On the heels of the NFL affirming that black lives matter and condemning racism, the league plans to increase its social justice footprint by pledging to donate $250 million over a 10-year period.
As part of RJI’s Inclusive Media and Economies Project, RJI, MMCA, and Dynasty Consulting have teamed up to help publishers of color tap into community development, revitalization, and reinvestment funds.
“Trusted local information and the people and systems that gather and distribute it are critical infrastructure for communities, just like the people and systems necessary to provide housing, roads, electricity, clean air and water, healthy food, reliable broadband data networks, schools, healthcare and cultural institutions,” Nachison says.
CDFIs aren’t the only institutions that would benefit from investments in community media. Banks and other lenders, under the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA), are required to meet the credit needs of the communities where they do business, including low- and moderate-income communities. The Act was a response to redlining — the discriminatory practice of denying loans to residents and business owners based on their race or ethnicity. Every two to five years, banks have to undergo an audit by federal banking regulators to see how well they are meeting the terms of the CRA. Banks that do not meet the requirements face heavy regulatory scrutiny and can have difficulty getting approval for mergers or expansions.
The Local Media Association (LMA) has made sustainability for publishers of color one of its four strategic pillars, building capacity through its Digital Transformation Lab, the Fund for Black Journalism, and the Word In Black collaborative. And Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers through its Tiny News Collective is making critical support more accessible to first time founders that are underrepresented in the news landscape.
As part of RJI’s Inclusive Media and Economies Project, RJI, the Multicultural Media and Correspondents Association (MMCA) and Dynasty Consulting are teaming up to help publishers of color tap into community development, revitalization and reinvestment funds, and then use those investments to test new revenue strategies and build more sustainable business models.
