Cell phones can be a powerful tool for generating discussion and gathering information in your community. However, the catch has been actually reaching people via their cell phones. So far, affordable tools for text alerts, interactive texting, and other mobile channels have been just a bit too cumbersome or limited for most community engagement projects. Groundsource, a new mobile platform due to launch next spring, could make this easier.

Originally envisioned as a way to help journalists build a network of local sources, Groundsource can be applied more generally to any effort to inform, engage, and learn from community members via their cell phones. The platform provides simple tools to share information and ask questions, using text messaging, automated voice-enabled interactivity, and the mobile web. And it can work with any phone -- not just smartphones, and not even just cell phones.

Journalists, community organizers, and researchers can maintain and manage multiple lists of contacts, and multiple campaigns, in this platform -- as well as track interactions over time, manage persistent relationships, use geotargeting to segment your list, and use metrics to gain insight. Eventually, marketers may also be able to make use of this tool to conduct local focus groups.

Andrew Haeg, founder of Groundsource, previously was one of the cofounders of American Public Media's Public Insight Network -- a journalistic crowdsourcing platform used by nearly 80 APM-affiliated newsrooms. Currently he is the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Mercer University's Center for Collaborative Journalism, where he's preparing Groundsource for a commercial rollout in early 2014.

Haeg notes that Groundsource attempts to compensates for some of the outreach limitations of the Public Insight network. "PIN is based around web-based surveys sent over e-mail, which affects who responds and how," he said. "If you're only asking for stories via web surveys, you'll get people who are motivated to sit down at a computer, reflect, and write a story," he said. "Mobile is more intimate and immediate; it gives you a way to broaden engagement beyond people who are already engaged in journalism."

Currently, anyone can try out the texting survey portion of the platform via their "quick spin" demo featured on the Groundsource home page.

Regarding the fully featured platform, right now Groundsource is conducting a closed beta test. They have a pilot project in New Orleans, Listening Post -- a joint effort by public radio station WWNO and Internews, an international nonprofit that empowers local media worldwide.

So far, results are encouraging, says Haeg. "At public meetings, they'd mention phone number to sign up to answer questions via text -- and they had an excellent response rate. Listening Post signed up about 300-350 people for text surveys in just a few weeks, without a ton of effort. They're now starting a weekly news bulletin by text, and also using text questions to solicit opinions and experiences on crucial local topics like food assistance programs."

What helps engagement via text messaging succeed? Haeg emphasized that the key is consistency over time, to create an expectation of engagement. "People will get used to receiving these texts," he said. "Once that comfort level is established, then you can start asking people more urgent questions in a news context such as, 'Are you prepared for the impending hurricane?'"

Specificity is one of the strengths of this platform. You don't always have to broadcast all alerts or questions to your entire network of sources. Users can ask questions to gather demographic information about individual sources in a network. This can allow you to segment your source network, so you can target questions more specifically based on certain criteria -- such as where a source lives, gender, age, and more. You can also tag sources based on their past responses, and use that context for targeting future questions.

Groundsource users control all the data gathered by this platform. You can export your list of sources and their contact info, as well as all associated data gathered through interactions with them.

Haeg hopes that Groundsource will facilitate community-focused partnerships between news outlets and community organizations or community foundations. "A large media organization might want to extend coverage in area where they don't have a lot of reporters," he said. "They could partner with local community organizations to do outreach to broaden their base of local sources -- people they might otherwise have a tough time reaching."

On the research side, Haeg notes that Groundsource could be useful for local program evaluation. "You can gather longitudinal data via text, following people over time. For instance, for programs aimed at keeping kids in school -- you could send kids a weekly text, ask them how school is going, or whether they missed any days."

A common challenge for building up any contact network based primarily on cell phone numbers is the fact that people often change cell phone numbers -- and this is especially common in lower-income communities. "You have to offer the right incentives for participation so people want to stick with this," said Haeg. "We've been experimenting with awarding sources points for every survey question they respond to. We haven't been quite sure what to do with that yet, but that kind of system could be used to, say, award $25 in cell phone bill credits."

Also, Groundsource might be configured to assign sources a unique ID -- so that if a source re-establishes communication from a new phone number, they could reconnect to their prior participation history. "But the hard part definitely is motivating sources to re-establish communication once it's been lost," Haeg admits.

No matter what, building a list of source cell phone numbers takes work and time. Federal law, as well as laws in many states, prohibit organizations from sending out unsolicited text messages to people. Even if someone has voluntarily supplied their cell phone number to your organization for another reason (such as to apply for a program or service), they still must specifically voluntarily opt in to receive broadcast text alerts or questions. "It's just like building up a social media following, you have to encourage people to interact with you this way and demonstrate your value to them," said Haeg.

Pricing has not yet been determined for Groundsource, although Haeg is determined to keep it affordable for small organizations and individual journalists. While it probably won't be free, there will most likely be tiers of services available at various price points.

Right now Groundsource is selectively seeking a few more community-focused projects for further testing in the closed beta, with a more general commercial rollout planned by spring 2014. Interested organizations and projects can e-mail [email protected].