As the application deadline for the 2010 Knight Community Information Challenge passed, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation released Reports From the Field: Place-Based Foundations and the Knight Community Information Challenge (pdf), compiling what it’s learned in the first two years of this five-year, $24-million endeavor.
The foundation, which strives to advance journalism in the digital age and invests in the 26 communities where the Knights once owned newspapers, focuses on projects that promote community engagement and lead to transformational change. As part of its Media Innovation Initiative, the foundation established the Knight Community Information Challenge (KCIC) in 2008. This contest is designed to help community and place-based foundations find creative ways to use new media and technology to inform and engage residents.
The Knight Blog neatly summarizes key findings in the report, among them:
- Foundations are committing significant financial resources to address information needs through and beyond KCIC.
- To be effective, place-based foundations are building capacity to manage their projects.
- Foundations are increasingly engaging in multiple community leadership activities to increase the impact of their KCIC projects.
According to the report, in 2008, there were 154 first-round applications to the KCIC; of these 22 were awarded challenge grants at an average of $350,000. In 2009, Knight received 141 first-round applications, resulting in 24 grantees receiving an average of $186,000.
Among the December 2008 recipients was the Minnesota Community Foundation, which received a $500,000 challenge grant for IdeaMN (now titled Minnesota Idea Open). The Knight Foundation report cites this project as an example of being a catalyst for engagement. The project goal is to generate action in the community with the intended impact of making citizens aware of and engaged in community issues and leading to citizens and organizations changing their behavior. Now on the verge of moving beyond its start-up phase, MNIdeaOpen.org is an online platform to share and discuss ideas to address community challenges. Via a contest, winning ideas will be selected and implemented. The first challenge focuses on obesity and launches March 18.
The Minneapolis Foundation also received a KCIC grant in 2008 for MinnPost’s News Beats initiative. This $100,000 challenge grant will enable The Minneapolis Foundation to partner with individual donors to expand MinnPost’s reporting of key community issues.
In addition to summarizing what the Knight Foundation has learned thus far from the progress of its KCIC grantees, the report also encapsulates challenges faced by current grantees and how foundation leaders can begin to assess information needs in their own communities.
- Chris Murakami Noonan, MCF communications associate
