UNITY Kicks Off Year-Long Campaign with Challenge Fund IV

McLean, VA -- UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc., a national coalition that represents 10,000 journalists of color and the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Native American Journalists Association, is a proud Challenge Fund for Journalism IV grant recipient. The matching grant program funded through the Ford Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the McCormick Tribune Foundation and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation was designed to provide assistance to non-profit journalism organizations in the United States that are in need of capacity building assistance and a larger, diversified funding base.

Giving to UNITY is another way for individuals to take a stand to promote diversity within the news media and help advance our cause for fair hiring and retention practices for journalists of color. The organization’s goal is to raise $75,000 over the next year in individual contributions to receive a $50,000 match.

“The numbers in recent layoffs have shown that journalists of color are disproportionately affected by the management decisions of the news industry and this continues to be a huge problem area in the media,” says UNITY President Karen Lincoln Michel. “But with the Challenge Fund, UNITY will be able to raise the necessary funds to support a proactive agenda that will help in the recruitment and retention of jobs for our members and actively address the lack of diversity in the news coverage of communities of color.”

Since 2003, the Challenge Fund for Journalism has helped journalism organizations broaden their base of financial support through challenge grants, fund-raising training, and organizational development coaching. Grantees have in common the mission of advancing the field of journalism by supporting the needs of specialized and underserved journalism populations. In 2004, UNITY raised nearly $50,000 and was awarded a $50,000 match for the Challenge Fund I. This year the organization was reselected as one of the twelve organizations to participate in the Challenge Fund IV that will award a total of $514,000.

“While the news industry continues to evolve, we need to make sure that diversity remains central during this transformation,” says UNITY Executive Director Onica N. Makwakwa. “In these trying times, it is very important that we come together as a group and use this opportunity to develop UNITY’s institutional capacity in order to support our cause and add diversity at all levels of the industry, especially in the newsrooms.”
Online donations for UNITY can be made at http://www.unityjournalists.org/give.html.  For more information on the Challenge Fund or mail-in envelopes please call (703) 854-3585.