Grantee Updates

Colorado Media Project (CMP) serves as a catalyst, funder, and advocate for innovations that make Colorado’s local news ecosystem more sustainable, collaborative, trusted, equitable and accountable to the public it serves.

Since 2018 CMP has raised more than $7.2 million for local news and made more than 280 grants to newsrooms, ecosystem capacity builders, and projects across Colorado — and helped to rally millions more in grants and impact investments directly to our partners. In 2023 alone CMP made 66 direct grants totaling $1,273,908 to 47 grantees.

FUnding Projects for Newsrooms and communities

CMP funds projects that advance equity in local newsrooms, drive business innovations and transitions, support transparency and accountability, and strengthen trusted, sustainable relationships between journalists and the communities they serve. Below we share both impact and lessons learned.

Meet and Support CMP’s 2021-2024
Community News Network Grantees

CMP’s three-year Community News Network (CNN) grants support five small, community-based news outlets or coalitions currently serving core audiences that, because of language, race or ethnicity, and/or geography, are not adequately served by other news outlets in the state. CNN grants provide capacity building and operating support for growth and enhanced community service, and are accompanied by strategic planning and coaching support from CMP’s ecosystem partners.

Meet and Support CMP’s 2023
#newsCOneeds Grantees

Each year since 2018, CMP has supported a coalition of nonprofit and locally owned for-profit newsrooms with $5,000 matching grants, campaign materials and training to help them “make the case” to raise individual support for their journalism through a year-end giving campaign. In 2023, CMP grantees collectively raised more than $850,000 in the month of December, and over the last five years, Colorado newsrooms have raised more than $2.3 million.

Meet and Support CMP’s 2023
Advancing Equity in Local News Grantees

CMP’s Advancing Equity in Local News (AELN) grants build newsroom and community capacity to address inequities, and to harness a wider array of partners and community assets to create a healthier, more inclusive public square in Colorado. AELN grants support projects that are informed by and responsive to calls to action from journalists and community members from Colorado’s Black, Latinx, AANHPI and Indigenous communities who participated in Voices Initiative working groups between 2020 and 2023.