Independence Public Media Foundation Announces $3.8 Million in Multi-Year Support
PHILADELPHIA, July 30, 2024—The Independence Public Media Foundation (IPMF) announces $3.8 million in grant renewals—all one-year unless otherwise stated—to 40 organizations and projects aligned with the foundation’s mission, vision, and program areas. These grants include $3 million for Community Storytelling, $300,000 for Narrative Shift for Movement Building, and $370,000 for Internet for All.
This grant cycle provides ongoing multi-year general operation and project support to IPMF grantees aligned with the foundation’s strategic vision for a local media ecosystem fueled by historically marginalized and oppressed communities who produce and distribute their own media narratives for liberation, joy, memory, and accountability.
“Staff and board have consistently renewed these grants over the past three years because we understand that providing multi-year support is critical for the long-term stability and sustainability of our grantee-partners and enables them to make a deep and lasting impact in our communities,” said IPMF Program Officer Nuala Cabral.
This group of grants also includes a funder partnership with the Lenfest Institute for Journalism to support the Philadelphia Media Founder's Exchange (PMFE). IPMF contributed $150,000 toward another year of PMFE, an accelerator program supporting BIPOC media entrepreneurs through training, one-on-one coaching, and grantmaking.
Below is a full listing of the grants:
Community Storytelling
¡Presente! Media Collective
$81,000
For support of local Latine creatives amplifying the stories of immigrants and people of color across Greater Philadelphia.
2Puntos Platform
$100,000
For operating support for 2Puntos Platform, which focuses on strengthening information exchange within and with Philadelphia's Latin American and Caribbean communities with an emphasis on women, and strengthening their community-run, Latina newsroom.
Afro-American Historical Society of Delaware (WHGE-95.3 FM)
$75,000
For continued general operating support of WHGE-LP, Delaware's first and only Black-owned radio station.
Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture
$100,000
To support Al-Bustan News Service, which covers the cultural life of Greater Philadelphia’s Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) communities.
Asian Arts Initiative
$50,000
To support community storytelling at Asian Art Initiative’s digital broadcast studio.
Big Picture Alliance
$150,000
To support the general operations of Big Picture Alliance, which works to empower Philadelphia youth to define their own narrative through filmmaking & digital media arts.
Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University
$75,000
For the South Jersey Information Equity Project, which addresses media inequity in South Jersey by connecting Black media-makers to the resources and platform partners to elevate their work.
Centro de Cultura, Arte, Trabajo y Educación (CCATE)
$120,000
To expand REVARTE Media which includes launching Radio REVARTE, the first community and educational radio station for Montgomery County’s Latino and immigrant communities.
cinéSPEAK
$125,000
To support Philadelphia-based cinema spaces and increased access to stories of individuals and communities underrepresented in mainstream cinema.
Comité de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas (CATA)
$50,000
For support of CATA radio station, which seeks to empower farmworkers and immigrant workers to fight for their rights.
Communitas Arts + Culture, LLC
$70,000
For continued support of Drag Arts Oral History Project, an archive of oral histories of Philadelphia area drag artists.
Cultural Justice Project
$40,000
To support community-centered multimedia that highlights arts and culture work for social change by Latine/Black communities in the Greater Philadelphia region.
G-town Radio (WGGT-LP 92.9 FM)
$75,000
For general operating support for G-Town Radio as it provides community-centered programming in Northwest Philadelphia.
Impacto Media
$25,000
To increase community voices and civic engagement on issues of local importance through Impacto, a Spanish-language community newspaper.
Institute for the Development of Education in the Arts (IDEA)
$60,000
To increase skills training for careers in media and continue developing IDEA’s Camden Community Voices Media program, a local news program with podcasts, bi-monthly zines and a vlog.
Local Journalism Initiative of Delaware (Spotlight Delaware)
$30,000
To strengthen Delaware's local news and information ecosystem.
Love Now Media
$100,000
To support the general operations of Love Now Media, which uses community storytelling to create a more just, well, and equitable future by amplifying acts of love at the intersection of social justice, wellness, and equity.
Olney Culture Lab
$35,500
For continued production of the Audio Olney podcast series which amplifies the diverse community voices of Philadelphia's Olney neighborhood and counters the negativity typically portrayed by traditional media outlets.
Paul Robeson House / West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance
$140,000 (two-year grant)
To support general operations of Paul Robeson House & Museum with a two-year grant aimed at preserving the legacy of the organization and neighborhood through archives, and making these records accessible as a resource and training tool.
Philadelphia Youth Media Collaborative
$35,000
To support and strengthen the collaboration of member organizations focused on expanding youth media.
PhillyCAM
$375,000
To support general operations of PhillyCAM, a community media center committed to teaching, creating, and distributing locally-produced media content on cable, FM radio and online. $325,000 supports the general operations of PhillyCAM, including its media education programs and community engagement, and $50,000 supports PhillyCAM's radio news program, "Block by Block."
Resolve Philly
$150,000
To support Germantown Info Hub's community-centered journalism and community-building work in Germantown and plan for how this work informs Resolve Philly's future hyperlocal community journalism.
Scribe Video Center
$30,000
To support film projects led by promising local student filmmakers enrolled in higher education or affiliated with a media education organization through a regranting program.
SIFTMedia 215
$200,000
To support the general operations of SIFTMedia, a collective of independent media artists in the Philadelphia metropolitan area to champion socially conscious women-identified filmmakers, particularly from Black and Latinx communities.
South Asian American Digital Archive
$75,000
To support the general operations of the South Asian Digital Archive, which focuses on the South Asian American community through oral history programs, archival collecting fellowships and educational workshops.
Spiral Q
$100,000
To support the general operations of Spiral Q which unleashes the power of community storytelling to connect people, actions, values, neighborhoods, organizations, and movements to each other and to their collective creative force for change.
Taller Puertorriqueño
$70,000
To increase access to Taller Puertorriqueño’s Eugenio María de Hostos Archives and establish connections between island and Puerto Rican diaspora audiences through public programs and multimedia productions.
Uptown Entertainment Development Corporation (WJYN 98.5 FM)
$75,000
To support general operations of WJYN, a community radio station providing access to broadcast media to the North Philadelphia community.
We Are the Seeds
$80,000
To complete Season 4 of the Native-led podcast "From Here with a View," and strategize the development of Season 5.
The Welcome Project PA
$100,000
To create a new documentary film and video series that will train medical professionals to raise awareness, educate and offer solutions to health disparities facing trans, nonbinary, and intersex people.
Youth Set the Stage
$85,000
To build a strong network of organizations working in youth media throughout Philadelphia and provide young media makers with professional development opportunities.
Internet for All
Digital Literacy Alliance
$120,000
To support Digital Literacy Alliance's new round of grantmaking, focused on innovative community engagement practices that address digital inclusion through resident volunteers, peer leadership, and/or community ambassador models.
Philly Community Wireless
$175,000
To support the general operations of Philly Community Wireless working to grow community-controlled internet infrastructures and offer an alternative model for bridging the digital divide in Philadelphia.
Technology Learning Collaborative
$75,000
To strengthen Philadelphia’s digital equity community through capacity building, professional development, collaboration, and advocacy.
Narrative Shift for Movement Building
Amistad Law Project
$100,000
To create two mini-documentaries highlighting mobile crisis units and the commutation process and help craft narratives of people who are serving death by incarceration, commonly known as lifetime sentences.
Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting
$100,000
To support the Credible Messenger Reporting Project, which trains people impacted by gun violence to report on root causes, lived experiences, and possible solutions from the community perspective.
Making Worlds Bookstore and Social Center
$100,000
To continue building community media infrastructure for political education, mobilization, and narrative power in Philadelphia.
Field Building Support
Philanthropy Network
$50,000
To support Philanthropy Networks leadership transition and general operations.
Securing the Roots
$50,000 (two-year grant)
To support Securing the Roots, a fellowship program to expand the fundraising capacity for community-based organizations with budgets up to $1 million.
Funder Partnerships
The Lenfest Institute
$150,000
For continued support of the Philadelphia Media Founders Exchange (PMFE), a community-grounded accelerator program that supports BIPOC media entrepreneurs.
Contact Enni Aigbomian for more information, enni@independencemedia.org
Photo Credit: Naomieh Jovin for cinéSPEAK
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About Independence Public Media Foundation
Formerly known as WYBE Channel 35, Independence Public Media Foundation was founded in 2018 when WYBE sold its broadcast license as part of the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadcast Incentive Auction and received a one-time payment of $131.5 million. With these funds, IPMF supports community-owned and -led media and internet projects in the Greater Philadelphia area. The foundation envisions a local media landscape that truly reflects the diverse and complex lived experiences of its residents by moving resources to communities historically harmed by systems of oppression and media erasure.
