To help ensure that communities are informed on key issues, last month the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced funding for 19 local foundations to support community news and information projects. The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta has been chosen as one of those foundations. Foundations will receive a total of $2.26 million in matching grants as part of the Knight Community Information Challenge. The annual contest engages North American place-based foundations in meeting local information needs.
The Community Foundation has been awarded $52,000 as a winner of the Knight Foundation Community Information Challenge. This award will support the development of Neighborhood Corner, which will bring residents together through online collaboration and in-person dialogue and engage them in the effective use of data to lobby for and to make improvements in their local area. Neighborhood Corner is developed as part of Neighborhood Nexus, a collaborative attempt by The Community Foundation and other partners to bring better data to the table for the thousands of public, private and independent decision-makers throughout metro Atlanta.
“If you care about what’s going on in local government, the local environment or any local issues, you need to know about it to make a difference,” said Trabian Shorters, vice president for communities, Knight Foundation. “These community and place-based foundations are stepping up to make sure that their communities get good information.”
As newspapers and other traditional media continue to struggle, community foundations and place-based foundations play an increasingly important role in helping groups provide local news and information. The winning ideas, announced at the Council on Foundation’s fall conference for community foundations, are from organizations large and small throughout the country. They include:
Providing information about specific issues: Whether it is increasing the coverage of charter schools in New Orleans, encouraging healthy food and lifestyles in Lexington, Ky., or helping rural Puerto Ricans find and create jobs, foundations are helping to shine the light on critical topics. Telling stories through data: In Denver and Atlanta, three foundations are finding ways to take advantage of increasingly available government data and put it to use for communities.
Click here to learn more about Neighborhood Corner and all Knight Community Information Challenge Winners.