Today Colorado Media Project is announcing 27 new grants totaling $352,640 that will support Colorado newsrooms, journalists, and media entrepreneurs in launching new projects and strengthening existing efforts to build a more inclusive local news ecosystem that reflects and serves Colorado’s diverse communities.
Recipients of Colorado Media Project’s 2023 Advancing Equity in Local News grants will address three overarching priorities identified by community members and journalists of color through the Voices Initiative, led by Colorado News Collaborative with support from Colorado Media Project since 2020:
Support internal efforts to strengthen diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in Colorado newsrooms;
Strengthen connections and build trust between Colorado newsrooms and the diverse communities they serve; and/or
Support more diverse and inclusive civic news leadership, entrepreneurship, ownership and narratives.
Details about specific community needs and recommendations can be found in the three reports published by the Voices Initiative Working Groups, including The Time is Right Now (Black Voices Working Group), Think Big, Act Now (Latinx Voices Working Group), and Fighting to be Seen (Asian, South Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Voices Working Group, to be released February 2023).
2023 is the second year of CMP’s three-year Advancing Equity in Local News grant program, which in 2022 awarded a total of $277,150 to 19 projects. This year’s grantees were selected from a competitive pool of 42 applicants requesting a total of $970,990 for projects dedicated to the fund’s three priorities - indicating a broad commitment from Colorado newsrooms to build a more inclusive media ecosystem statewide. At least one more round of funding will be made available for new or continuing work, with applications opening in Fall 2023.
Grantees will receive cohort support throughout the year and share lessons learned at CMP’s Advancing Equity Convening in Fall 2023.
Colorado Media Project is a community-informed philanthropic initiative dedicated to supporting innovations that make the state’s local media ecosystem more sustainable, collaborative, inclusive, and accountable to the public it serves.
Funding for the Advancing Equity in Local News grant program comes from: The Colorado Health Foundation, The Colorado Trust, Bohemian Foundation, Democracy Fund, Gates Family Foundation and Rose Community Foundation. Collectively, CMP funders have contributed or pledged at least $3.85 million over the next four years to support local communities’ civic news and information needs.
ADVANCING EQUITY IN LOCAL NEWS - 2023 GRANTEES
To support internal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)
capacity-building efforts in Colorado newsrooms
Total awarded: $125,000 to 10 organizations
Aurora Sentinel
$10,000 to support the Aurora Sentinel in working with peers to develop and offer a paid journalism internship program that provides mentorship and cohort support to BIPOC students.
Boulder Reporting Lab
$5,000 to support the Boulder Reporting Lab in working with peers to develop and offer a paid journalism internship program that provides mentorship and cohort support to BIPOC students.
Bucket List Community Cafe
$5,000 to support Bucket List Community Cafe in working with peers to develop and offer a paid journalism internship program that provides mentorship and cohort support to BIPOC students.
Chalkbeat
$25,000 to support Chalkbeat's efforts to strengthen its service to Spanish-speaking parents and caregivers, by developing a local reader advisory board and community ambassadors, producing more content and resource guides in Spanish that fill critical information needs, developing new strategies to reach Spanish-speaking audiences online and through trusted community groups, and sharing lessons learned from Chalkbeat's Source Auditing Tool with other newsrooms in Colorado.
Colorado Public Radio
$10,000 to support Colorado Public Radio in establishing a baseline assessment for source tracking, identifying areas for improvement, implementing strategies to increase source diversity, and sharing lessons learned with other newsrooms in Colorado.
Denver Newspaper Guild
$10,000 to support ongoing efforts to strengthen the capacity of Denver Post and Denver Newspaper Guild reporters to connect with non-English speaking Coloradans, with an emphasis tracking improvements against quarterly source audits.
KGNU Radio
$25,000 to support KGNU's paid journalism internship program that provides real-world training and mentorship to BIPOC students, and to participate in a peer-to-peer cohort that shares lessons from KGNU and other best-in-class models.
Mountain West News Bureau
$10,000 to strengthen the ability of Colorado newsrooms to report in and with Indigenous communities, via cultural sensitivity trainings developed with Indigenous partners; participating members of the Mountain West News Bureau will also receive story reviews and coaching from a Native journalist.
Open Media Foundation
$15,000 to continue strengthening Open Media Foundation's Career Engine service, which supports Colorado newsrooms in finding and hiring diverse jobseekers for journalism job opportunities.
Rocky Mountain PBS
$10,000 to support Rocky Mountain Public Media in completing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) trainings for their content teams, and to explore opportunities to lead peer-to-peer learning opportunities with Colorado newsrooms.
To strengthen connections and build trust between Colorado
newsrooms and the diverse communities they serve
Total awarded: $119,140 to seven organizations
Colorado News Collaborative
$25,000 to support the design and launch of Amplify Colorado, a new database and online tool to provide newsrooms and journalists with access to a diverse set of expert sources from under-represented communities across the state.
Colorado State University - Pueblo
$25,000 to provide Year Two support for CSU Pueblo's Discovering Diverse Voices community engagement project, as it launches a student-led community reporting desk in collaboration with the library and Pueblo Star Journal, funds and supports a student to lead the Bureau, and engages community stakeholders in the existing DEI advisory committee.
Community Radio Project
$5,000 to support KSUT and KSJD's collaborative Voices from the Edge of the Colorado Plateau project and staff participation in the design and implementation of sensitivity training for Colorado journalists working with Indigenous communities.
Crestone Eagle Community Media
$10,000 to increase coverage of and engagement with rural and Latinx communities in Saguache County by partnering with libraries to host public forums, and recruiting local community correspondents in two regional communities in 2023.
Denver North Star / G. E. S. Gazette
$9,140 to expand the G.E.S. Gazette's ability to reach Spanish-speaking residents during the City and County of Denver's spring election cycle, through increased community engagement, a bilingual debate, and increased newspaper page counts.
KOTO Community Radio
$10,000 to support KOTO's Spanish-language news program and efforts to engage Latino community members through storytelling and celebration events.
Sopris Sun
$35,000 to provide Year Two support for a coalition of eight newsrooms in the Roaring Fork Valley, as they implement strategies for reaching Spanish-speaking audiences that were developed in the Year One research and listening phase of their project.
To support more diverse and inclusive civic news leadership,
entrepreneurship, ownership and narratives
Total awarded: $108,500 to 10 organizations
Afrik Digest
$15,000 to support Afrik Digest in meeting the news and information needs of Colorado's African immigrant residents, and continued leadership of the Ethnic Media Exchange.
AlamosaCitizen.com
$5,000 to support AlamosaCitizen.com with business growth and sustainability support and coaching.
Aurora Branch NAACP
$20,000 to support the Aurora Branch NAACP's Black Voices Pipeline Project in providing a media literacy and youth journalism program featuring one-on-one mentorship and instruction, publication of student projects in Black-led news organizations, and a youth media showcase to celebrate youth achievements.
Colorado Chinese News Inc.
$5,000 to support Colorado Chinese News in meeting the news and information needs of Colorado's Chinese residents.
Colorado Press Association
$25,000 to support the development of the Ethnic Media Advertising Network, including ad kit development and design, trainings, and support from national partners experienced in addressing ad sales and needs of small community-based and POC-serving newsrooms.
Ethiopian Community Television
$10,000 to support KETO FM in meeting the news and information needs of Colorado's Ethiopian and multicultural residents, and continued participation in the Ethnic Media Exchange.
La Voz Publishing Company, Inc.
$5,000 to support La Voz in meeting the local news and information needs of Colorado's Spanish-speaking residents.
Latino Communications LLC (KBNO)
$5,000 to support KBNO in meeting the local news and information needs of Colorado's Spanish-speaking residents.
Mile High Asian Media
$15,000 to support Mile High Asian Media in organizing a database of Asian-American journalists in the Denver area, launching an Asian-American journalist affinity group with learning events, and participating in the Ethnic Media Exchange.
Red, White and Brown Media
$3,500 to support Red, White and Brown Media with start-up mentorship, coaching and capacity building.
About Colorado Media Project
Colorado Media Project started in Spring 2018 as a community-led response to the decline in local news across the state, and has since produced a wide body of media ecosystem research, helped launch the nonprofit Colorado News Collaborative and numerous other initiatives, catalyzed millions of dollars in new philanthropic support for the sector (including public media and newspaper acquisitions), and provides support for individual newsrooms through the annual #newsCOneeds matching challenge, the Informed Communities fund, and the Watchdog Fund. In 2022, CMP supported new research into the Attitudes of Colorado Audiences Toward State and Local Media, and the development of the Colorado News Mapping Project, an ongoing initiative to track where Coloradoans are getting news and information about their communities.
CMP funding decisions are made by representatives from foundations that have made significant, multi-year commitments to the Colorado media ecosystem through CMP: The Colorado Health Foundation, The Colorado Trust, Democracy Fund, Gates Family Foundation and Rose Community Foundation. Colorado funders interested in joining the CMP Funder Table, which will include a series of learning opportunities throughout 2023, should email Melissa Davis at mdavis@gatesfamilyfoundation.org.