U.S. Democracy Day gets a boost for 2023 thanks to Democracy Fund
New $125,000 grant will ensure the collaborative continues and grows throughout next year
With just weeks to go before hundreds of U.S. newsrooms participate in the inaugural U.S. Democracy Day collaborative, we’re announcing the first significant grant to continue this work.
Democracy Day is a united effort to draw attention to the crisis facing American democracy, one that incentivizes local newsrooms to report on how democracy works in their communities. We chose Sept. 15 as our day of joint media coverage, which coincides with the International Day of Democracy.
To date, well over 300 newsrooms and journalism support organizations from across the U.S. have signed up to be Democracy Day partners, including the USA Today Network, the Online News Association, the Center for Public Integrity, the American Journalism Project, KPCC, KQED, WHYY, WNYC, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, PatchLabs, Oklahoma Media Center, Futuro Media, the Groundtruth Project, American Press Institute, Votebeat, The Conversation US, States Newsroom and many, many more.
The $125,000 grant from Democracy Fund will build on this groundwork for 2023.
Our goal is to build this nationwide collaborative into something that extends beyond just one day of coverage as we get closer to 2024.
Those of us organizing the collaborative have been contributing time and effort as we’re able, in between daily work at our jobs. We’ve got a core group of five people and a broader organizing team of another 20.
Thanks to that support, by next year we’ll be able to:
- Hire a part-time project manager.
- Provide stipends for organizers.
- Recruit an advisory board and compensate them.
- Pay for marketing.
- Pay to commission shared content.
- And more!
The core organizers including Jennifer Brandel of Hearken; Bridget Thoreson of the Institute for Nonprofit News; Rachel Glickhouse of News Revenue Hub; and the staff at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University would like to give a huge thank you to Democracy Fund for believing in this effort, especially Angelica Das.
And if you’re not a Democracy Day partner yet, there’s still time! Click here to read more and sign up.
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Stefanie Murray is director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. Contact her at murrayst@montclair.edu.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a primarily grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism, and in doing so serve New Jersey residents. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Local News Lab (a partnership of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, and Community Foundation of New Jersey), and the Abrams Foundation. For more information, visit CenterforCooperativeMedia.org.
