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Association of Independents in Radio

Boston, Massachusetts

Grants

2021 (3 years)
$900,000

The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to providing support, training, and advocacy for independent journalists and storytellers working in multimedia formats, with a focus on audio. It offers a series of programs aimed at developing a diverse array of talent in the audio journalism and storytelling fields, from the long-running New Voices Fellowship, a cohort learning model for emerging audio storytellers from diverse backgrounds, to the digital professional development and peer-learning platform Soundpath, launched in 2020. It also works to advocate for transparent and equitable compensation systems for independent audio and multimedia nonfiction creators within public and commercial media. This grant supports AIR’s general operations. The intended outcomes of this work are a stronger set of training and advocacy supports for independent audio creators.

2021 (1 year)
$50,000

The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) is managing a research project to examine and document public media's practices, policies, and record of supporting diverse programming and media makers. The project uses a mix of investigative reporting, archival research, and interviews. The outcome of the project is to have a better understanding of public media's financial and programmatic choices and the impact of those priorities and decisions on BIPOC storytellers.

2019 (2 years)
$600,000

The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) is a nonprofit membership organization founded in 1988 to support independent freelance audio producers in the United States. AIR works to harness new technologies to create fresh models, find new pathways, and spread the mission of public service media beyond radio broadcast. Its network has become an incubator for the development of a diverse public media workforce through its signature programs, Localore (which funds local engagement projects in partnership with public radio stations), and New Voices (a professional development program for emerging audio storytelling professionals). This grant supports general operations of AIR as it reconfigures its current programs, and adds new initiatives to serve freelance multimedia producers better in a changing ecosystem. The outcome is a stronger set of complementary support programs for independent nonfiction multimedia storytelling professionals in the United States.

2016 (3 years)
$1,000,000

The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1988 to advocate for the needs of independent freelance producers working in public radio in the U.S. AIR has created a set of programming – including grant programs, fellowships, and talent matching services – that promotes diversity, innovation, and independent perspectives throughout public media at the local and national level. MacArthur funds support general operations of AIR. The outcome of this grant is that the U.S. public will have access to more professionally produced nonfiction audio and multimedia stories and projects that better and more accurately reflect underserved communities across the country, challenge stereotypes, and provide opportunities for civic conversations and engagement.

2015 (1 year 5 months)
$200,000

The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) is a network of audio producers founded in 1988 to advocate and provide professional development opportunities for independent/freelance producers working in public radio across the United States. Since 2008, AIR has organized a series of national competitions in which independent producers and local public television and radio stations apply to work with one another on new local reporting projects that tell the underreported stories of each community using emerging technology. Throughout 2015-2016, AIR's Loca/ore: Finding America competition invites local public media stations to identify the issues they would like to cover in their communities, and producers to apply to design reporting projects to help cover them, using multiple media platforms and citizen-generated stories. AIR will select fifteen stations and match them with fifteen producers to work at the stations together for a nine-month period. AIR will then produce a single collaborative documentary that combines the stories of each city into a look at the issues facing the U.S., through the stories surfaced in these fifteen diverse communities.

2009 (4 years 2 months)
$250,000

In support of Public MediaCraft, an effort to develop programming for radio and digital platforms (over two years).

2007 (2 years)
$75,000

In support of general operations (over two years).

2003 (3 years)
$225,000

In support of general operations (over three years).

2000 (3 years)
$225,000

In support of general operations and for special support training of independent producers (over three years).

1994 (1 year)
$38,000

To support organizational development for this national membership organization of independent radio producers, station and network-based producers, and audio artists.