The National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC) has been named a grant recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in support of its 360 Incubator + Fund and its newest initiative, WOKE! Broadening Access to Black Public Media. The $750,000 grant is from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Journalism and Media program, which works to strengthen American democracy by informing, engaging, and activating Americans through deep investments in independent journalism and media.
The multiyear award will aid NBPC with the launch of WOKE! Broadening Access to Black Public Media, an initiative aimed at helping storytellers of color working in nonfiction and emerging media. The award to NBPC is part of a total of $5.7 million in grants being given to seven organizations to help support professional nonfiction media makers from diverse backgrounds.
“Support from the MacArthur Foundation for NBPC’s efforts to expand the opportunities for producers of color to work in emerging media is further confirmation that diverse perspectives must be part of today and tomorrow’s ever-evolving media landscape,” said NBPC Executive Director Leslie Fields-Cruz.
Through WOKE! Broadening Access to Black Public Media, NBPC will present a multitude of projects and events designed to connect creatives to funding, resources, partners, and distribution opportunities. Projects including the Black Media Summit will focus on bringing creatives together with Black thought leaders from social justice, immigration and education to discuss story ideas best suited for distribution across new technologies and platforms, such as VR (virtual reality), gaming, digital and mobile media.
With its 360 Incubator + Fund, NBPC provides new and emerging producers and creatives with development funds for their innovative pilots of broadcast and web series, as well as for transmedia projects depicting stories of the global Black experience.
For more information on the organizations and projects recently awarded grants from the MacArthur Foundation, please visit www.macfound.org/journalism. For more information on the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC), visit www.blackpublicmedia.org, or follow NBPC on Twitter @BLKPublicMedia or on Facebook.
