Small newsrooms or coalitions that provide original reporting in underserved communities — and have budgets under $1 million — are eligible to apply. At least 100 newsrooms nationwide will receive around $100,000 each over two years in unrestricted funds.

Colorado’s local and statewide newsrooms and nonpartisan community and civic groups are invited to join forces with Rocky Mountain Public Media, Colorado State University’s Center for Public Deliberation, the Colorado Press Association, Colorado News Collaborative, and the Colorado Media Project in a statewide campaign to reclaim and reimagine the public square across all of Colorado’s 64 counties.

All Colorado newsrooms are invited to participate in this project to the depth of their choosing. This could range from promoting the initiative and encouraging your audiences to participate in regional events, to asking your community the common questions (to be developed in conjunction with participating newsrooms), to reporting the results and ensuring your community is represented in the statewide reporting, to joining a cohort that will receive additional training and support for community listening and engagement, and/or joining the steering committee for the project.

Colorado newsrooms are invited to apply for funding to support projects that build newsroom and community capacity to address inequities and harness a wider array of partners and community assets to create a healthier, more inclusive public square in Colorado.

This fall, up to 12 Colorado newsrooms will be selected to receive training, cohort support, and coaching from Hearken to develop a winning strategy to surface and respond to their public’s critical information needs related to elections. Each participating newsroom will also receive a $1,000 stipend to support their engagement strategy. Apply by Aug. 7.

This year, based on feedback from grantees, #newsCOneeds is getting a boost: a longer lead-up period to prepare for the year-end fundraising campaign, supported by a new "philanthropy lab" with news industry and fundraising experts, designed to boost newsroom capacity to raise funds.

Today, Colorado Media Project is excited to announce $360,000 in new commitments to ecosystem partners who are dedicated to helping our state’s local newsrooms explore and pilot innovative solutions to wicked problems that they are facing right now, in communities across the state. And we invite you to join us.

CMP has opened the second round of Advancing Equity in Local News grants for applications. The purpose is to 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, and the application deadline to receive funding for 2023 projects is December 1, 2022. Learn more and apply here!

In partnership with Colorado News Collaborative and News Revenue Hub, our 2021 #newsCOneeds campaign and matching grant challenge is an ecosystem-wide, public awareness-building opportunity for all Colorado newsrooms to spotlight the positive impacts they are making in their communities, and to build trust in and support for their local public-service journalism.