PHILADELPHIA, November 21, 2024—The Independence Public Media Foundation (IPMF) announced its 2024 Community Voices Fund grant recipients, with $800,000 awarded to 33 organizations and projects. These grants will support the documentation, sharing, and preservation of community stories to advance social justice, build power, and strengthen local information networks.
“The Community Voices Fund allows us to conduct a listening scan of the region’s media ecosystem, but more importantly, the fund shifts power to mediamakers of color who understand the necessity of amplifying the voices and experiences of marginalized communities,” said IPMF Program Associate Samíl Jimenez-Magdaleno.
This year, nine community members with deep relationships and expertise in the fund’s focus areas reviewed all the proposals and decided how to allocate the $800,000 fund. The panel’s decisions are always final, without influence from IPMF staff and board. This community-led approach aligns with the foundation’s commitment to share power with communities traditionally excluded from philanthropy while also being impacted by harmful and racist media narratives.
IPMF selects panelists based on recommendations from local community organizations and leaders. The following organizations suggested this year’s panelists: Spiral Q, Drag Arts Oral History Project, SIFT Media 215, Lil’ Filmmakers, Centro de Cultura, Arte, Trabajo y Educacion (CCATE), South Asian American Digital Archives, Paul Robeson House, POPPYN, and South Jersey Information Equity Project.
The fund also aims to center voices and leadership from communities counteracting white supremacy and state-sanctioned violence through community-led storytelling, archives for building community power, community-centered news and journalism, and media for movement building. Grant recipients include:
- Still We Rise Freedom Coalition ($25,000) — to support "We Free Us," a storytelling project for currently and formerly incarcerated women and transgender and gender nonconforming people in Philadelphia jails to share their stories and build power towards large-scale decarceration.
- The MOVE Activist Archive ($35,000) — to support the archiving of the MOVE Organization's history in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the MOVE bombing.
- Philly-Afghan Info Hub ($25,000) — to support the Philly-Afghan Info Hub, which will amplify community narratives and meet the information, civic engagement, and networking needs of Afghan refugees in the Philadelphia region.
“We’re excited to continue supporting the region’s media ecosystem. More than ever we need stories that accurately reflect the experiences of communities of color, advance social justice movements, and cultivate joy and accountability,” said IPMF Program Officer Nuala Cabral.
CLICK HERE for more information and a full listing of the grant recipients.
Go behind-the-scenes of this grant cycle
Get an exclusive look at this year’s Community Voices Fund decision-making process in Program Associate Samíl Jimenez-Magdaleno's podcast and essay.