This week, Knight Foundation awarded $3.8 million to the newest winners of the Knight Arts Challenge Miami - and the ceremony at the Knight Concert Hall was imbued with art.

Singers from the Florida Grand Opera, dressed as regular attendees, surprised the audience with a performance Toreador Aria, from Bizet's Carmen ' a nod to Knight's Random Acts of Culture series.

Poet Scott Cunningham, founder of the O, Miami poetry festival, read an original work about seeing a photograph of a painter for the first time.

The audience saw' a sneak peak of a video about how challenge winners are transforming the South Florida arts.

And one challenge winner, Lucas Leyva of the Borscht Film Festival, sported a 'KF' for Knight Foundation shaved into his head.

Take a look at more photos from the evening's ceremony ' and check out this year's Knight Arts Challenge winners at KnightArts.org.

Cross-posted from NewsChallenge.org

Life gets busy, with work, family and other commitments.' But don't let that keep you from submitting a Knight News Challenge application, says winner Scott Rosenberg.

Rosenberg was staring down a deadline for his book just as the News Challenge application window was closing. Thankfully the application was easy, he said. So he filled it out anyway ' and won for a project that helps people report errors in news stories.

Remember that as the News Challenge, an international media innovation contest, draws to a close this week. Check out more of Rosenberg's tips in the video below.

Photo: Flickr.com/photos/alancleaver/ Cross-posted from NewsChallenge.org

As we enter the final hours of the Knight News Challenge, I wanted to offer some answers to questions that have been popping up on Twitter and in our newschallenge at knightfoundation org mail box.

• Deadline: As we 'noted on Saturday, we're going to be liberal about the deadline. We will not close off the application form until'7 am EST on December 2nd. (For those of you unfamiliar with US time zones, that means UTC -5.)
• If you're planning to apply at midnight EST, please don't let the above dissuade you-- I advise you *not* to wait until the last minute.
• Public comments: We take into account 'the public comments as part of our review process. However, as we mention in the contest's'FAQs, public comments are not "the only parameter we use to choose the best projects. We give more weight to our panel of experts."
• Please make 'sure to click the box to accept the contest's Terms and Conditions before you submit the application-- your application is not final until you do.
• Likewise, please make sure to fill out every field in the application form-- the system won't let you complete the application unless you do.
• Application confirmation: You should receive a confirmation after successfully completing the News Challenge application. If you don't, please make sure you completed all the fields. If you're still having problems, please reach out to us at newschallenge at knightfoundation dot org.

I hope that helps. Good luck!

Big and small, the projects have one thing in common: they introduce audiences to - and engage them in - the artistic experience.

For example, as a way to explore innovative architecture, the group DawnTown is going to launch a contest that will result in building a temporary structure each year in a prominent Miami spot. The Borscht Film Festival will commission a series of films that tell unique Miami stories. And the largest grant, $1 million to Miami-Dade Schools, will double the number of students taking cultural field trips to 130,000.

The arts are transforming South Florida, and now three years of Knight Arts Challenge Miami winners are adding to the momentum. Read about the latest winners and their plans for the region.

Welcome to the final week of the Knight News Challenge's application period. We've a few more posts planned to aid you with your applications and are available on email (newschallenge at knightfoundation.org) and Twitter (@knightfdn, @jsb and @jczamora). I can't promise we can answer every question, but we'll try.

Meanwhile, I wanted to give you an idea of what comes next.

We'll close the application form sometime after midnight on Wednesday the 1st. (Don't worry, procrastinators-- we'll define midnight as GMT -12.)

We'll spend December reviewing the applications we receive. In addition to Jose Zamora and myself, as in years past we'll be enlisting outsiders to help us ensure that each application is read by at least two sets of skilled eyes. Represented among this group will be journalists, scholars, students, entrepreneurs, investors and funders. (We'll share the names at the end of the review period.) Maria Thomas, formerly CEO of Etsy and head of digital for NPR.org, is taking on the heaviest workload-- she'll review each and every application. (Marshall Kirkpatrick posted background about Maria a few days back.) Maria will be sharing what she's seeing in the applications here at Newschallenge.org. (She will *not* be commenting on or answering questions about specific applications-- that's my and Jose's job...)

We intend to have word to all applicants by the end of the first week in January. At that point, some applicants will move onto a second round and we'll be asking for more detailed information about their ideas and backgrounds. By mid-March, we plan to have a set of finalists that we will examine even more closely. We expect to recommend a group of winners for consideration by the Knight Foundation Board at its mid-June meeting. Finally, we plan to unveil the winners in late June at the MIT Center for Future Civic Media conference.

I hope that helps you plan your next few months. In the mean, good luck with your applications!

Photo: Flickr.com/photos/nyoin/
Cross-posted from NewsChallenge.org

The Knight News Challenge is a contest designed to inspire bold new digital experiments in community news. This year the local geographic requirement applies only if you apply under the Community category. However, we do prefer projects that plan to be tested in a specific community. Our goal is to spur media innovation and find new ways to inform and inspire communities.

Innovation is a key element of the Knight News Challenge. For us, innovation means a product created or produced in a way we've not seen before, or a process created to do something unique. Many interesting applications fail in the early stages of this contest because they do not propose anything innovative.

Innovation can be seen as two different things:

1. Invention, that is the creation of something entirely new, of something that did not exist before.
2. The mixing of things that already exist to do something new or something old in a new, different, more effective and efficient way. We are interested in both and we find the latter very interesting.

We usually explain the second form of innovation with the following example:

'We love the person who invented the suitcase and the person who invented the wheels, but what we really are looking for is the person who put the wheels on the suitcase.'

The clock is ticking. Make sure you send us your best media innovations by the Dec. 1 deadline.

If you have questions please tweet them at #KNC or ping us @knightfdn @jczamora @jsb or send us an e-mail at: newschallenge[at]knightfoundation[dot]org.

Many reporters and readers like you have asked to see the questions used in the Knight Soul of the Community survey. People are interested to know, for example, how Gallup concludes if a person feels nightlife or basic services are strengths of their community.

So, we've decided to make it available now for the first time. As with most surveys, the analysis of the data is where the connections and insights comes from. For the Soul of the Community survey, Gallup used its proprietary statistical models, based on many years of this type of research in other countries and businesses, to arrive at the conclusions in the report.

Take a look at the questions asked in this download file:

• Knight-Gallup 2010 Soul of the Community Questions.pdf

Now under construction: a new early childhood learning center in Camden, New Jersey that strives to become a national model. Being built on the Rutgers University-Camden campus, the facility named for the Knight brothers will allow a place for young children to learn while professors apply their scholarly research to the classroom.

"There's an agreement about the need for getting the children to be part of the educational pipeline as early as possible," Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, a founder of the Knight Early Learning Research Academy told today's Courier-Post. "With the work that will be housed in this facility, we're creating a model that is replicable and that will impact generations of children to come."

Donna Frisby-Greenwood, Knight's Philadelphia Program Director, said the foundation is proud of the transformative work that will take place there. The facility is scheduled to open in 2011.

'The Abbott decision mandated state-supported pre-school in New Jersey's lowest income school districts. The creation of this academy represents one of the most significant steps to date in seizing the opportunity created by the Abbott decision,' Frisby-Greenwood said.' 'This new venture will provide a great laboratory for developing the kind of programs that can make a real difference in terms of educational and community impact.'

Knight Foundation supported the center with a $2 million grant. Read more in the Courier-Post or in the press release.

There's been a great public response to the release of the 2010 Knight Soul of the Community study, launched on Nov. 15.Headlines gracing the major newspapers reported on their residents' love for their cities and the potential for economic growth as a result of highly attached communities. The tone of the coverage has been mostly positive with a considerable amount of introspection about what makes a community special and attractive to its residents.

Interestingly, the most press and blogger coverage has come from two communities on nearly opposing ends of the resident attachment scale ' Detroit and St. Paul. The interest from Detroit has been overwhelming and mixed. Many people see the opportunity and positivity in the fact that Detroit residents value the area's aesthetics and colleges and universities highly. Other writers pointed to findings that residents don't feel young talent is welcome in Detroit and how that may be hurting prospects for attracting new business. To keep the conversation going, there will be a community discussion in Detroit on the Soul of the Community study results Nov. 30, in partnership with the New Economy Initiative.

The response from media in St. Paul has been strong and positive. The common theme in the headlines was that St. Paul residents love their city. And, St. Paul has good reason to be positive ' its level of resident attachment increased for three consecutive years, and the community is more attached than its comparison cities of San Jose, Palm Beach and Charlotte. Moreover, commentary was more positive on the link to economic growth, which also applies to the other 25 cities in the survey.

Here's a sampling of some of the headlines we've seen so far. If you'd like to submit your article about Soul of the Community, post the article headline and a link in the comments section.

• The Charlotte Observer ' New Poll: Emotional Attachment could predict economic growth
• The Detroit News ' Survey: Metro Detroiters Take Pride in Local Education
• The Free Press ' Survey: Detroit area not alluring to young professionals for many reasons
• Centre Daily Times ' Happy Valley lives up to its name: County tops in 'Soul of the Community' survey
• The Miami Herald ' It's not the money -- we love Miami for other reasons
• San Jose Mercury News ' In San Jose, Hispanics feel at home, study finds; recent college grads don't
• Crain's Detroit Business ' Passion for cities can lead to economic prosperity, study says
• Akron Beacon Journal ' Poll gauges 'soul' of area communities.

And from the blogs:

• Future Communities ' The Importance of Social Offerings, Openness and Beauty
• The Scenic America Blog ' Beauty Creates Strong Community Attachment
• Ponca City, We Love You ' What Makes People Love Where They Live?
• Buffalo Rising ' Soul of the Community
• News Day ' We Love St. Paul
• Paragon Life Blog ' Detroit lacks soul? An alternative look at the Gallup poll

Cross-posted from newschallenge.org When we decided to create categories for the 2011 Knight News Challenge, it didn't take us long to settle on Mobile as one of them. Here are some illustrations on why we think the mobile device is such an important tool for the production, delivery, consumption and sharing of news and information:

• There's been lots of discussion about the new TSA body scanners, but John Tyner put the issue front and center when he left his camera phone running last week. (I won't enter the debate as to whether John's video counts as "journalism"-- that's what conferences are for.)
• Like millions of others, I followed last week's British #demo2010 student protests from my phone. Via the Guardian, I found'Asif Khan's gripping Flickr'videos of the storming of Millbank Tower, at least portions of which were shot on an iPhone.
• Amanda Lenhart gave a presentation to the Family Online Safety Institute on teens and mobile phones. Two of Amanda's figures reminded me how that the mobile world is still new,and we have a lot to learn.'I was surprised that only 80% of teens, and 40% of teens from homes of less than $30,000, have cell phones. What's it like to be the one kid out of five without a phone? Second, 41%'of low-income teens use their phones to go online, compared to around a quarter of all other teens.
• The mHealthSummit was held in DC earlier last week. 'A Lancet study discussed at the conference claims that mobile phones can have a positive impact on public health:

"The study on mobile phone usage to treat HIV positive clients in Kenya...indicates that simple "how are you" texts delivered weekly increase the likelihood that Kenyans who are HIV positive will follow their medication regime..."Considering the ubiquity of mobile phones and the minimal expense in sending text messages, this practice can be an extremely cost-effective way of improving outcomes for HIV patients... Dr. [Richard] Lester said.

As has been said before, we don't know what we're looking for-- we're waiting for you to tell us.

If you have questions please tweet them to #KNC, ping us @knightfdn @jczamora @jsb, or send us an e-mail at: newschallenge[at]knightfoundation[dot]org.

Photo: Flickr.com/photos/gdsdigital/

Photo: Flickr.com/photos/teachandlearn/
Cross-posted from NewsChallenge.org Getting feedback on your application is important; it will definitely improve your idea and increase the chances of your project moving forward in the contest.

The first thing you should do is draft your submission. Be as clear and concise as possible. Once you have the draft ready read it a few more times and edit it. Try to get rid of jargon and technical terms. Make it simple and to the point.

Once you feel ready for submission, let a few friends read your application. If they think everything is clear and do not have any questions you are ready to submit and receive public feedback.

(Public feedback only applies if you submit an open entry. We do not have a preference for open or closed entries, we evaluate entries in both categories the same way). Posting your application for public comment early will allow you to benefit from the wisdom of the crowd. You will be able to receive feedback and ideas that you can incorporate into your application. Or you will receive questions that will allow you to see in what parts of your submission you need more clarity.

Once your application is public you can also poke your social networks and ask everyone in them to give you feedback.

If you have questions please tweet them to #KNC, ping us @knightfdn @jczamora @jsb, or send us an e-mail at: newschallenge[at]knightfoundation[dot]org.

Here at Knight Foundation we have a healthy list of to-dos as we head towards the December 1 Knight News Challenge'application deadline. Luckily, the contest has generated a spirit of participation in the field and we don't have to do everything ourselves. Over the last few weeks, I've come across at least three (unofficial, non-Knight Foundation endorsed) attempts to help improve News Challenge'applications:

• Lisa Williams, a Knight News Challenge winner in 2007 for Placeblogger, is offering to review applications. She's holding ten appointment slots on November 22. (Warning: "if you make an appointment and don't show up....I will TWEET ABOUT IT.")
• Hacks/Hackers is a collaboration that kicked into gear this year with the help of 2007 Knight News Challenge winner Rich Gordon and Knight Foundation consultant Jenny 8. Lee, among many others. H/H 'has posted'an open Google Doc to match people with News Challenge ideas.
• Goodtree & co. scraped the application site and created a Word doc and a text document. One result, I hope, is that you can see how easy it is to fill out the application-- once you settle on an idea.
• Updated: 2010 Winner, Jeff Reifman (NewsCloud), created a public Google Docs News Challenge template to use as a scratch/working space for the longform answers of the 2010 Knight Foundation News Challenge. It's also a great way to prepare your answers if you're collaborating with other individuals. He uses Docs' Tools -> Word Count on selected answers to measure how much space an applicant has.

You can always reach out for some official Knight Foundation advice at NewsChallenge.org, @knightfdn on Twitter or to newschallenge[at]knightfoundation[dot]org.

I was recently reminded of the insights that grieving can provide us on the subject of hope. I was in Biloxi, Miss. last week to accept an award on behalf of Knight Foundation, which was being honored as Philanthropist of the Year by the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community Foundation.

It was a festive event, complete with Hawaiian leis and an Elvis impersonator. So I don't mean to suggest that anything somber was taking place. But Biloxi was nearly wiped off the map by Hurricane Katrina five years ago.

It killed people. It lifted barges out of the river and deposited them on top of inland buildings. It destroyed root systems for trees. It seemed very much like an act of an angry God.

Since joining foundation-land, I've learned that hurricanes like this or the floods in Grand Forks, S.D. or the economic collapse in Detroit, Mich. are called "mobilizing events." It's a very sanitized phrase to describe the sudden extinction of things once eternal and the disillusionment that seeps in in the aftermath of that knowledge.

The storm did change Biloxi forever, but because of the people, it did not destroy it. Our CEO Alberto Ibarügen has written about his visit to Biloxi at the urging of his friend Ricky Matthews, former publisher of the Sun Herald. His eyewitness experience of the combination of anguish and resolve is just one of the many ripples still reverberating in our hearts and minds today.

I don't mean for this entry to be a solemn one. 'But before I can share the hopeful thing, you must at least touch upon the inner struggle that human beings face in the wake of cataclysmic phrases like "post-Katrina" or even "great recession."

When Alberto recounted stories of children searching for their parents following the storm or people clearing their yard and sweeping their stoops, I heard a full range of ways that we *cling* to life after the storm. The storm is like a death and human beings respond by clinging to life.

Now, five years later Biloxi has new schools, homes, hotels, neighborhoods and casinos. They still get an influx of thousands of volunteers per year who are eager to participate in such a visible, phoenix-type experience.

Our former program director and current local advisor, Adele Lyons, drove me around town and I learned more about the history and diversity of Biloxi. The waterfront is gorgeous. The Ohr-O'Keefe Museum has rare and magnificent collections of Mississippi's world-acclaimed artists. And though he wasn't at the museum, the world should remember that Elvis was made in Mississippi as well.

So pause right here.

The story of Biloxi's continuing turnaround is so visibly impressive to an outsider like me that I wondered aloud to Adele and Denny Mecham (who runs the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum) and others at my table, "Why isn't someone doing heritage tourism here?"

You get this influx of thousands of volunteers who get to know something about the place already, I'm sure that they'd be willing to tell friends and family about the other attractions here. I've stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel and the Beau Rivage. For the price of a regular bed in Miami, you can get the baller's suite in Biloxi.

Plus taking a bus tour and hearing the stories of Katrina's devastation while you look upon new houses, new schools and new community centers is about as inspiring of an alternative vacation as any I can imagine.

They let me fantasize about this for a while and then one of the guests at our table confided.

"You know, when you're here, you don't see it the same," she sighed a little and looked into her memory as she spoke. "An outsider sees what we have, but we can still remember what we've lost."

And there it is. The lesson of Biloxi and Detroit and countless other places.

The people there are grieving their losses. They can remember fondly the way that it was and it will never be that way again. I don't blame them for remembering their love who is never coming back.

But I'd encourage all of us to honor that memory by looking forward. Retain your love of the place but build upon the new opportunities. Know your neighbors, get involved. Let new ways of thinking about this place become new ways of living in it.

That's not a lesson about Biloxi or Detroit. That's about love, loss and life itself.

Happy Thanksgiving to any and all who are determined to make it better.

When applying for a Knight News Challenge grant, don't think that you have to reinvent the wheel, says 2010 winner Jake Shapiro, CEO of Public Radio Exchange, or PRX.

Shapiro's tip: Look for code you can use or tailor to your needs.

Shapiro did just that. Building on software created by 2008 winner Spot.us, his project, Story Exchange, will allow anyone to pitch and help pay to produce a story for a local public radio station. The first pilot project will launch in Louisville. Read more about the project here.
Listen to more of Shapiro's tips here, or feel free to contact him at jake@prx.com.

The Knight News Challenge is a media innovation contest open to anyone, anywhere in the world. Applications are due Dec. 1 at newschallenge.org.

Jeff Reifman applied to the News Challenge numerous times - and lost. Doing so, though, put him in touch with Knight Foundation. He ultimately won two grants to test an open source Facebook application for news orgs called NewsCloud. Just yesterday, the Boston Globe launched a beta site using the app.

Jeff has some tips for News Challenge applicants about testing projects. It's good info, so have a look at his video below.

Also, if you have questions about the News Challenge, join us for a live chat at 1:30 p.m. EST today Thursday at newschallenge.org.

Earlier today, Knight Foundation released a report on key factors that promote college access and success.' The study, conducted by OMG Center for Collaborative Learning, took Philadelphia and Miami as case studies, and identifies opportunities for increasing college graduation rates.

With data from the National Student Clearinghouse, OMG demonstrated significant achievement gaps based on race, gender and the timing of college enrollment (directly from high-school vs. delayed enrollment). A Philadelphia Inquirer article about the report published this morning shines a spotlight on the daunting challenges facing the city, where only 10% of 9^th grade students can expect to ultimately graduate from college within six years, compared to the national average of 20%.

The report outlined a series of recommendations for school districts that include:

• Building a college-ready culture, particularly in neighborhoods with low enrollment rates;
• Promoting college enrollment directly after high-school graduation;
• Enhancing resources at the college-level to help students stay in school.

Ultimately, the report demonstrates the need to view college access and completion as an issue for all sectors. Improving education cannot be done by any one sector alone; from teachers and parents to civic and business leaders, it requires the entire community to get involved.

For the full report, see www.kflinks.com/college

If you're putting together your Knight News Challenge application, be sure to do research on what's already out there and recruit a good team to implement the project, says winner Retha Hill.

Hill, who won for a mobile app called SeedSpeak, offers her tips on putting together a winning News Challenge entry in his 1 minute video. Watch on, and don't miss the News Challenge live chat at 1:30 p.m. EST Thursday at NewsChallenge.org

Applications for the media innovation contest are due Dec. 1.

With just two weeks left until the News Challenge's deadline, Knight's John Bracken and Jose Zamora will answer your questions about the contest during a Thursday live chat.

Who can apply? What do we mean by those categories? And how much money is up for grabs anyway? Ask away, at' 1:30 p.m. EST, at www.newschallenge.org.

Before you do, check out this Q and A with Bracken about the challenge's four new categories: mobile, authenticity, sustainability and community.

Knight News Challenge 2011: A Q and A with John Bracken from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

As the Dec. 1 deadline for the Knight News Challenge approaches, we've asked past winners to offer their best application tips.

Here winner Aaron Presnall, who created a set of data visualization with challenge funds, offers three tips - including on how to - and how not to - focus your idea.

Knight News Challenge Tips from Aaron Presnall from Jefferson Institute on Vimeo.

If you have questions about the challenge, participate in a Live Chat at 1:30 p.m. EST this Thursday 'at NewsChallenge.org.

By Liz Herbert Joyner, Executive Director, The Village Square, Inc. 

The Village Square, a partnership with The Community Foundation of North Florida, seeks to foster civil civic dialog through live forums and Web platforms, including a wiki.

It was ten years ago last week that America woke up without a president-elect, in what was to become the 37 bizarre days of legal wrangling and political brinkmanship we know as the Florida Recount. To mark the anniversary, Knight Community Information Challenge project The Village Square brought together seven of the central players in the drama that riveted America in the most challenging transition of power in American’s history. The event received national press coverage.

Panelists included Florida Supreme Court Justices Jorge Labarga and retired Justice Harry Lee Anstead, Judge Nikki Ann Clark and Terry Lewis who both issued key rulings in the case, George W. Bush’s lead Florida counsel Barry Richard, Leon County Election Supervisor Ion Sancho who was responsible...

In the digital age, where one can easily connect with likeminded people half a world away, technology is redefining the concept of 'community.'

So at Knight Foundation, with its focus on community building, we wanted to ask: Does a sense of place really matter anymore?

As it turns out, place does matter greatly ' and could have an impact on the local economy.

A three-year Gallup study, funded by Knight, has found that people's love for their community may be a leading indicator for economic growth.

Also, the top three things that make people passionate about their community are not what you might think.

Jobs, the economy or even basic services didn't top the list.

Instead, the leading three factors are:

• a community's social offerings, or whether it has places where people can gather and meet;


• its openness, or how welcoming it is to many different types of people;


• and its physical beauty, or aesthetics.

We believe the findings from the Soul of the Community survey offer a fresh perspective on how to strengthen communities, and attract the kind of talented workers that cities need to thrive in the 21st century.

We hope that local leaders will use this information, to take steps to increase residents' passion for their city and to make them more engaged and involved.

In Miami, Charlotte and Detroit, leaders have already begun to implement the findings.

Visit our site, www.soulofthecommunity.org, and learn more about how increasing people's attachment to their community can strengthen cities and ensure a brighter future for all.

- Paula Ellis

Vice President/Strategic Initiatives

Knight Foundation

What makes us love where we live, and want to build a life and career there?

Find out the surprising answer, when Knight Foundation reveals the results of the Soul of the Community survey at 9 a.m. EST Monday during a live video conference at soulofthecommunity.org.

Conducted by Gallup, the survey explores what attaches people to their community.

We'll give you a hint. Surprisingly, jobs, the economy and basic services aren't among the top reasons why people are drawn to their cities.

Stay tuned, and be sure to watch Monday's live webcast at 9 a.m. EST at soulofthecommunity.org

Earlier this week I attended the International Center for Journalists' Awards dinner. The program had plenty of star power: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Washington Post columnist (and author of 'spy novels) David Ignatius won awards, Sen. Clinton sent a video greeting and ABC's Jonathan Karl served as the MC. For my part, however, the stars of the evening were'Tosca Santoso and Daniela Arbex, winners of Knight International Journalism Awards. The two reporters, Santoso of Jakarta, Indonesia and Daniela of Juiz de Fora,'Brazil, have a history of breaking important stories under difficult circumstances. Tosca founded KBR68H, Indonesia's first independent radio network in 1999. Daniela is a reporter for the Tribuna de Minas newspaper, where she has won two Esso awards and the'IPYS Award for Best Investigative Journalism in Latin America, for unveiling corruption in the construction industry in Minas Gerais.

I sat next to Tosca at dinner and, as Biz Stone accepted his ICFJ Innovation Award, asked him about the use of Twitter in Indonesia. According to ComScore, more than one-fifth of Indonesia's Internet users used Twitter in June, higher than any other country. Santoso pulled out his blackberry and showed me a Twitter stream focussed on the Mount Merapi eruption. As Biz sat back down, it was hard to remember what our common news experience was like before Twitter.

I'm in New York City for the inaugural 2010 High School News Literacy Summit, which'has brought'together 200 students from ten NYC public schools, along with'teachers, administrators, journalists and journalism educators from around the country.'Here, the approximately 300 people attending are participating in an all-day series of meetings, panel discussions and events aimed to raise the profile of news literacy education and to continue exploring what tools students and educators need to become better informed, more engaged'citizens.

The summit is hosted by'the Department of' Journalism and the Writing Professions at Baruch College, and is'supported by the McCormick Foundation, The Harnisch Foundation and Knight Foundation. Participating organizations include the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the Newseum, the New York Community Media Alliance, Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and Stony Brook University's Center for News Literacy.

The timing couldn't be more perfect, as the summit immediately follows the release of Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action. This is the second in a series of white papers focused on implementing recommendations of the Knight Commission's groundbreaking report,'Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age.

This'also follows the U.S. Department of Education's release of its own''National Education Technology Plan, which addresses the powerful role technology can play in learning the skills necessary to thrive in the digital age. At the same time, however, this report stresses that technology works best when paired with effective teaching.

We here at Knight Foundation couldn't agree more with this philosophy, which is why we are particularly interested in the intersection between digital and media literacy, especially in the creation of'digital tools that can accelerate the teaching of 21st century literacy skills not just in schools but throughout communities.

Video:Aspen Institute Roundtable on Digital and Media Literacy: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 More coverage on the release of Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan for Action: eSchool News: Knight report: Citizenship means creating content eSchool News: Ten steps for better media literacy skills EducationWeek: A Push for Digital and Media Literacy Personal Democracy Forum TechPresident: Citizenship Means Creating Content, According to a New Knight Report ResourceShelf: A New White Paper From the Knight Commission: Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action The World Bank's CommGap blog: Media Literacy in the Digital Age The Unquiet Librarian: Missing in Action: School Librarians and the Digital and Media Literacy Plan of Action

Who loves Random Acts of Culture?

You do! Knight Foundation's national initiative to bring the classics out of the performance halls and onto the streets has caught your eye ' to the tune of over 1 million YouTube hits, most notably for the Opera Company of Philadelphia's performance of Hallelujah (included below).

Here's a snippet of what Random Acts of Culture has meant to you. Want to contribute your voice? Add your comments below, and don't forget to check out other videos at RandomActsofCulture.org.

• Jon Evans: Five minutes of a taste of what Heaven may be! Tears and all ' awesome!


• Bib Willis: I am one who was not only moved to tears, but had goose pimples. I cannot believe that I once sang the soprano part regularly! I could reach those notes today as easily as I could reach and get green cheese from the moon.


• Pat: It was a long week ' and a friend sent the link to the Macy's Philly presentation and I found myself smiling and teary. What wonderful gift. Thank you and keep the positive experience of culture going!


• Ruth Seymour: Wow. I'm a teacher near Detroit who yesterday had a very bad classroom day. This morning, I happened to watch some Random Acts of Culture videos on YouTube, and suddenly found myself with the strength to reach for a stack of papers and start grading! I honestly care more about my students more than I did a short half-hour ago. THANK YOU!


• Adrienne Hart: Sheer delight, I wanted to forget my broken hip and dance, pure happiness.


• Lexander: Tears, tears. ' This is so touching ' to see' the culture is still alive in the U.S. ' especially in this kind of 'random acts''


• Barbara Kindon: What a WONDERFUL gift you have given to SO many ' the chance to experience a style of music that some of us had feared was gone, or available only to the elite ' I have watched several of the RAC YouTube clips and can tell you music eases pain ' as a person with MS I don't get out often ' thank you for bringing this joy to my desk!


• Jeff Gaydos: Tremendously joyful. You're all invited for dinner.


• Ron Owens: Though I have have sung it many times I was moved to tears. Kind of like a moment of light and hope in the midst of a lot of darkness and discouragement. Many thanks.


• Ruben: Simply, one of the best things I've seen in many years. Thank you, and keep doing it. If you manage to keep truth and beauty together, you are in for many years of gratifying surprises.


• Jerry: I can't sing a note, but I would have loved to have been there and been part of it. I think it would have been like being wrapped in a blanket of love!


• James Halligan: Fantastic ... Beautiful ... Dynamic ... this is what the world needs, something that can bring together, Not tear apart, Absolutely AWSOME!


• Kim: Yes, Phila, there is a Santa Claus!


• Amy Reardon: Thank you so much. I was deeply moved. Oh please, more of this in our world!


• Betsy: AMEN, AMEN, and AMEN!


• Michelle Miller: Tears of great joy!. I was singing right along with them all, and I'm so grateful this piece was an annual tradition for the choir of my high school.


• Stina: This video made me absurdly happy. Thank you all for doing this.


• 

When the Detroit International Jazz Festival opened last Labor Day, fans were treated to behind-the-scenes interviews and a red carpet special via the web.

A new website, DJF JazzPlanet, is helping the festival expand its reach globally, with a grant from Knight Foundation.

From the festival's blog:

DJF's Jazz Planet ' a streaming news magazine and music channel, featuring performances, news flashes, interviews and behind-the-scenes commentary from the 2010 Detroit International Jazz Festival ' was created to showcase Detroit as a significant center for jazz, provide a platform for artists to share their projects, and develop a mainstream audience for jazz and the festival through the internet.

The site puts the festival on the cutting edge of engaging new audiences, Dennis Scholl, Knight's vice president/arts said.

Now on the site, users can see festival highlights. In coming months, the festival will post new videos of jazz master classes, special interviews and more.

Photo: Flickr.com/photos/eric731/
Cross-posted from NewsChallenge.org

Several people over the last few days have asked me about the budget requirements of the Knight News Challenge, so I though I'd try to address it here.

The Knight News Challenge application asks three questions about money.

First, if you're applying as part of an organization, nonprofit or forprofit, we ask for your operating budget. This is background information for us: we don't evaluate your idea differently based on the size or existence of your organization.

Second, we ask for how much you're requesting from us and for the total cost of the project. Here we ask for a number-- not a line post budget. This requires some thinking on your part, obviously, and the answer can affect 'how your application is evaluated. If you're proposing to build a mobile crowd sourcing app for use across China and ask us for $5,000, we might arch an eyebrow. Likewise,we may look askance at your application if you ask for an amount that sounds inflated for the project you describe.

Last year'Jose Zamora had three tips for composing a budget that still apply this year:

1. Do your'research

2. Develop an accurate budget

3. Be'reasonable

Third, these budget numbers are not written stone: if you're idea makes it to the second round, we'll ask you to tell us more details about the project, including the budget. You'll be able to rethink the scope, breadth and costs of your project at that time.

I hope that helps-- feel free to ask any questions in the comment section-- and or join us November 18, 2010 at 1:30 Eastern, for a Q&A chat about the Knight News Challenge application process.

Photo: Flickr.com/photos/hufse/
I've been regularly posting tips for the Knight News Challenge at NewsChallenge.org. Here's an excerpt from my latest:

Successful Knight News Challenge applicants must make sure their project:

1. Is Digital ' Your idea uses digital technology (computers, the Web, mobile technology, that sort of thing) in an innovative'way.

2. Delivers News/information ' Your idea is about giving people access to what they want to'know.

3. Their idea falls into one of the four'categories:

• Mobile: 'Seeks projects that use mobile devices to produce, deliver, consume, share and otherwise engage with news. The category reflects the fact that the mobile phone, with 5 billion units in use, has become an important tool for'news.
• Authenticity category: Looks for projects that help people better understand the reliability of news and information sources. We're hoping to identify promising ideas for helping citizens negotiate our oft-chaotic media world. How can we help news users better evaluate the validity and trustworthiness of news and information? How can we better filter and assess the credibility of what we read and'watch?
• Sustainability: Considers new economic models supporting news and information. New ways of conducting and consuming journalism may require new ways of paying for it. We're open to ideas for generating revenue as well as ways to reduce'costs.
• Community: Seeks groundbreaking technologies that support news and information specifically within defined geographic areas. This is designed to jump-start work on technologies and approaches that haven't arrived yet. Unlike the first three categories, submissions in this area must be tested in a geographically designated'community.

 

Read the rest of the entry at NewsChallenge.org >>

Earlier today, the'Aspen Institute and'Knight Foundation released the second in a series of white papers focused on implementing recommendations of the Knight Commission's groundbreaking report,'Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age.

Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action proposes a detailed plan that positions digital and media literacy as an essential life skill. It outlines steps that policymakers, educators and community advocates can take to help Americans obtain that skill ' and thrive in the digital age.

The Knight Commission's'recommendation is to integrate'digital and media literacy'at all levels of education, and for'public libraries and other community institutions to become'additional centers of digital and media training. One way Knight Foundation staff think this could happen is through the'creation of digital tools that can accelerate the teaching of 21st century literacy skills not just in schools but throughout communities.

The paper was written by'Renee Hobbs, professor at the'School of Communications and the'College of Education at'Temple University and founder of its'Media Education Lab,

The first white paper, Universal Broadband: Targeting Investments to Deliver Broadband Services to All Americans, by Blair Levin,'the lead author of the FCC's National Broadband Plan,'was released'earlier this year'to mark the one-year anniversary of the Knight Commission report. It outlined a'detailed, sensible plan for deploying broadband networks to 99%'of the U.S. population in 10 years ' without requiring any additional federal funding. The plan's release comes as the federal government prepares to announce the final stimulus grants for broadband expansion.

Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action

Photo: Flickr.com/photos/opensourceway Cross-posted from NewsChallenge.org

The Knight News Challenge has required open-source software from its inception. All projects developed through Knight News Challenge grants have either already released open-source software or will release open-source software by the end of the grant period.

The Open Source Initiative explains this type of software. In contrast to proprietary software, anyone who follows the licensing rules can download, use, modify, transform, improve or share this free, open source software.

Since the Knight News Challenge is a giant research and development project, hoping to accelerate media innovation, using open source made sense, because once the base code is released, any organization, business or individual can use it.

If you are a winner of this contest, you'll still own the copyright on your intellectual property, including your software. But you will need to share the software you develop under a GPL license and any documents, manuals or instructions under Creative Commons licensing.

(We will consider requests in writing for licenses other than GPL, but the applicant must be able to demonstrate that the project simply can't be done using GPL, and also that it has charitable impacts at least equal to those from releasing the code free under GPL.)

For-profit companies have always been able to participate in the Knight News Challenge, so long as they observe the open source requirement. There are two types of awards for businesses, grants and Program Related Investments. If a grant is made to a business, both the initial and future releases of the code need to be open source.' If a PRI is made, only the initial release must be open source, and future versions can be licensed in different ways -- but Knight's investment is not a grant but a no-interest loan.

For-profit winners in 2010 include companies building a product from scratch (such as NowSpots real-time ads), creating or rebuilding an open-source version of existing software (Front Porch Forum's local community platform), funding continued product development (Stroome's collaborative video editing software) and continuing existing open-source work (Stamen Design and'DevelopmentSeed).

Though the software developed with Knight grant funds is open source, applicants can still develop ways of linking up with third-party platforms such as Twitter. Knight Foundation grantee NewsCloud, for example, uses Facebook.

We do understand that using proprietary software can get tricky. Feel free to send specific questions about this via twitter using #KNC, @knightfdn @jczamora and @jsb or send us an e-mail at: newschallenge[at]knightfoundation[dot]org. Knight Foundation continually reviews and improves its contest process.

Photo: John Keefe Cross-posted from NewsChallenge.org

As more than 45,000 were preparing for the New York City marathon this weekend, a different kind of marathon was happening in the city.

Journalists, designers and developers gathered for the inaugural Great Urban Hack, a two-day, overnight event hosted by Hacks/Hackers NYC and Eyebeam Art + Technology Center to design, report on, code and create projects that help New Yorkers get information they need while strengthening a sense of community.

Developers, outreach staff and a local comedian came on Saturday to help and encourage participants. More than a dozen projects were conceived of and produced in about 30 hours, including mobile and mapping projects, such as a community map of the greater Harlem area, one that will be accessible by mobile phone: Use the camera to pinpoint your location in the neighborhood and learn about the art and the news conveyed through art in the area.

There were games and utilities, such as Who's My Landlord, which is designed to help New Yorkers learn who really owns the property they're renting.

And there were data visualizations, including analysis of taxi ride data and roach infestations, as reported in the city's weekly restaurant inspection.

The code for each of these projects will be released as open source, so anyone interested in using and improving on the projects can do so. Links, photos and details will be posted on the Hacks/Hackers website. One of the participants live blogged the event. There are photos posted to the Hacks/Hackers NYC meetup event page.

The Great Urban Hack NYC was made possible by generous sponsorship from Google, the Knight News Challenge, WNYC, Aol, Patch and Meraki.

Chrys Wu, co-organizer of Hacks/Hackers, is both a hack (journalist) and a hacker (developer). When she's not meeting, greeting and connecting journalists and technologists, she is a user engagement strategist and a consultant to the Knight News Challenge. Talk with her on Twitter @MacDivaONA.

Emilio Estefan is helping the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) launch its "Lend Your Voice to the Voiceless" contest, to raise awareness of crimes against journalists in the Americas.

Anyone can post videos, songs or lyrics to www.donatuvoz.com as part of the six-month contest. The site has already received videos from artists from Mexico, Brazil and Colombia and the United States. The winning entries will be professionally recorded.

Knight Foundation supports the group's Impunity Project, which strives to combat violence against journalists in the Americas. So far this year, 28 journalists have been killed in the Americas - 10 alone in Mexico.

Cross-posted from newschallenge.org.

Still sorting through the News Challenge categories? Knight Foundation's John Bracken lends insight into them in this video Q and A. If you still have questions, we hope you'll join us for a live chat about the challenge at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 18. See you then.

Here is the description of the 4 Knight News Challenge categories from the application page >>.

We are looking for projects that address the following:

Mobile: Seeks projects that use mobile devices to produce, deliver, consume, share and otherwise engage with news. The category reflects the fact that the mobile phone, with 5 billion units in use, has become an important tool for news.

Authenticity: Looks for projects that help people better understand the reliability of news and information sources. We're hoping to identify promising ideas for helping citizens negotiate our oft-chaotic media world. How can we help news users better evaluate the validity and trustworthiness of news and information? How can we better filter and assess the credibility of what we read and watch?

Sustainability: Considers new economic models supporting news and information. New ways of conducting and consuming journalism may require new ways of paying for it. We're open to ideas for generating revenue as well as ways to reduce costs.

Community: Seeks groundbreaking technologies that support news and information specifically within defined geographic areas. This is designed to jump-start work on technologies and approaches that haven't arrived yet. Unlike the first three categories, submissions in this area must be tested in a geographically designated community.

Five years ago, the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum in Biloxi was on a roll. Star architect Frank Gehry had agreed to design the campus, and it was just 11 months away from opening.

Then an unwanted visitor showed up: A casino barge, flung loose by Hurricane Katrina, landed atop a building. The facility was in shambles.

Much like the community that surrounds it, the museum fought for a comeback. This weekend, the East Biloxi museum honoring potter George Ohr opens three of its five buildings to the public.

And Knight Foundation announced it will help complete the most significant structure, the gallery that exhibits Ohr's work. The building, made up of four 'pods' mirroring the twisted shape of Ohr's sculpture, will be named the John S. and James L. Knight Gallery.

From Bilbao to Los Angeles, Gehry's work has shown time and again the power of architecture to transform communities. The museum, bound to become a cultural draw for Mississippi, should be no exception.

As Knight Foundation's Dennis Scholl said as he made the announcement in Biloxi Thursday night: "The museum is the new benchmark for how to engage an audience on their own terms, allowing them to curate their own experience. Visitors to the Ohr-O'Keefe can choose to visit only the ceramics studio, and take a ceramics class. Or to come and visit the latest exhibit on Japanese pottery. Either way, it's up to the visitor to choose, a new and evolving idea."

It's a fitting tribute to George Ohr, a free spirit who called himself the Mad Potter of Biloxi. He dug his own clay from the Tchoutacabouffa River, is known for the paper-thin walls in his work, and having a great influence on 20th and 21st century American pottery.

He also had a sense of his value to the art world ' which he didn't keep secret, the Sun Herald reported.

'Someday, they will build a temple in my honor,' the paper said he told folks.

Fast Company has named Knight News Challenge Winner Jessica Mayberry as an 'Innovation Agent' for her project Video Volunteers, which trains people in rural India to tell their community's stories through video. So far, the project has trained 150 community producers. From the story:

Founded in 2003, well before hyperlocal news became a buzzword as the pillars of traditional media crumbled, Video Volunteers took aim at the widening gap between rich and poor caused by technology in developing nations. By putting cameras in the hands of denizens of India's poorest villages and slums, Mayberry believes she's started a global communications revolution. "Our goal is to have at least one community producer in each of the 625 districts in India," says Mayberry, likening Video Volunteers to a "grassroots Reuters news agency." But her vision goes beyond just producing a news feed from a place few international journalists claim as their territory. "With training, these videographers can go into the stringer system for any news organization," she says, "they can earn a living."

Check out one of the project's videos, produced by a young woman from a poor farming family who has used a microloan to buy a computer for editing.

The Knight News Challenge is accepting applications through Dec. 1. Find out more at newschallenge.org.

Random Acts of Culture will begin to appear in Akron soon, the Akron Beacon Journal reported today:

"When you're out shopping in the weeks to come, do not be surprised if you run into a random act of culture. A dance performance may spring up in front of you. A string ensemble may appear, or a gospel chorus. Then, after a brief performance, they will be gone, ready to commit another random act elsewhere."

 

The events, organized by the Akron Symphony, 'will be some of the 1,000 Random Acts Knight Foundation is funding in Akron and seven other cities over three years. One last weekend in Philadelphia - where 650 singers burst into Handel's Hallelujah Chorus - surprised shoppers.

 

Be on the lookout for great little performances in places you'd least expect, and get ready to be blown away by Akron arts organizations.

The biggest Random Act of Culture yet took place in Philadelphia Saturday - with more than 650 singers bursting into Hallelujah from Handel's Messiah in the middle of a downtown Macy's. The world's largest pipe organ - with 28,000 pipes - accompanied them.

I could go on, but the video tells the whole story. You can't watch it and not be moved. Some viewers were moved to tears. It's a great reminder of how important the classical arts are to our lives.

Thanks to Knight Foundation's partner, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, for pulling the event off.

Knight Foundation is funding 1,000 Random Acts of Culture over the next three years. So if you live in any of these eight cities - Akron, Charlotte, Detroit, Macon, Philadelphia, San Jose, St. Paul and Miami - be on the lookout and have your cellphones ready.

The Knight-funded Wesleyan Media Project has been getting a lot of press for its real-time analysis of all broadcast advertisements aired by or on behalf of federal and state election candidates this election season.

Today, the project announced that this year's campaign was the most negative in history. From the release:

Citizens are seeing many more ads this year, but it is no longer simply the number of ads on the air that are making this campaign feel more negative. More than half of all ads are pure attack ads, and if we include contrast spots, roughly 2 out of every 3 ads on the air are negative.' said Erika Franklin Fowler, assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project.

Wesleyan University launched the non-partisan project in order to track and make publicly available information about who is spending how much to influence the mid-term election. The project tracks which candidates are benefiting from what has been record-breaking spending in 2010, in the wake of the January 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed unlimited campaign spending by corporations.

The results of the project have been cited in local and national media throughout this election cycle. Among the citations:

• Politico detailed the project's findings, noting that the project found a 75 percent increase in advertising spending in a crucial few weeks at the end of the election cycle.


• CBS News.com noted the project found that conservative interest groups outspent their Democratic competitors 10 to one during that five-week period.


• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel highlighted research by the project showing Wisconsin's governor's race in the top three nationwide in terms of dollars spent.


• Bloomberg Businessweek referred to the project's analysis of the Connecticut race for Senate that found that candidate Linda McMahon had personally paid for 70 percent of the ads in that race for Sen. Chris Dodd's seat.

The project uses data collected by Kantar Media/CMAG, a commercial firm that tracks advertising for corporate and political clients. Project staff then codes the data, researching who placed the ad and distinguishing between ads paid for by specific candidate campaigns and those funded by special interest groups and soft money campaigns. The project also analyzes the content of the ads.

The Wesleyan Media Project is the successor to the Wisconsin Advertising Project, which disbanded in 2009. It is directed by Erika Franklin Fowler, assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University and collaborators Michael M. Franz, associate professor of government at Bowdoin College and Travis N. Ridout, associate professor of political science at Washington State University.

Attendees of last week's Online News Association are home by now, having successfully exited downtown DC, along with thousands of Rally for Sanity and/or Fear visitors. (A few stalwarts stayed over for'Hacks and Hackers DC at NPR.)'Craig Silverman, at'Media Shift, and Mallary Jean Tanore, at Poynter,'posted thorough summaries of the conference; 'here are some thoughts on what 'I saw and heard over the last few days

I noticed on Thursday that the'National Post was the conference's Foursquare mayor (the Canadian org was later eclipsed by Howard F.) We may not have settled on any Foursquare mores yet, but it seems odd to see a company claiming a mayorship. I mentioned this to the National Post's'Ron Nurwisah at the ONA reception at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (which, to my dismay,'has a new mayor itself). Ron pointed out that the Post uses Foursquare to leave news-relevant tips-- not spam. I also spoke with some TBD folks about who reminded me of'TBD's use of Foursquare to cover the Discovery shooting earlier this fall.'These location-based news chats made me think of Dan O'Neil's post from this August, On Foursquare, Facebook Places, Accountability, and Alcoholics Anonymous. ("Let's start looking each other in the eye more often, and tell each other where we've been. I'm certain we'll feel more empowered. Who knows-- we may even feel like'demanding accountability all over the place.") They also made me eager to see what ideas flow into the Knight News Challenge's Mobile category.

Two other aspects of ONA left me looking forward to December, when we get to dive into the News Challenge applications. Like Jay Rosen, I was excited by conversations I had with younger folks. I was also encouraged by the presence of so many people who traveled across borders to participate in the conference--'Rufus Pollock, Aine McGuire of Scraper Wiki, London-based Kevin Anderson, and a crew of Canadians, including Silverman,'Nurwisah, and Kim Fox of the CBC.'I 'also met'Rosental Alves, and'Adriano Farano introduced me to his Online Journalism Award-winning colleagues at Owni. We're hoping to see lots of News Challenge applications from young people and from outside of the US. Or both!

The Online Journalism Awards closed the conference. Special congratulations to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, which won the Knight Award for Public Service for its report,'Flipping Fraud, and to NPR, for winning three awards, including the inaugural Rich Jaroslovsky Award, picked up by NPR digital head Kinsey Wilson. (That brought NPR's total number of awards won on Saturday to four.)

A reminder: you can follow conversations about the Knight News Challenge on Twitter, via @knightfdn and through #knc.

The John S. Knight Professional Journalism Fellowship Fund was created in 1982 with a grant to Stanford University.' Originally, the opportunity was to provide training to mid-career journalists.'It made perfect sense at the time. Daily newspaper newsrooms were growing'across America. New coverage "beats" were being born. Journalists needed new knowledge.

Today, the'opportunities'in journalism are even greater, stretching'beyond the stories themselves to the context in which they are created and distributed. And in'recent years the Stanford'program retooled to prepare journalists for the circumstances of the digital age, assisted by a Knight Foundation grant to emphasize innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership.

The 2010 John S. Knight Fellows have created smart phone apps, researched data visualization tools, experimented with location-based journalism tools, and one is seeking funding for a China-focused online news project.

One of the 2010 fellows was Teru Kuwayama.' Teru created the project One-Eight which uses an online journal to chronicle the events of a military battalion by connecting the personnel, their families and other stakeholders and share information through their online social network.' The new portal is set to launch'Nov. 11.

Teru was one of the first fellows with this new entrepreneurial and digital emphasis, and said his project was an outgrowth of his year at Stanford.' He became a 2010 Knight News Challenge Winner, with a grant of $202,000 to work on his project.' Incidentally, the 2011 News Challenge is open for entries ' submissions are due by Dec. 1.

Check out the new batch of' 2011 John S. Knight Fellows'at Stanford.

Good Magazine has included Knight Foundation in its list of "30 places we want to work."

Knight made the cut for existing "at the intersection of creativity and impact" and for "caring as much about the planet and people" as about "efficacy."

Needless to say, we're proud. And yes, Knight is a great place to work.

Incidentally, Knight Foundation is seeking a new program director in Detroit. Please point anyone who might be interested to our employment page.