Colorado Media Project is pleased to announce one of two new grant opportunities for local Colorado newsrooms in 2025. The 2025 Closing Community Coverage Gaps Grant provides flexible support to newsrooms serving Colorado’s BIPOC, non-English speaking, and rural communities. Applications are open now, and the deadline to apply for this grant is 5pm Mountain Time, Monday, June 30, 2025. CMP will be hosting an information session about this grant opportunity via Zoom on Friday, June 13, 2025, from 11:00-11:45 a.m.
Background and Purpose
Colorado’s BIPOC, non-English speaking, and rural communities face some of the largest gaps in local news coverage, are more likely to reside in news deserts, and tend to be disproportionately affected by mis- and disinformation. The newsrooms that do serve these communities provide them with vital, often irreplaceable or unduplicated civic information services, and tend to have strong, trusting relationships with their communities. However, these newsrooms also tend to face more extreme challenges. These can include financial and organizational instability, difficulty hiring and retaining staff, barriers to diversifying revenue streams via mainstream fundraising practices designed for whiter, wealthier, non-rural communities, and lack of organizational bandwidth to effectively plan and implement organizational investments and effective responses to changing community information needs, while continuing to report the daily news.
The Closing Colorado Coverage Gaps grant program aims to provide flexible support to newsrooms that provide vital services to these communities in Colorado. This grant program builds on the investments made and lessons learned during the first three years of the Advancing Equity in Local News grant program, which supported projects informed by and responsive to the types of recommendations put forth by Voices Initiative working groups representing Colorado’s Black, Latinx, AANHPI and Indigenous communities, convened by CMP, Free Press, and the Colorado News Collaborative between 2021 and 2023.
The Closing Colorado Coverage Gaps opportunity is focused on providing larger, more flexible grants to newsrooms serving Colorado’s most vulnerable communities. These grants are intended to help newsrooms with strong, existing, trusted relationships with vulnerable or underserved communities to invest in their own organizational sustainability, build on their trusted relationships with their audiences, and strengthen their editorial coverage of issues vital to the communities they serve. More information about the Closing Community Coverage Gaps grant opportunity can be found on CMP’s website.
This opportunity is made possible through generous contributions from The Colorado Trust, Gates Family Foundation, The Colorado Health Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, Press Forward, and Democracy Fund to CMP’s Advancing Equity in Local News Fund.
Application Deadline
The application deadline for CMP’s 2025 Closing Community Coverage Gaps Grant is 5pm Mountain Time, Monday, June 30, 2025.
Grant Amounts
The total number of grants awarded from the 2025 Closing Colorado Coverage Gaps grant opportunity will vary based on the total number of outlets funded. One-year grant amounts will range from $10,000 - $30,000, with the average grant award being $20,000. CMP anticipates awarding at least 50% of grants to newsrooms serving communities outside of the Front Range urban corridor. Funding will support projects running from August 2025 - July 2026.
Who May Apply?
Applicants must meet all of the following requirements:
In operation and publishing since at least 01/01/2023
A commitment to editorial excellence, editorial independence, and transparency
Located in Colorado and/or projects must primarily serve Colorado communities
Have a budget of less than $1,000,000
Applicants can be:
501(c)(3) nonprofit newsrooms and organizations
University or college student newsrooms producing original reporting that is community-facing
For-profit organizations with an established 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor
Note: fiscal sponsorship is not required for for-profits to apply, only to complete the contract if approved. Fiscal sponsorships are readily available to Colorado newsrooms from the Colorado News Collaborative (COLab). Please contact Alison Cooper at alison@colabnews.co for more information.
Grant Application Process and Timeline
May 19, 2025: Announcement of Open Call
June 30, 2025: Application due date
July 1 - July 31, 2025: Application review process
August 6, 2025: Grant decision notifications sent
August 13, 2025: Signed grant contracts (and for-profit fiscal sponsorship verifications) due
August 14, 2025: Grantee Cohort Announcement at CMP Summit
July 31, 2026: All grant funds must be expended
August 31, 2026: Final financial report due
Additional Notes
Grantees will be invited to join Colorado Local News ecosystem partners and engage in peer-to-peer learning at the Colorado Press Association Convention on August 14-16, 2025. CMP will provide travel support for grantees.
To Apply
Please create or log into your existing Rose Community Foundation grants portal account, and then select “Colorado Media Project – 2025 Closing Colorado Coverage Gaps” from the list of available grant opportunities.
If you have any questions about this grant opportunity, issues accessing the Rose Community Foundation portal, or need this application translated into another language, please contact Kimberly Spencer, Colorado Media Project Director, at kimberly@coloradomediaproject.com or 970-213-0408.