Public Narrative

Public Narrative serves as a bridge between nonprofit organizations and journalists; it helps nonprofits tell their stories to media outlets, and helps journalists write better stories about the people and organizations that are working to deliver solutions for communities. This grant supports Public Narrative to design and execute on a plan to become a backbone institution for the Chicago journalism ecosystem, as Press Forward Chicago launches and brings more resources and opportunities for local news outlets. Grant funds will support staff time, legal expenses, stakeholder focus groups, and strategic planning activities. The intended outcome is a strong coordinating and leadership organization that can serve and advocate for independent media outlets that provide news and information for Chicago’s diverse communities.

Public Narrative is a Chicago-based non-profit that helps nonprofit organizations and journalists tell more accurate stories about Chicago's diverse communities and how the issues of public health, safety, and education affect these communities. This X-Grant provides support to Public Narrative for a six-part training series for community-based journalists to access and disseminate health-related research findings to their audiences and other stakeholders. 

Public Narrative works with community groups, nonprofit organizations and journalists to promote more accurate and comprehensive storytelling about communities of color in Chicago. Their aim is to disrupt damaging narratives about BIPOC communities prevalent in mainstream media. This grant supports a dialogue and brain-storming session between Black and Brown artists and community journalists to identify and dissect disparaging narratives prevailing in their communities and in their respective artistic fields. The intended outcome is new artwork and published articles that provide alternative narratives that are more authentic and accurate.  

Since 1989, the Community Media Workshop has worked to diversify the voices in news and public debates by providing communications coaching for grassroots, arts and other non-profit organizations, and sourcing grassroots and community news for journalists. Building on a similar effort undertaken for the 1996 Democratic Convention held in Chicago, the Workshop will work with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs to build a virtual resource center - the Gr8 Global City Media Portal - to connect journalists to local Chicago stories and connect Chicagoans to the issues, ideas and people driving May 2012 G8-NATO summit.

In support of general operations.