SNPA Foundation Approves Grants to Help Fund Seven Journalism Projects

[Chicago, IL]  The SNPA Foundation this week awarded $144,150 in grants to help fund newspaper industry initiatives led by state or national press associations and journalism schools. These grants are in addition to more than $400,000 awarded earlier this year to regional and national newspaper associations.

The new grants include:

• $25,000 for the Florida Press Foundation’s Future Industry Development Program – designed to reach and recruit minority Florida college students into the Florida Press Foundation’s paid internship program to gain hands-on experience in a real newspaper environment and become inspired to seek employment in the newspaper industry.
• $15,000 for America’s Newspapers to create fellowships for minority publishers/senior executives. The funds will be used to bolster racial diversity at national industry conferences and increase engagement by minority employees at newspapers.
• $5,000 for a collaboration led by Teri Finneman to support research into sustainable business models for community journalism. The collaboration includes the South Dakota Newspaper Association, the Kansas Press Association and journalism researchers at the University of Kansas, University of Colorado Boulder and University of Minnesota.
• $25,900 for the Florida Press Association’s Leadership Conversations + Capstone – a 26-week program to develop, retain and inspire the top sales leadership across Florida. FPA will use the model created in 2022 to scale up the program for other states in 2023.
• $25,000 to help fund Local Media Association’s Word in Black -- a collaboration of ten of the leading Black-owned newspapers to focus on solutions to racial inequities in America. The collaborative newspapers include The Atlanta Voice, Houston Defender, Dallas Weekly, Washington Informer, New York Amsterdam News, Seattle Medium, Sacramento Observer, St. Louis American, Michigan Chronicle and The AFRO-American.
• $7,500 in support of the Oregon Press Association’s First Amendment case opposing a provision in a newly passed environmental law that requires newspapers to either pay a recycling fee or publish state-produced advertising.
• $40,750 to the Florida Press Association for its Elevate Your Pitch program, designed to increase awareness of sales career opportunities at newspapers and to create a pipeline of sales talent for newspaper media companies looking for quality sales reps or media consultants.

The SNPA Foundation was founded in 1968 to serve as the educational arm of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association (SNPA).  When SNPA and the Inland Press Association merged in 2019 to form America’s Newspapers, the SNPA Foundation became a private foundation, run by an independently elected board of trustees. With that transition, funds that were previously earmarked solely for SNPA’s education programs became available to other industry organizations. 

Programs endorsed by the SNPA Foundation spotlight the critical need for ethical journalism, explore sustainable business models that help newspapers operate in an evolving media environment, and promote the value that newspapers bring to the communities that they serve.

Trustees who review grant proposals note that proposed projects may start locally but should include the possibility of scaling to a national level, have a broad impact on the public, or enrich the racial diversity of professional ranks by drawing more talent into the newspaper industry.

“We are excited about this new role for the SNPA Foundation,” said Foundation chair P.J. Browning, president and publisher of the Post & Courier in Charleston, S.C.

“The 20 grant applications that we reviewed this quarter demonstrate that press associations and journalism schools throughout the United States are exploring innovative business models and ways to engage audiences, businesses and employees. The SNPA Foundation’s goal is to help them succeed.”

ABOUT THE SNPA FOUNDATION ENDOWMENT FUND

More than 400 individuals, press associations, newspaper companies and companies that supply goods and services to the newspaper industry have contributed to the SNPA Foundation Endowment Fund. 

This is a complete list of donors:

https://snpafoundation.org/stories/snpa-foundation-endowment-fund-donor-list-support,2

October 25, 2021