2008 GRANTEES

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2007 GRANTEES

Total $240,000

Capacity Building

Allied Media Projects - $20,000 
Detroit, MI

Allied Media Projects (AMP) has just concluded their 9th annual Allied Media Conference (AMC), which brought together community members, media-makers and diverse social justice activist organizations. Working from an anti-oppression framework, the conference provides movement-building opportunities for organizers and community members to share ideas, develop strategies and skills, and gather resources for the fight to establish access to communications as a human right. 

People’s Production House- $25,000
New York, NY

People’s Production House (PPH) fights for internet policy that helps underserved communities in New York City and Washington, DC. PPH partners with local organizations whose constituents represent those who have been marginalized and degraded by traditional media. Grant funds will support PPH in designing and implementing a comprehensive media needs assessment, which will detail the current state of internet access available to New Yorkers. This information will support a campaign for expanded internet access and promote community voices at the upcoming New York City Broadband Advisory Committee hearings, which will propose future policy for wireless, broadband and fiber optic networks in New York City.

Pineros y Campesinos Del Noroeste (PCUN) - $25,000
Woodbury, OR

Assisted by an MJF support grant, PCUN was able to establish KCPN-LP, aka Radio Movimiento, in August 2006. It now operates 24/7 and reaches thousands of Latino immigrants to help organize around health care, education and farm worker legislation.
Funds will support programming, increased technology capacity, trainings and networking for the station. Radio Movimiento creates opportunities for members of the majority-Latino community to learn about media production. Additionally, funds will assist with live internet streaming, software upgrade, and training for programmers, as well as redesigning studio layouts to allow for engineering upgrades, interviews and recording sessions.

Reclaim the Media - $20,000 
Seattle, WA

Reclaim the Media (RTM) is working to change media policy while teaching media literacy and supporting community media production. Funds will assist RTM during the Washington State Telecommunications Policy Campaign (WSTPC), an effort to ensure that policy changes protect funding for local PEG-access and promote universal broadband availability by banning “redlining.” RTM is also planning a press campaign to frame coverage of the FCC Media Ownership Hearing within a social justice- communications rights framework.

Women and Girls Collective Action Network - $10,000
Chicago, IL

Women and Girls Collective Action Network (WGAN) organizes the Females United for Action (FUFA), a coalition of young women leaders who are dedicated to educating women and girls on issues of image, media and sexual exploitation. FUFA is working towards creating and ensuring the inclusion of positive images of women and girls in the media and educating the public about these problems, while encouraging women and girls to consider the impact of media and to advocate for media accountability.

WGAN is focused on challenging the FCC’s hypocritical indecency standards, which claim morality while promoting violence against women, racism, and homophobia. WGAN and FUFA believe that it is important to work in partnership with men to end violence and in 2006 partnered with a group of young men, resulting in the “Alternative Windows” photo documentary and poetry campaign. The campaign focused on the question, “What positive images of men and women are not portrayed in the media?” The resulting youth-coordinated traveling exhibition features photos taken of underrepresented and misrepresented populations within mainstream media. The groups included people of color and LGBTQ youth.


Community Media Collaboration

Grassroots Collaborative - $25,000
grassroots_collaborative@yahoo.com
Chicago, IL

The Grassroots Collaborative (GC) is comprised of nine grassroots groups in Illinois that represent diverse constituencies of low-income people, low-wage employees, senior citizens and residents of poor and working-class neighborhoods. GC works towards bringing underrepresented community voices to the media and advocates for media accountability and media justice policy reform on the state and federal levels. In 2006 GC led the fight to pass a living wage ordinance in Chicago focused on big-box retailers. Through unfair media representation of the impacts of the ordinance, the ordinance was vetoed, despite receiving huge public support and passing the Chicago City Council by a 35-14 margin.

GC has created a report around the Big Box Living Wage Campaign which analyzes the inequitable media representation on the issue. The report will be used to bring together social justice groups and media outlets and to advocate for media accountability. It is the mission of GC to hold media decision makers accountable for their biased coverage of issues important to low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, while increasing the presence of low-income and minority voices in the media.

Edenton Media Empowerment - $21,1000
Edenton, NC

Edenton Media Empowerment Project (EMEP) works towards ensuring that broadband internet access is available to and usable by the African American and older communities of Edenton. EMEP developed a survey to gather information and document access to computers and the internet by race, education and occupation, as well as how community members might benefit from a new technology center. EMEP is developing
the technology center, to be housed in the historic DF Walker High School.

The new technology center is envisioned as an intergenerational space that is a hub for creating and empowering community members through offering meeting space, tutoring services to African American children, trainings and skills workshops in digital technologies and eventually job training. Funding will help create a media production component within the technology center, acquire training materials, hire and train staff for the center, do publicity, as well as support general capacity-building needs.

Common Frequency - $21,100
Davis, CA

Common Frequency (CF) was formed in 2006 to help groups apply for full-power non-commercial radio licenses. CF has provided free services to lower-income and native tribal communities and grassroots organizations, who have limited access to the airwaves. Funding will support CF’s dedicated pursuit of opening the airwaves for public participation. CF provides essential assistance to organizations regarding the license application process, including legal information and research and development in engineering capacities in non- commercial broadcasting.

Center for Rural Strategies - $25,000
Whitesburg, KY

Funding will support the Center for Rural Strategies (CRS) in developing an Appalachian Alternative Media Network and training and developing community reporters. CRS is focused on exposing the human and environmental devastation caused by the coal industry. In an effort to empower ordinary citizens in the social justice movement, CRS will share the stories of local citizens who are fighting for community survival, while building and strengthening the base of community activists who are working for a sustainable future in the region and beyond. CRS assists members of low-income communities, activists and non-profits to incorporate media into their work.

CRS, in partnership with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Coal River Mountain Watch, is creating the Community Reporter Network (CRN). The CRN is an alternative media network in which grassroots organizations can share their own experiences of living with mountaintop removal and mining and expose the human and environmental destruction occurring in the coalfields to the public, and ultimately affect state and national policy.

Youth Media Council - $25,000  
Oakland, CA

Youth Media Council is a media action and strategy center for the advancement of racial justice, media accountability and youth rights. YMC is led by people of color, women and LGBTQ youth guided by principles of strategic engagement, democratic participation and community relevance. Funding will support Youth Media Council’s  primary objectives, which include: expanding their regional membership base, creating a core group of leaders, and implementing community-developed media standards, while providing media justice resources to organizers nationally. YMC has helped to build the media activist and communication skills and leadership of thousands of grassroots organizers. YMC focuses on mobilizing communities of color, women and youth around issues of structural racism, media accountability and media policy. This leads to an extensive understanding of the political process and a sense of membership within and ownership over the process of creating media justice and social change.

Ka Hoku O Ka Pakipika - $22,888
Kaneohe, Hawaii

Funds will support Ka Hoku O Ka Pakipika’s (KHOKP) goal of organizing the progressive Native Hawaiian and other local communities in applying for radio licenses during the October FCC filing window and to establish a Native Hawaiian-focused radio network throughout the Hawaiian archipelago. Funds will support professional service fees for legal and engineering assistance. KHOKP’s main goal is to increase and create alternative media opportunities in Hawaii and expand native involvement in local media and reporting. KHOKP is creating a daily news program that will broadcast in Hawaiian and English. Communities of color will be welcomed to create their own language-specific content and airtime will be designated for participants to broadcast cultural programming.

Funding Exchange Member Funds

Appalachian Community Fund
107 West Main , Suite 202
Knoxville TN 37902
Phone: 865.523.5783
Fax: 865.523.1896
info@appalachiancommunityfund.org
www.appalachiancommunityfund.org

Bread & Roses Community Fund
1500 Walnut Street #1305
Philadelphia , PA 19102
Phone: 215.731.1107
Fax: 215.731.0453
info@breadrosesfund.org
www.breadrosesfund.org

Chinook Fund
2418 West 32nd Avenue
Denver , CO 80211
Phone: 303.455.6905
Fax: 303.477.1617
office@chinookfund.org
www.chinookfund.org

Crossroads Fund
3411 West Diversey #20
Chicago , IL 60647
Phone: 773.227.7676
Fax: 773.227.7790
info@crossroadsfund.org
www.crossroadsfund.org

Fund for Santa Barbara
1524 ½ State St .
Santa Barbara , CA 93101
Phone: 805.962.9164
Fax: 805.965.0217
email@fundforsantabarbara.org
www.fundforsantabarbara.org

Fund for Southern Communities
315 West Ponce de Leon Ave.
Suite 1061
Decatur , GA 30030
Phone: 404. 371.8404
Fax: 404. 371.8496
fsc@fundforsouth.org
www.fundforsouth.org

Haymarket People's Fund
42 Seaverns Avenue
Boston , MA 02130
Phone: 617.522.7676
Fax: 617.522.9580
haymarket@igc.org
www.haymarket.org

Headwaters Foundation for Justice
2801 21st Ave S Ste 132B
Minneapolis , MN 55407
Phone: 612.879.0602
Fax: 612.879.0613 *2
info@headwatersfoundation.org
www.headwatersfoundation.org

Liberty Hill Foundation
2121 Cloverfield Blvd,
Suite # 113
Santa Monica , CA 90404
Phone: 310.453.3611
Fax: 310.453.7806
info@libertyhill.org
www.libertyhill.org

McKenzie River Gathering Foundation
2705 E. Burnside, Suite 210
Portland OR 97214-1768
Phone: 503.289.1517
info@mrgf.org
www.mrgf.org

North Star Fund
305 Seventh Ave. 5th Fl.
New York , NY 10001-6008
Phone: 212.620.9110
Fax: 620.8178
info@northstarfund.org
www.northstarfund.org

San Diego Foundation for Change
3758 30th Street
San Diego , CA 92104
Phone: 619.692.0527
Fax: 619.692.0527 (call first)
info@foundation4change.org
www.foundation4change.org

The Hawai'i People's Fund
810 N. Vineyard Blvd.
Honolulu HI , 96817
Phone: 808-845-4800
Fax: 808-845-4800
(press * to fax)
peoples@lava.net
www.hawaiipeoplesfund.org

Three Rivers Community Foundation
100 N. Braddock Ave #207
Pittsburgh , PA 15208
Phone: 412.243.9250
Fax: 412.243.0504
TRCFPgh@aol.com
www.trcf.net

Vanguard Public Foundation
383 Rhode Island St. #301
San Francisco , CA 94103
Phone: 415.487.2111
Fax: 415.487.2124
vpf@vanguardsf.org
www.vanguardsf.org

Wisconsin Community Fund
1202 Williamson St. , Suite D
Madison , WI 53703
Phone: 608.251.6834
Fax: 608.251.6846
info@wcfund.org
www.wcfund.org

MJF Grantees