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YR Media

Oakland, California

Grants

2023 (4 years)
$1,000,000

YR Media is a national youth-driven media production company that trains hundreds of young people each year on how to use journalism and storytelling for social change. It hosts a national network of youth reporters and media makers creating and sharing content, in a range of formats, designed to engage youth in conversation on issues that matter to them and to inject a youth perspective into public debate. With a special commitment to reaching young people from historically marginalized groups, YR Media is using this general operating support grant to provide young content creators, ages 14 to 24, with an experiential media arts education and a national platform to report and reflect on issues and events that affect their lives. Having established a YR Media bureau in Chicago last year, it will focus on engaging more young reporters and media makers in the Midwest as part of a longer-term vision to grow and strengthen the YR Media network through regional hubs.

2021 (2 years)
$500,000

YR Media is a national youth-driven media production company that trains hundreds of young people each year on how to use journalism and storytelling for social change. Over the past five years, YR Media has transitioned from serving largely as a traditional broadcast company producing youth-centered content for NPR and other national radio broadcast services into a national network of youth reporters and media makers creating and sharing content, in a range of formats, to engage youth in conversation on issues that matter to them and injecting a youth perspective into public debate. With a special commitment to reaching young people from historically marginalized groups, YR Media is using these grant funds to provide young content creators, ages 14 to 24, with an experiential media arts education and a national platform to report and reflect on issues and events that affect their lives. It also plans to establish a new YR Media bureau in Chicago to engage more young reporters and media makers in the Midwest as part of a longer-term vision to grow and strengthen the YR Media network through regional hubs. This grant provides general operating support.

2018 (3 years)
$900,000

Youth Radio is a national non-profit, youth-driven media production company that trains hundreds of young people each year in next-generation media technology and digital-age civics. This general operating grant supports Youth Radio to scale YRMedia, a networked approach to media production and distribution designed to connect youth media makers from different backgrounds and geographies to develop stories collaboratively for national distribution, using both traditional and new media tools and practices. With YRMedia as the focal point of the organization's new strategic direction, the goal is to tap the power of all media platforms to amplify the diverse voices of youth from across the country and connect them to important policy debates, thus ensuring they have an impact on issues and policies that affect their lives. This grant supports Youth Radio to develop the technical infrastructure to facilitate training for and collaboration among youth reporters and producers across the country, and to engage audiences more deeply in story development and storytelling.

2016 (2 years)
$425,000

Youth Radio is a nonprofit, youth-driven production company that has created Peabody Award-winning radio for mass audiences for the past 20 years, trained hundreds of young people in the art and craft of storytelling, and is now pivoting to include next-generation media technology and digital-age civics as part of its mission. Youth Radio is using grant funds to launch the Youth News Network (YNN), a new model for youth-driven journalism in the digital age that enables young people to use all forms of media to understand and shape public affairs. Building on its decades of experience working with youth to develop broadcast-quality content, Youth Radio’s Youth News Network is designed to expand the organization’s coverage of civic affairs by and about youth, bring the stories of marginalized youth into public discourse through journalism-enabled civic action, experiment with new tools for self expression and civic engagement, and develop toolkits to help scale the most promising innovations.

2012 (1 year)
$200,000

Youth Radio produces digital media and Peabody-award winning journalism to a national audience of more than 30 million, using hands-on media and technology experience, support services and creative engagement to prepare young people for academics and employment. Youth Radio will produce and spread multi-media stories of young people engaging in Connected Learning opportunities that fuel innovative, youth-driven, digitally-rich educational experiences; and tell stories from around the nation about what learning looks like when young people are able to attach their interests and community commitments to academic achievements and civic engagement.

1999 (1 year)
$25,000

To provide training in new media to disadvantaged youth.

1999 (1 year)
$25,000

To provide training in new media to disadvantaged youth.