these suggestions. Please attribute #DigBlk if you do so (@DigBlk).