MIAMI – The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is accepting applications from community and place-based foundations seeking to fund news and information projects. The deadline for the Knight Community Information Challenge, a matching-grant program, is March 7.
Applications can be submitted at www.informationneeds.org.
The contest encourages foundations to find creative ways to fund media projects that inform and engage residents.
The Challenge also offers a unique opportunity for foundations to increase their leadership and visibility. For example, in Park City, Utah, a relatively new community foundation used Challenge funds to create a website where residents exchange information on lowering their carbon footprint. As a result, the foundation formed new partnerships with City Hall and other local leaders, and enhanced its role in conversations on important issues.
“It was a homerun for us,” Tricia Worthington, executive director of the Park City Foundation, said in a new video on the Challenge’s impact. “A lot of people know who we are now, and that wouldn’t have happened if we had not participated in the Challenge.”
Park City’s story and two others are chronicled in a new report, “Opportunities for Foundation Leadership: Meeting Community Information Needs,” available now at www.informationneeds.org/leadership.
“These foundations are setting out to inform and engage – and in the process have transformed their own institutions’ role in their community,” said Trabian Shorters, Knight Foundation’s vice president for communities. “As more foundations help meet their communities’ information needs, we can only expect the sector will strengthen.”
Community or place-based foundations with questions about the Challenge can participate in a live chat and have queries answered online by Knight Foundation program officers. The live chat will take place at 4 p.m. EST Feb. 10. at www.informationneeds.org.
Knight Foundation also provides free consultants called Circuit Riders to help community and place-based foundations identify the opportunities and technology that could benefit their communities. In addition, Knight will host the fourth Media Learning Seminar on Feb. 28–March 1 in Miami. The seminar aims to educate foundation leaders about media trends and the information needs of communities in a democracy. Registration for the seminar is open through Feb. 10. To apply, to learn more about the challenge or to register for the Media Learning Seminar, visit www.informationneeds.org.
The Challenge, which has so far awarded $14 million for 66 projects, is part of Knight’s Media Innovation Initiative. Recipients of the initiative’s funding are projects to explore national media reform, increase broadband access and transform journalism education, among others.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation advances journalism in the digital age and invests in the vitality of communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Knight Foundation focuses on projects that promote informed and engaged communities and lead to transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org. More on the challenge at www.informationneeds.org.
Contact: Marc Fest, Knight Foundation, 305-908-2677; [email protected]