Focus Areas
Media Training
Archives
Youth
Representation in Media
Community-Centered Journalism
Media Policy

Broadcast, digital, and print journalism that accurately reflects the lived experience of communities of color can lead to increased civic engagement (e.g. voter turnout, everyday people running for office), minimize divisive narratives that foster polarization, and provide live-saving resources that build up our communities. Major news organizations’ newsrooms, in Philadelphia and beyond, are primarily led by and staffed with white journalists, with a disproportionate number of them from elite universities. 

These media organizations, because of their lack of diversity, select and report stories that do not reflect or dignify the lived experiences of communities of color. This creates a series of problems for the newsrooms and their communities such as perpetuating harmful stereotypes, loss of trust, an unwillingness to pay for the news which weakens the news business, and communities disengaging from civic life. 

IPMF imagines nuanced and solutions-oriented journalistic coverage that leads to improved policy making, reduced harm to communities of color, and fosters meaningful civic dialogue. The Journalism program aims to build resilient systems for communicating and sharing information by supporting the training of diverse newsroom leadership, community-connected news and information, and journalism that addresses systemic inequities and systems that need to change.

What We Support

    Projects

    $150,000 - Awarded October 2020

    Focus areas
    Community-Centered Journalism
    Description

    To support Votebeat, a pop-up nonprofit newsroom covering local election administration and voting in eight states, created by Chalkbeat.

    $10,000 - Awarded July 2020

    Focus areas
    Community-Centered Journalism
    Description

    PlanPhilly provides in-depth reporting on Philadelphia neighborhoods with a focus on urban design & planning, transportation & development.

    The 2020 Community Voices grant will support a pilot project with PlanPhilly and WHYY Media Labs that will create a model for area newsrooms to integrate anti-racist journalism practices into local public school journalism curriculum and local newsrooms and amplify youth voice while strengthening and diversifying a talent pipeline that for too long been dominated by white students from elite institutions.

    $100,000 - Awarded July 2020

    Focus areas
    Community-Centered Journalism
    Description

    The 2020 Community Voices grant will support the restructuring and expansion of the Kensington Voice staff to better serve underrepresented and vulnerable people, improve news and information accessibility, increase audience and community engagement, highlight and encourage neighborhood resilience, and develop a team of BIPOC journalists.

    $28,000 - Awarded July 2020

    Focus areas
    Community-Centered Journalism
    Description

    The 2020 Community Voices grant will support a pilot of a Credible Messenger Journalists program for individuals from communities impacted by gun violence to tell stories related to the experience of living with gun violence as well as identifying root causes and evidence-based solutions.

    $50,000 - Awarded July 2020

    Focus areas
    Community-Centered Journalism
    Description

    The 2020 Community Voices grant will support a information equity and community-driven storytelling project that will work in partnership with local journalists, media-makers, and residents in Camden to deepen community-newsroom relationships, equip residents with tools and platforms to share their experiences, and develop new strategies that address structural information inequities worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Stay in Touch

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