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Project History

What is the National Center For Outreach?
NCO's overriding goal is to assist PBS stations to provide meaningful outreach to local communities, helping
to foster and deepen existing community partnerships by:

• Supporting PBS stations' outreach missions

• Communicating pipeline opportunities

• Advancing best practices and sharing resources.

• Training new and experienced public broadcasting professionals

• Funding local outreach with annual grants.

• Organizing national meetings to enhance local outreach

Outreach is a key component that sets public television apart from its commercial counterpart. It is public television’s service arm that purposefully extends the impact of broadcasts by giving them legs into the local community. Most notable to outreach is its ability to bring people together in person before, during or after a broadcast: a power unique to public television outreach.

Public Television is able to provide outreach because of its unique structure: a public service media able to broadcast nationally, while encouraging action locally. Outreach bridges the gap between community concerns and what’s on TV by providing opportunities to engage and learn more. Most often, outreach is defined in the following ways:

Community outreach extends the impact of public broadcasting through a variety of media services, educational materials and collaborative activities. Efforts are always in partnership with other community organizations and are designed to engage individuals and foster community participation. Most often initiatives address specific issues of importance and are targeted to a particular segment of the population.

Educational outreach refers to activities that support formal or classroom-based education, as well as informal education that occur outside the classroom. Educational outreach campaigns provide educational experiences for young people in classrooms, libraries, community-based organizations, etc., as well as supporting the professional development of the adults who work with them.

Ready To Learn is PBS's nationwide effort to ensure all America's children are prepared for educational success. Funding is provided from the U.S. Department of Education through the Public Broadcasting Service. Ready To Learn service provides on air, online and print resources and local support to help parents and early childhood educators prepare children for success in school.  UNC-TV is a local Ready To Learn station.

(Taken from National Center of Outreach website)

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