Today Colorado Media Project is announcing 27 new grants totaling $368,300 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 2024 Advancing Equity in Local News grantees 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 four reports published by the Voices Initiative Working Groups:
The Time is Right Now (Black Voices Working Group)
Think Big, Act Now (Latinx Voices Working Group)
Reach, Representation, and Respect (Native and Indigenous Voices Working Group)
Fighting to be Seen (Asian, South Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Voices Working Group)
2024 is the third year of CMP’s Advancing Equity in Local News grant program, which launched in 2022, and has supported 46 projects with $629,790 of funding over the last two years. Grants from past years have supported source tracking initiatives to help newsrooms understand who they get their news from, bilingual elections coverage and community-hosted debates, DEI training for newsroom teams, inclusion of diverse community storytellers in reporting, and investments in business planning, coaching, and digital innovations to help newsrooms serving diverse and rural communities adapt and grow in a changing media landscape.
This year’s grantees were selected from a competitive pool of 44 applicants requesting a total of $980,575 for projects dedicated to the fund’s three priorities - demonstrating a broad commitment from Colorado newsrooms to build a more inclusive media ecosystem statewide. Grantees will receive cohort support throughout the year and share lessons learned at the Colorado Press Association’s annual conference over the summer of 2024.
Colorado Media Project is a community-informed, multi-funder coalition 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, Democracy Fund, Gates Family Foundation, RootED Denver, 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.
Learn more about our grantees’ projects below!
ADVANCING EQUITY IN LOCAL NEWS
2024 GRANTEES
To support internal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) capacity-building efforts in Colorado newsrooms
Total awarded: $112,500 to 7 organizations
Boulder Reporting Lab: $5,000 to support the BRL Community Reporting Fellowship, a 10-week internship for an emerging university journalist from Boulder County's BIPOC communities.
Colorado Association of Black Journalist: $20,000 to support the Colorado Association of Black Journalists' capacity-building activities for Black journalists, including training and mentorship for students and youth journalists, and continuing education from national experts.
Colorado Chinese News Inc: $24,000 to support Colorado Chinese News in offering DEI training for newsroom leaders and reporters, community-informed elections coverage, voter education, and new digital platforms and translations to expand reach to Colorado's Asian communities.
Colorado State University - Pueblo: $5,000 to support student stipends for work on CSU Pueblo's "Recruiting Diverse Voices and the Next Generation of Community Storytellers" program.
Community Radio Project: $15,000 to support KSJD in developing a network of paid Dine-, Ute-, and Spanish-language translators in southwestern Colorado.
Crestone Eagle Community Media: $23,500 to support the Crestone Eagle in deepening its service to the San Luis Valley's rural, agriculturalist, Indigenous and Spanish-speaking communities through DEI training for CECM staff, hiring community writers, and content-sharing and mentorship with Indigenous and Latinx-led newsrooms.
KGNU Radio: $20,000 to support KGNU Radio's paid internship program with curriculum development, mentorship opportunities, and DEIB training.
To strengthen connections and build trust between Colorado newsrooms and the diverse communities they serve
Total awarded: $130,800 to ten organizations
Chalkbeat: $20,000 to support Chalkbeat Colorado's efforts to increase its reach and service to Spanish-speaking caregivers via outreach and coverage in Spanish, a Promotora program, direct mail, and partnership with other local media and community groups.
Colorado News Conservancy: $10,000 to support Colorado Community Media's "La Ciudad/The City", a new bilingual newsletter serving Commerce City covering local government, environment, affordable housing and more.
Denver North Star: $5,000 to support the Denver North Star's bilingual reporting and community engagement initiatives.
The Florence Reporter: $5,000 to support the Florence Reporter's civic engagement activities, including four community forums focused on the 2024 election, a "Your Vote Matters" column, and a local Candidate Scorecard.
KOTO Community Radio: $13,800 to support KOTO Community Radio's Spanish-language and bilingual programming, Latine community engagement events, listening sessions and other activities that foster inclusivity.
League of Women Voters of Colorado: $25,000 to support the League of Women Voters Colorado in establishing an Eyewitness Corps to engage residents in covering public meetings in coordination with local newsrooms and BIPOC community partners across Colorado.
Sentinel Colorado: $17,000 to support the Sentinel's Community Story Sprint, providing journalism and community storytelling training and mentorship to 10 first-generation college students.
Teletrends, Inc.: $7,000 to support Bucket List Community Cafe's Darrell Ewalt Scholarship program in providing scholarship and professional development support to BIPOC student interns covering community news.
University of Colorado Boulder: $10,000 to support a new class at CU-Boulder that supports rural and BIPOC-led newsrooms with students and faculty assigned to cover issues of local concern at the Colorado Statehouse.
Zepol Media Partners, LLC: $18,000 to support the Alamosa Citizen's "Voto SLV" voter education, community engagement, and elections coverage for Spanish-speaking communities, including the launch of a Spanish-language news page on the Alamosa CItizen's website.
To support more diverse and inclusive civic news leadership, entrepreneurship, ownership and narratives
Total awarded: $125,000 to 10 organizations
Afrik Digest Magazine: $5,000 to support Afrik Digest's vital coverage, representation, and support of Colorado's African and immigrant communities.
Colorado News Collaborative: $30,000 to support the Colorado Ethnic Media Exchange, a coalition of independent outlets, in hiring a shared resource to sell advertising and underwriting into EMX publications, in order to increase their long-term sustainability.
Community Radio for Northern Colorado: $15,000 to support KUNC's "Reflecting Colorado" Photo Desk, establishing a space for BIPOC, women, and LGBTQ+ photojournalists in Colorado to design, develop, and lead projects for publication by KUNC and distribution across the state via AP StoryShare.
El Comercio de Colorado: $20,000 to support El Comercio's "Empowering Latinx Voices 2024" initiative, establishing a robust platform for Latinx communities to express their concerns, opinions, and perspectives on critical political issues, via six community forums hosted across the Denver metro area.
El Movimiento Sigue: $5,000 to support El Movemiento Sigue's efforts to restart La Cucuracha, a historic newspaper covering the Chicano movement and issues in Pueblo and beyond, as an online journal.
El Semanario The Weekly Edition: $15,000 to support El Semanario's "Ask the Candidate" campaign, engaging Latinx youth and students' perspectives to inform 2024 elections coverage via listening sessions and community events.
Ethiopian Community Television: $5,000 to support KETO FM's vital coverage, representation, and support of Colorado's Ethiopian, Pan-African and immigrant communities.
Hablemos Hoy Broadcasting LLC: $5,000 to support Hablemos Hoy's daily radio program and support of Colorado's Latinx communities.
La Voz Publishing Company, Inc.: $5000 to support La Voz's vital coverage, representation, and support of Colorado's Latinx communities.
Mile High Asian Media: $20,000 to support Mile High Asian Media in providing journalism and storytelling training to AANHPI students, connecting students with AANHPI journalists as mentors, and publishing student work in AANHPI and mainstream media outlets.
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.
Recent research and reports supported by CMP include a survey of the Attitudes of Colorado Audiences Toward State and Local Media; the development of the Colorado News Mapping Project, an ongoing initiative to track where Coloradoans are getting news and information about their communities; a report on the Future of Printing in the wake of the closure of the Pueblo Chieftain Press; and “Reimagining Colorado’s Public Square”, an update to CMP’s 2019 report, “Local News is a Public Good” — not only refreshing key data points with lessons learned over the last four years, but also spotlighting what we know Colorado communities want, need, and expect from local news in the future, and challenging all of us to rise to the occasion.
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 2024, should email Melissa Davis at mdavis@gatesfamilyfoundation.org.