RenMind: RenMind's “Common Network” Provides a Common Communication Platform for Engaging and Building Trust with Local Community

ID

272

OrgName

RenMind

PhysicalAddress

518 N 40th St Omaha, NE 68131

MailingAddress

Website

RenMind.com, RenMind.in, Common.Network, CaliCommons.com, JCNAOmaha.org

SocialMediaAccounts

facebook.com/renmind, linkedin.com/company/renmind, https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukeaarmstrong/

Name

Luke Armstrong

Title

Partner

EmailAddress

luke@renmind.com

Phone

+1 (402) 618-1981

Team

Yes

TeamExplanation

Luke Armstrong (Partner, Design) + Feysel Rahmeto (Partner, Relationships)

OrganizationalChart

Org chart – to be determined

OtherCompletedProjects

Major projects include: RenMind, Cali Commons, Common.Network, TextyPitch, InPublic.design, NEWbraska CommonSense

ProposalTitle

RenMind's “Common Network” Provides a Common Communication Platform for Engaging and Building Trust with Local Community

TotalBudget

2500000.0

LB1024GrantFundingRequest

1750000.0

ProposalType

Combination of capital project and service/program

BriefProposalSummary

RenMind delivers a "common network" a communication platform for helping community organizations connect compelling content with the right people, in the right way, at the right time to engage their local community. Great communication is really hard and critically important.  That’s why we help community organizations send key messages to create awareness, grow and protect their supporting community.  Common.Network collects and stores information on an organizations community members like how to reach them and what services they prefer.  We make it easy for organizations to tell their story, to get community action. Modern communication is difficult in part because money buys advantage.  The best marketing, sales and fund raising software systems can be extremely expensive.  These systems also make communication more efficient. These systems often require special content marketing help from communication agencies who also charge large service fees. This translates into competitive advantage for the established players. Common.Network creates affordable infrastructure that builds direct connections.  It provide space for an organization to post accessible public messages, manage event communication, send direct messages, and keep track of direct communication history with each connection and org.  Each organization gets its own private space but the platform promotes this activity to a community feed to promote the community as a whole.  This community approach can also surface valuable meta information about the health of community communications.  “Providing digital communication infrastructure is a community service because it can provide a level playing field for building awareness of who our community might support with their time and money.  Without this central platform, providers and users must accommodate many systems and communication fractures from there, often times excluding interested people from being invited or aware of opportunities.” – Luke Armstrong (RenMind) “When we post updates on our own media channel (CaliCommons.net) we know that users can see this message without having to sign up for an account.  Our artists, members and customers don’t have to give Meta or Twitter their information, its just between us.” – Molly Nicklin (Cali Commons)

Timeline

July of 2023 - Soft Launch and User Studies We launch our efforts with a demonstration of the existing Common.Network software and a call for early participation. We start doing research on community communication needs to identify service gaps and primary opportunities, as well as, identify user experience issues on existing platforms. Most of the work product is shared publicly at InPublic.design. We are actively looking for early adopting organizations and adding them into our system. December 2023 - Next Generation build begins with Development Team Our initial research phase has concluded and we have started implemented key solutions into our next generation Common.Network product with our preferred development partners (and internal team). We've received and analyzed feedback on our designs and created definition for expected development outcomes. July 2024 - Next Generation Base Product released for Customer Experience Testing We've refactored Common.Network and our next generation product is ready for release and another round of testing. Our plugin team begins to work on the first set of extensions as defined by the core team, as well as, documentation the process for others. Our business development team is actively soliciting as many organizations, communities and partners as possible. December 2024 - Stable Release with initial Plugin from Extension Team We've launched our initial plugin and we are getting feedback on our early platform decisions. We've patched a few bugs, improved some processes and we are about to release the stable release of our base product with two plugins. July 2025 - Reseller Release with Account Management Controls for Indie Representatives We've released our reseller release for the platform. This lets resellers spin up instances for themselves, clients and collaboratively manage lots of accounts from a single secure login. We commit to a core set of plugins and a maintenance cycle. We release a third plugin for the system. We've earn commitments from community partners to support our continued development of this critical infrastructure through a community accepted approach. With this continued support we will maintain and refine our communication system to serve our core community needs. December 2025 - Get Sustaining Commitments from Orgs and Partners, Keep Improving All the parts and pieces exists and we've demonstrated our product and processes along the way. Our focus now is on growing a sustaining base, listening to their needs and increasing satisfaction on our core product. From here on out the mission is the same. How can we help our community to communicate more effectively?

PercentageCompletedByJuly2025

1.0

FundingGoals

Fundamental Change (i.e., a proposal that will continue to elevate North or South Omaha's presence and perception within the region, significantly improving the lives of area residents through physical development) Long-Lasting Economic Growth (i.e., a proposal that will foster gainful employment opportunities and financial investment in the area, leading to the creation of generational wealth and widespread economic vitality in North and South Omaha) Transformational (i.e., a proposal that will help energize, recharge, or spur significant and favorable advancements in North or South Omaha's function or appearance)

Community Needs

Other Infrastructure (i.e., develop or improve broadband, business districts, roadways, sewer, etc.) Quality of Life (i.e., create or enhance natural spaces, mixed uses, parks, safety, etc.) Sustainable Community (i.e., create or enhance housing, services, education, civic uses, recreation, etc.)

OtherExplanation

ProposalDescriptionAndNeedsAlignment

A compelling common communication platform will provide an advantage to local organizations, businesses and individuals in North and South Omaha who would like to get a larger percentage of the public's attention. Decreasing the amount of time and effort it takes to communicate will ensure it happens regularly, which will deepen relationships and increase the reach of these organizations. This increase in public awareness will result in more attendees, more donations, and more money staying in our local communities to be reinvested by our community. We can enable community communication to evolve in ways that may not be profitable but are beneficial for the public, and our collective experience of our communication experience in our community. As new technology enters the market we need ways to learn, adapt and continue to communicate clearly. Seeing communication as a public good can help address this problem together in open educational environments were we can learn and grow.

VisioningWorkshopFindingsAlignment

With more consistent communication efforts the diversity of culture, talent and character of North and South Omaha will attract new and returning people to support these neighborhoods. We can nurture and support what already exists with tools and technical assistance. We can promote networking related to entrepreneurs and community groups (opportunities) in digital and physical spaces. This will help circulate money throughout the city and help communities establish their own unique identities. By building awareness of the entrepreneurial activities of current residents we can create positive experiences that will address negative external media/perception building positive memories over time. Alternative preferences for media may replace those that profit off of fear generated for advertising purposes. We can help facilitate opportunities to market the areas uniqueness and diversity and positives! We look forward to working with as many partners as possible to remove common communication barriers and ensure that community generated information is our primary way of experiencing the world.

PrioritiesAlignment

This proposal addresses a key issue with many COVID policies, inadequate communication. Nearly every organization struggled to effectively communicate during the recent pandemic, from the CDC to our local organizations and businesses. We have the ability to provide an infrastructure that reduces the technical challenge of communication so that we can focus on the message. The response to COVID moved many workers to remote and hybrid working situations, but the technologies and processes that came out of that move have just begun to ripple through our environments. Communication demands in a completely digital world are even more time consuming, but open the door for asynchronous opportunities (where we don't share the same space at the same time). Our communities need to get in front of this, and Common.Network can help.

EconomicImpact

The permanent and temporary jobs created by this project cannot be counted at this time. Our platform and business operations will require a minimum of 2-3 full time employees. We would expect contributions from various contractors and employees specific to the designing and developing future software releases of Common.Network. The platform itself allows for direct fractional labor from local, community service providers (independent workforce).

EconomicImpactPermanentJobsCreated

2-3

EconomicImpactTemporaryJobsCreated

unknown

EconomicImpactWageLevels

high wage

EconomicImpactAlignProposedJobs

We are located in the qualified census tracts and would hire for our core roles.

CommunityBenefit

Better community communication ensures many cascading benefits. Community members will know how to support their local businesses. They will be aware of important perspectives in their community. Community organizations and businesses will have better community awareness, which will result in more activity at their events and in their stores. A vibrant community is one that is buzzing with information and creativity.

CommunityBenefitSustainability

Without people consuming their services, businesses and organizations can't deliver on their promised value. When community voices go unheard, wonderful events go unattended. Without communication, we are each on an island, we are unaware and we can't be supportive even if we would want to.

BestPracticesInnovation

RenMind believes in extending permission based communication practices to everyone. We strive for empathetic, direct communication that connects and engages audiences. At RenMind we've spent more than a decade designing and deploying communication software, providing direct services to and studying communication processes and systems of franchises and independent local businesses. We'd love to simplify the process of communication and share the knowledge it takes to improve communication and grow a more vibrant community together.

OutcomeMeasurement

Our Common.Network platform metrics should demonstrate communication trends on a macro level. We wish to reveal the general processes that demonstrate effective communication without compromising the privacy of organizations or their contacts and customers. We will be able to see metrics on regular messaging from each of our participants and the direct correlation to their growth by measuring various forms of activity on the platform (message engagement, information collection, payments).

OutcomeMeasurementHow

As our service partners begin to build their own businesses, we will see data about how many we have and how many clients they are supporting. Educational services will also be measurable in terms of number who have participated and found benefit in our efforts to demonstrate effective communication and public collaboration.

OutcomeMeasurementCoinvestment

Funding from this proposal will act as a catalyst to get other funding from satisfied organizations, sustaining partners and state prototype and commercialization grants.

Partnerships

Yes

PartnershipsOrgs

We have actively developed these concepts with help from individuals like Lee Myers, Dawaune Hayes, Lynn Hinderaker, Nic Clapper, Shawn Clapper, Bryan Buckles, Susan Price, Brian Harvey, Leah Buller, Steve Lorenz and community partners like NEWbraska, Dynamo, TextyPress, CaliCommons, Joslyn Castle Neighborhood Association, Friends of Art of UNO, Sarpy County Museum, ModeShift, OneOmaha, Startup Collaborative and National Property Inspections. Other example partners we look forward to working with include Local Art Plug, Culxr House, Hot Shops, Benson Theatre, Union for Contemporary Art, Bluebarn Theatre, 1M Cups, and many more.

PartnershipsMOU

We have no formal agreements

Displacement

No

DisplacementExplanation

PhysicalLocation

RenMind has operated out of the lower level of 518 N 40th St, Omaha, NE 68131 at the identified Qualified Census Tract #50 since 2013.

QualifiedCensusTract

Within one or more QCTs

AdditionalLocationDocuments

PropertyZoning

Yes

ConnectedToUtilities

ConnectedToUtilitiesConnected

No

ConnectedToUtilitiesUpgradesNeeded

No

DesignEstimatingBidding

No

DesignEstimatingBiddingPackageDeveloped

No

DesignEstimatingBiddingCostsDetermined

We aren't doing anything to the building.

GeneralContractor

No

GeneralContractorPublicCompetitiveBid

GeneralContractorPublicCompetitiveBidWhyNot

RequestRationale

We will need funds to build a stabile and reliable community platform that can prove the value of utility like community managed communication systems. Employee to manage user needs discovery and alignment with the community. Employee to design software solutions and communicate this work to ensure desirability and feasibility. Employee to oversee the development of our the next generation is secure, sharable and scalable software platform that aligns with community needs. We need funds to actually build the software with best practices and extensibility in mind. We need to support documentation and open source / closed source releases for our community to support the platform and potentially adopt this platform for new purposes.

GrantFundsUsage

LB1024 grant funds would allow us to restart RenMind after COVID had knocked us out. It would allow us to focus on proving value and growing a community who loves communicating. We'll need several full time people to get all of our software and support services ready and we are ready to start today. Building a solid, open source platform that enables omni channel communications but for smaller teams will be difficult engineering work. We will need to engage with local and regional partners to establish a foundation that is easy to scale here in our backyards and beyond.

ProposalFinancialSustainability

Yes

ProposalFinancialSustainabilityOperations

The goal is to be financially sustainable by the end of this grant cycle. While we've operated similar services for profit, we'd like to initially provide these services for free. We'd like help from both the community and the committee in determining an ideal funding structure for operations beyond 2026. Our main goals are to keep communication direct and not use advertising based funding (as that compromises the communication experience). If we choose to use direct subscription funding, we'd like to be able to project that cost in year two after the options of our next generation system.

FundingSources

Other funding sources are available to stretch our funding such as the Nebraska prototype and commercialization grants, as well as, community partners and sources.

FundingSourcesPendingDecisions

Decisions on other funding sources can be coordinated with LB1024 schedules.

FundingSourcesCannotContinue

Probably though they might affect the scope and quality of the project.

Scalability

This project can be undertaken in smaller components by partnering with key organizations and/or sequencing work into the future.

ScalabilityComponents

This is difficult due to the research nature of our software design and development process. Please see the timeline for best available answer.

FinancialCommitment

Partners in this project have committed more than 10 years of effort and delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct services. We've research the problem, creating and testing platform solutions, as well as, communication materials.

ARPAComplianceAcknowledgment

1.0

ARPAReportingMonitoringProcessAck

1.0

LB1024FundingSourcesAck

1.0

PublicInformation

1.0

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