Community Storytelling

Focus Areas
Film
Media Training
Immigrant Voices
Archives
Representation in Media
Community-Centered Journalism
Media Policy
Movement Media
BIPOC Stories
Collaborative Audio
Community Radio
LGBTQIA+

The Greater Philadelphia region is a hub for BIPOC-led grassroots media groups and projects with deep roots in the communities they serve. At the same time, they have to go through hoops to gain access to resources that would help them grow and strengthen their organizations, support the important role they play in their communities, and give them equal footing with white-led/mainstream media organizations.

IPMF believes that storytelling builds and strengthens community resilience and brings ideas to life. Through the Community Storytelling program, the foundation supports storytelling that centers, preserves, and highlights the complex experiences of diverse and marginalized communities through a lens of care and compassion. The program supports:

  • Projects or organizations that aim to increase the representation and visibility of storytelling by communities harmed by systems of oppression and media erasure. 
  • Independent filmmaking by emerging and professional storytellers to tell their own stories and share it with a wider audience. 
  • Community radio networks and collaborative audio storytelling that report, discuss, connect, and distribute news and stories important to neighborhoods in the region. 
  • New and existing archives, community history projects, and BIPOC stories that help communities deepen their connections, reclaim narratives, and build power. 
  • Projects or organizations that aim to increase local audience engagement with independent filmmaking, community storytelling and archives.

Examples of this work include:

  • BlackStar Philadelphia Filmmaker Lab, a fellowship designed to support emerging Black, Brown, and Indigenous filmmakers. 
  • Presente Media, a Latinx collective of journalists and filmmakers producing bilingual media focused on social justice. 
  • G-town Radio, a community radio station in Germantown focusing on local news, ideas, sounds not heard on mainstream radio.

See our glossary for definitions of terms we use to describe our work

What We Support

    Projects
    There are no grantees to show right now.

    $798,000 - Awarded December 2019

    Focus areas
    Media Policy
    Description

    With this three-year grant, Media, Inequality, and Change (MIC) Center will lead two integrated, multi-phase research projects focused broadly on Philadelphia's media ecosystem and community networks, while convening researchers, practitioners and activists to collaborate on outlining a vision for remaking media in ways that reflect communities' information needs. Together, with Free Press and Movement Alliance Project, MIC aims to transform prevailing media narratives and elevate complex stories about trauma, safety, crime and criminal justice in Philadelphia.

    $25,000 - Awarded December 2019

    Focus areas
    Representation in Media
    Description

    Nominated to receive a general operating grant.

    $25,000 - Awarded December 2019

    Focus areas
    Immigrant Voices
    Description

    Nominated to receive a general operating grant.

    $87,500 - Awarded December 2019

    Focus areas
    Representation in Media
    Description

    This one-year planning grant will allow WLVT to explore launching a channel that is robust, local and community-centered, through implementing a survey and analysis of content creators in the region (primarily video content), including the barriers that keep media makers from creating longer form content.

    $25,000 - Awarded December 2019

    Focus areas
    Youth
    Description

    Nominated to receive to receive a general operating grant for CTE Digital Video Program, a three-year high school-based program provides students with real-world opportunities to gain new skills and demonstrate existing skills in media production.

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