America’s Waterway has a goal of unifying the Mississippi River to build community-based, whole-river approaches to water quality, community development and cultural identity. Our goal rests on maximizing social networking and other Internet tools on behalf of the Mississippi in the same way political candidates and companies have built on-line communities for themselves. America’s Waterway expects this will result in the creation of a constituency that can take action to address the River’s issues as an entire system, rather than one problem and one location at a time.

In phase one, the case for America’s Waterway is made. Enewsletters in the form of blogs are being distributed, the River-Tube function of the Web site will be initiated in 2009, and we have begun to build the community by soliciting content from people along the River.

A second phase, scheduled for late 2009/early 2010, will focus on building the community. We will engage those residing on and interested in the River, in a national dialogue via telecommunication and on-the-ground facilitation. Using community foundations in 10 locations, we will ignite people’s awareness and solicit their input to collectively prioritize content and issues for the Web site.

A third phase – developed simultaneously – will be a vibrant and open access Web site that maximizes engagement, allowing a Mississippi River community to evolve and take hold. Its structure will be open access and conducive to all forms of social networking at the same time it provides resources for groups and individuals who want to learn about the issues and the River.