The Media Justice Fund of the Funding Exchange is seeking proposals for Capacity Building and Community Media Collaboration grants.

About the Funding Exchange
The Funding Exchange (FEX) is a network of 16 community funds across the country and the national office in New York City, all of which administer our own independent grantmaking programs. The network was formally established in 1979 to support member and emerging funds with technical assistance and special programs.  Altogether, the national office and the member funds have distributed well over $100 million, and have developed models of grantmaking that are used by many other public foundations today.

The Funding Exchange Network is supported by a partnership of activists and donors. The founding donors and community organizers coined the phrase "Change, Not Charity"TM because they believed in the importance of tackling the root and systemic causes of poverty and injustice. Most of the founding donors had inherited wealth which provided the seed money to launch nearly all the community foundations in the network.

A list of the 16 member funds is available on the home page of our website at www.fex.org.  Please contact them directly for their applications, funding priorities and deadline information. We strongly encourage you to apply to a member fund if there is one in your area. Here at the national office, we also look to the member funds for information about the organizations that apply to us from their regions.


About the Media Justice fund

The Media Justice Fund recognizes that social and economic justice will not be realized without the equitable redistribution and control of resources that necessarily includes media and communication technologies.  We believe in the rights of all people and communities to have their information and communication needs met.  The Fund supports leadership of people of color, low-income and LGBT communities, and youth, organizing within traditionally marginalized communities to affect media policy, infrastructure, and accountability.

General Information

Deadline: Applications may be submitted by email or ground mail. Applications must be postmarked by Friday, July 25, 2008.

Eligibility: Organizations are eligible to apply for EITHER the Capacity Building grant OR the Community Media Collaboration grant: An organization may not apply for both grants in the same grant year.

The Application Cover Sheet (below) is the same for both CMC and CB grant applicants.

The Funding Exchange supports activities by organizations that are tax-exempt under the Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), or have established a relationship with a fiscal sponsor with IRS tax-exempt status of this Code Section.

The Media Justice Fund does not fund content; projects based solely on independent media-making. The Paul Robeson Fund of the Funding Exchange makes grants to radio projects in all production stages and to film and video projects in the pre-production or distribution stages only. For further information, please refer to the following link on our website for the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media. http://www.fex.org/content/index.php?pid=29.  The annual postmark deadline for the Robeson Fund is May 15th.

The Media Justice Fund does not fund project budgets or projects of organizations with annual budgets of more than $1 million.

Funding Priorities: This year the Media Justice Fund will prioritize groups that organize on the following media policy issues.

•    Net Neutrality
•    National Broadband
•    Media Ownership
•    Public Media
•    Other policy issues affecting communities

For examples, please see below.

Decision Making Process: All application materials are carefully read, discussed and evaluated by Media Justice Fund staff. Proposals that best meet the funding criteria are submitted to an Activist-Advised Funding Panel for final consideration. Grant decisions will be announced in the fall of 2008.

Applicants visiting the New York City area and who would like to arrange a visit with MJF staff should make the request by sending an email containing the possible dates and times to hyejung.park@fex.org. You may also call the MJF staff at 212.529.5356 ext. 321 to make your request. Staff will do their best to accommodate your request.


EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZING ON MEDIA POLICY ISSUES

Net Neutrality
Access to the Internet critically affects many aspects of day-to-day living, including education, housing, and employment. Currently, the Internet operates on the principal of Net Neutrality: this means that we the public can have equal access to any web site we choose.

However, “Net Neutrality” is now in danger because big phone and cable companies want to increase their profits by charging certain web site owners a fee in exchange for making their web sites load faster than other web sites.

Net Neutrality is a free speech issue. If we do not fight for Net Neutrality, we will have a two tier Internet where wealthy corporations can deliver information quickly, but community information, which is critical for community development and social justice movements, will get marginalized in the slow lane.

Example)
Rock the Net is a nationwide coalition of musicians and labels that support Net Neutrality. They are organizing a petition campaign and events to demonstrate to Congress and the FCC the music community's broad support for this principle.

National Broadband Policy
Fifty percent of U.S. households are not connected to broadband, and the United States is falling far behind other developed nations in broadband speed, price and availability. A strong national broadband plan can bring accessible and affordable Internet access to everybody, regardless of where they live or who they are.

Example)
People’s Production House in New York City started the Digital Expansion Initiative (DEI), training representatives from six New York City grassroots organizations to assess the Internet usage, access, and needs of their constituencies and communities.  The community groups attended NYC’s Broadband hearings to express their priorities and concerns regarding on NYC broadband policy.

Media Ownership
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is planning to purchase the Long Island based daily newspaper Newsday, from Tribune Company.  If the deal succeeds, News Corp. will control Newsday, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, and two TV stations in the New York market. This is an example of how big media conglomerates swallow local media outlets and block diverse community views and local voices.  Local organizing can help hold the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) accountable to community demands to stop big media growth.

Example)
Reclaim the Media in Seattle, WA, mobilized low-income people, youth, and Native Americans to testify at the FCC hearing in Seattle.  On November 9, 2007, over 1100 people flooded into Seattle’s Town Hall to send a message to the Federal Communications Commission: big media is big enough already.

Public Media
Public Media is a non-commercial sector which includes NPR, PBS, Lower Power FM, Public access television centers and channels, and other non-profit media.  In spite of their long-term service to the public, they are always underfunded and threatened by conservative politicians.  The private sector is expanding and taking over public spaces at an alarming rate. We need to secure and increase our public media infrastructure to guarantee a place for the viewpoints and interests of diverse communities.

Example 1)
Pineros y Camesinos del Noroeste (PCUN) in Woodburn, OR, mobilized Latino farm workers to protect KPCN-LP, their Low Power FM station, from the threat of a FCC rule change. The change opened the door to commercial stations seeking to re-locate into more lucrative markets, regardless of the impact on noncommercial low-power FM stations already existing in those markets.  PCUN’s efforts prompted the FCC to freeze all re-location applications affecting low-power FM stations and forced the company seeking to enter into KPCN-LP’s broadcast territory to negotiate with the station.

Example 2)
The cable companies are moving to replace local franchise agreements—in which each locality can negotiate a deal that fits the local needs of the community being served and which provide funds for Public, Educational and Governmental Access (PEG) Television—with national and state agreements. These new, broader agreements threaten the existence and growth of PEG projects. To support PEG, The Save Access Coalition (SAC) was formed in New York. SAC created media policy “toolkits” to help communities understand the issues, and organized local, state, and national campaigns for better legislation.

Community Media Collaboration Grant Guidelines

Community Media Collaboration (CMC) Grant: The Media Justice Fund (MJF) of the Funding Exchange (FEX) seeks proposals for the Community Media Collaboration grants.

Deadline: Applications may be submitted by email or ground mail. Applications must be postmarked by Friday, July 25, 2008.

Grant Amount: Up to $25,000 for one year. 

Community Media Collaboration (CMC) grants support campaigns that change the structure of the media and a community’s right to use and be fairly represented within it. Specifically, the CMC supports projects that work within communities to increase community access to media; promote corporate media accountability, and/or to change the regulations that govern media. Projects must include substantive collaborations between media or cultural advocacy groups and community activists organizing for social justice. This grant is not intended for the creation of specific pieces of media unless these pieces are part of a larger community organizing effort.

Criteria for Funding
CMC proposals must impact one of the following areas:
(1)    Media and/or telecommunications policy;
(2)    Expand and/or establish community media infrastructure (i.e. increasing access to low-power  radio-frequencies (LPFM), expanding community access to broadband and wireless Internet services, creating a community newspaper by disfranchised communities, etc.); or
(3)    Promote and advocate corporate and industry media accountability.

Priority will be given to proposals that:  
(1)    Strengthen and build media, Internet and/or telecommunications capacity for low-income communities, communities of color, community-based organizations, immigrants, limited-English communities, youth, seniors and other social justice constituencies;
(2)    Prioritize networking and alliance building; and
(3)    Promote the involvement and leadership of communities affected by the project.

Proposals should include an analysis of the power relationships in communities involved and state how social justice organizing advances changes in the media. Proposals should clearly describe how the groups would evaluate the success or failure of their campaigns.

If requesting support for on-going projects, funding should support new activities that will enhance the scope or effectiveness of existing activities.

Core areas of interest for CMC proposals may include but are not limited to:
•    Holding corporate media accountable
Example:  A San Francisco Bay Area media justice organization campaigns to hold local Clear Channel radio stations accountable to the community demand that the public airwaves promote justice and peace rather than violence and war.
•    Directing attention to biased coverage of specific constituencies or issues
Example: A media justice organization in Brooklyn organizes against negative media portrayals of Afghan, Muslim and immigrant women.
•    Broadcasting formally marginalized voices in the media
Example: A media justice organization in Falls Church, VA works to bring the voices and perspectives of the Vietnamese American community to the mainstream media.
•    Creating community-based media
Example: A media justice organization out of Philadelphia launches a nationwide campaign to train community members in creating their own radio stations.
•    Addressing city, county, state, or federal media policy
Example: A San Francisco media justice organization builds a cross-sector coalition to ensure public interest was protected in the city’s agreements with Comcast.

Application Materials:

•    A completed coversheet.

•    A project description of three to five pages including a clear statement of the people involved, the organizing plan and its potential impact on your organization and its community. Also include a brief narrative of the organization’s staff, volunteer, and administrative structure and a project implementation and evaluation plan. Please pay particular attention to your strategy and goals.

•    Full demographic profile of the board and staff of key collaborating organizations; The Fund gives strong consideration to geographic, cultural, ethnic, and programmatic diversity among its funded projects.

•    A line-item budget for the proposed project, line-item organizational budgets for the preceding Fiscal Year and current Fiscal Year, including amounts and sources of both income and expenses;

•    A letter from the IRS certifying the non-profit, tax-exempt status of the organization or its fiscal sponsor. Please provide documentation to support your 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status of your organization or fiscal sponsor.