By LMA Staff
Word In Black, a groundbreaking collaboration of the nation’s leading Black publishers and a program of Local Media Foundation, has received $1 million from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to establish a climate justice desk and fund several other journalist positions for the next two years.
This funding will enable Word In Black to hire its first-ever climate justice reporter and a community relations/audience engagement manager, as well as providing support for Word In Black infrastructure and operations. Additionally, the support will help distribute climate content across each of the Word In Black publishers’ platforms and will aid in new content partnerships across Black communities.
“This funding is significant for Word In Black at a time when we are really starting to grow our audience and brand,” said Andrew Ramsammy, chief content and collaboration officer for Local Media Foundation and Word In Black. “Our journalism team will grow from six to nine employees and we’ll be able to cover climate change through a racial inequity lens, recognizing that Black communities have been disproportionately impacted. We are grateful to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation for its tremendous support.”
Andrew Ramsammy is the chief content and collaboration officer for Local Media Foundation and Word In Black.
(Photo by Andrew Ramsammy on LinkedIn)
“We are pleased to support Word In Black and its role in providing solutions based journalism tailored to Black Americans across the country,” said Shaheen Kassim-Lakha, senior director for strategic partnerships at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. “Journalism is critical to equitable policy creation and civic processes on many issues, including climate solutions.”
Shaheen Kassim-Lakha is the senior director for strategic partnerships at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. (Photo by Shaheen Kassim-Lakha on LinkedIn)
Support for Word In Black continues to grow and expand with contributions from readers, foundations, and the corporate community. Interested in joining the team? Here are the current job listings. To subscribe to Word In Black newsletters, sign up here.
About Word In Black
Word In Black is a groundbreaking collaboration of the nation’s leading Black publishers, deeply focused on confronting inequities, elevating solutions, and amplifying the Black experience by reporting, collecting, and sharing stories about real people in communities across the country. The 10 Word In Black publishers joined forces to shape how the nation understands and addresses systemic issues of race, justice, and equity. Word In Black is a program of Local Media Foundation.
About the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
International hotelier Conrad N. Hilton established the grantmaking foundation that bears his name in 1944 to help people living in poverty and experiencing disadvantage worldwide. Today, the work continues, concentrating on efforts to ensure healthy early childhood development and sustainable livelihoods for youth, support young people transitioning out of foster care, improve access to housing and support services for people experiencing homelessness, identify solutions to safe water access, and lift the work of Catholic sisters. Additionally, following selection by an independent, international jury, the Foundation annually awards the $2.5 million Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize to an organization doing extraordinary work to reduce human suffering. The Foundation is one of the world’s largest, with approximately $8.5 billion in assets. It has awarded grants to date totaling more than $2.4 billion, $339 million worldwide in 2021. Please visit http://www.hiltonfoundation.org for more information.
About Local Media Association / Local Media Foundation
Local Media Association brings all media together to share, network, collaborate and more. More than 3,000 newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, digital pure-plays, and research and development partners engage with LMA as members or constituents of our programs. As a 501(c)(6) trade association, LMA is focused on the business side of local media. Its programs and labs focus on revenue growth and new business models. LMA helps local media companies develop their strategies via cutting-edge programs, conferences, webinars, research and training.
Local Media Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable trust, serves as the innovation and transformation affiliate of LMA. Incorporating our four strategic pillars — business transformation, journalism funded by philanthropy, industry collaboration, and sustainability for publishers of color — LMF helps provide local media companies the strategies and resources for meaningful innovation and impactful journalism projects. LMF serves as the managing director and fiscal sponsor of Word In Black.
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