What a week – Gov. Quinn signs L3Cs into law AND the Chicago Community Trust with the Knight Foundation Community Information Challenge offers funding for Community News that Matters to NPOs, to for-profits [we hope like the L3C], as well as to individuals – an incredible offering to the future of Chicago’s news stream!
Oh please, let’s see some collaboration here.The deadline is tight and fast approaching: Sept. 15.
Community News Matters
The Chicago Community Trust has created an innovative new program, Community News Matters, to spur the growth of new sources of local news and information about the Chicago region, in conjunction with the Knight Community Information Challenge. Through September 15, the Trust is soliciting proposals from nonprofits, for-profit businesses and individuals for new activities and projects that:
• Increase the flow of truthful, accurate and insightful local news and information in the Chicago region in new ways that engage residents, bring important issues to light, help people make sense of things and enable them to work together to find solutions;
• Help the Chicago region’s cutting-edge media innovators develop new forms, methods and models for providing this information that can be sustainable in the future.
There’s also a special information meeting:
Friday, August 21, 2009
10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
26th Floor Conference Room
111 East Wacker Drive
Chicago, IL 60601
The New News: Journalism We Want and Need, was the first part of the Community Trust’s initiative. The CCT went on to say:
Based on the findings of this report and recommendations received from the project’s advisory committee members, the Trust is issuing this Community News Matters Request for Proposals (RFP). The purpose of the RFP is to support and stimulate development of new ways to provide the Chicago region with the local news and information residents need to be good citizens and to improve both their quality of life and the vitality of their communities.
In November, the Trust will award grants and contracts to nonprofit organizations, individuals and for-profit companies for
activities and projects.The CCT says awards may be as large as $100,000, most will be in the range of $25,000 to $50,000. But the CCT does not say how many grants it will be making or how large the fund is.