Public Media and the Economy
Through Facing the Mortgage Crisis, Engaging Communities on the Economy and Economy Response Grant projects, more than a hundred public television and radio stations are helping their community members to become aware of available resources within their own communities that can help to address or forestall their individual economic concerns, and take advantage of these resources in greater numbers; and, have opportunities to contribute to a shared dialogue addressing community economic issues.
LOCAL ECONOMY PROJECTS FUNDED BY CPB
CPB has supported a number of in-depth community engagement projects, with station grants ranging from $5,000 to $100,000:
A. Facing the Mortgage Crisis (35 grants, involving 57 stations)
B. Engaging Communities on the Economy (37 grants)
C. Public Media Innovation for Financial Literacy (7 grants)
D. Economy Response (12 grants involving 14 stations).
A total of 115 stations in 40 states are participating in these CPB-funded local economy projects.
FACING THE MORTGAGE CRISIS INITIATIVE
57 public radio and television stations are participating in the multi-million dollar national project “Facing the Mortgage Crisis (FTMC),” designed to help the country’s hardest-hit regions cope with an avalanche of mortgage foreclosures. Based on an extremely successful model developed by KETC in St. Louis, stations are working with key community partners, such as United Way’s 2-1-1 call centers, to create content on-air and online that helps families to avoid or mitigate home foreclosures. Through live town halls and call-ins featuring community partners and financial advisors, documentaries and specials, weblogs and web links, citizen journalism and other techniques, stations are transforming the way communities work together to solve problems, positively impacting individual lives, and reinforcing public media’s unique role in civil society.
ENGAGING COMMUNITIES ON THE ECONOMY GRANTS
CPB is supporting the work of 37 stations working with partners to address other pressing economic issues, such as joblessness, hunger, loss of health insurance and family stress. These projects serve diverse audiences, from seniors to recent immigrants to teenagers.
PUBLIC MEDIA INNOVATION GRANTS/FINANCIAL LITERACY
Each year, CPB provides grants to a small number of stations using cutting edge technologies to reach new audiences. The most recent round of grants focused on projects that educate young people about economic issues.
ECONOMY RESPONSE GRANTS
CPB will fund 12 large-scale content and service projects, designed to help local stations and partners address local economic issues over a period of one year to 18 months. The grantees below will use on-air, online and on-the-ground media and events to engage and inform audiences, and will be coached in the first six months of their projects by community engagement expert Rich Harwood of the Harwood Institute for Public Media Innovation.
