Renaissance Journalism has awarded a total of $50,000 in grants to five Bay Area news organizations to implement strategies for raising awareness and increasing participation in the upcoming 2020 Census among hard-to-count groups.
The grants are part of Renaissance Journalism’s initiative, “Census 2020: “Everyone Counts” Reporting Project. They are aimed at supporting innovative, collaborative and community-focused reporting projects that target groups who have historically been undercounted by the census, such as immigrants, non-English speakers and children.
Renaissance Journalism received a nice holiday surprise from Sisa-IN, a South Korean investigative reporting magazine, which featured our work in a story and video as part of a series about nonprofit journalism in the United States. In my conversation with the visiting Sisa-IN team, I noted that Renaissance Journalism and the others benefit from the presence of a strong philanthropic community, which South Korea lacks.
And, it’s not just the money. We benefit when philanthropic leaders share their thinking and ideas and their networks of leaders and groups. We feel affirmed when funders embrace our vision that journalism is a powerful mechanism for advancing social justice. We are inspired by what we learn at the Knight Media Forum and the Media Impact Funders conferences; we grow from The Whitman Institute’s thoughtful conversations about trust-based philanthropy; we are grateful for the Ford Foundation’s leadership on media and equity; and we gain new insights and partners at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s convenings.
Renaissance Journalism has awarded a $10,000 grant for a study to determine whether the formation of a business cooperative can help some Bay Area news outlets succeed in today’s fierce media marketplace. If the findings are positive, the study could lead to the creation of the Northern California Media Cooperative, a shared-services cooperative organization that would support member news organizations.
