$1.2 MILLION IN NEW KNIGHT FOUNDATION GRANTS SUPPORT PUBLIC MEDIA...

September 17, 2012

Of $3.67 million in grants recently awarded through the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Community Information Challenge (KCIC), a total of $1,263,000 will go to projects involving public radio and television stations as lead partners. Designed to grow support for local news and information among community and place-based foundations (which receive the grants), the KCIC funded four initiatives led by public media.

• In Arizona: A grant of $57,000 to the Arizona Community Foundation will enable KNAU Arizona Public Radio to partner with the local newspaper, the Arizona Daily Sun, to provide urgent community information in times of emergency. Together, the partners will create a real-time emergency information network that employs mobile apps and audio and video streaming. As KNAU General Manager John Stark points out, this is an increasingly critical need. “Our region is experiencing more frequent and catastrophic mega fires that grow larger each year. Citizens expect real-time information on location of fire lines, evacuation routes, property damage and emergency services.”

  Stark was familiar with the funding opportunity because he had participated in a Grant Center webinar featuring Ellen Rocco, Station Manager at North Country Public Radio, which benefited from a KCIC grant in 2011. He leveraged that knowledge by consulting directly with Rocco while preparing the Arizona proposal. KNAU is already generating new revenue for the important project: in addition to the Knight grant, it has secured $20,000 and has another $35,000 in requests currently pending.
   

• In Oregon: A grant of $302,000 from the Knight Foundation will support a partnership between The Oregon Community Foundation and Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) to improve reporting in Oregon’s rural communities, develop a cooperative news network that links newspapers and news organizations statewide, and better engage communities in the news-gathering process.

  With its deep commitment to local news, OPB had been exploring the KCIC opportunity for some time. Jordan Anderson, Associate Director of Foundation Relations, notes, “In previous years of the KCIC, OPB had discussed possible requests . . . with potential foundation partners, but nothing had developed.” But the station found an enthusiastic partner in the Oregon Community Foundation. After all, as Max Williams, the Foundation’s President and CEO points out, “. . . good information is critical to all of our efforts to improve life in Oregon.”

  OPB also drew on Grant Center resources in building a successful proposal. Anderson says, “The Grant Center webinar with North Country Public Radio was very helpful in providing background information on a successful request. The webinar and the budget and proposal materials shared alongside [it] gave us a head start in understanding the program requirements and the Knight Foundation's interests.”
   

• In Louisiana: A grant of $102,000 to The Greater New Orleans Foundation will support increased local news coverage on public radio and online. The project partners are public radio station WWNO; The Lens, an online public interest news organization; NolaVie, a New Orleans arts and culture news website; and the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, the region’s respected source of demographic data and analysis.

  The Knight Foundation grant is being matched with $100,000 in local donations, for a total of $202,000 that is being invested in public service news coverage in the New Orleans area. Like its Arizona and Oregon counterparts, WWNO accessed Grant Center resources while preparing the proposal. WWNO Development Manager Ron Biava says, “[The staff at] the Grant Center were a great help with advice, technical guidance and directing me to Ellen Rocco for advice based on first-hand experience with the KCIC.”
   

• In New Jersey: A grant of $802,000 from the KCIC will help develop a network of news organizations and journalists in New Jersey, and launch creative projects to encourage more civic dialogue and participation. The partners, including New Jersey Public Radio, Montclair State University and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, will work to expand coverage, engage the public and provide training and services to the news ecosystem. The project will include hiring reporters to focus on New Jersey issues, coordinating collaborative reporting projects, offering website-in-a-box functionality for new organizations and journalists, developing creative community engagement projects, and training the next generation of media practitioners in journalism, media and business practices.

The Grant Center provides information on a broad range of foundation and federal grant opportunities for public media. To learn more, visit the Grant Center at www.apts.org/grantcenter or contact Project Director Meegan White (mwhite@apts.org) or DEI Foundation Support Coordinator Amie Miller (amie0422@comcast.net).