McCormick Foundation Grants Reinforce Importance Of News Literacy And Journalism Education

CHICAGO, Oct. 2, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Robert R. McCormick Foundation announced more than $5.8 million in grants to support journalism, veterans, civics and early care and education.

Journalism Program

The McCormick Foundation's Journalism Program seeks to ensure that people have the news and information they need to be engaged citizens. Its grant making focuses on news literacy, journalism training and press freedoms.

"Today's exploding media world heightens the needs for quality news reporting, and for ways to help citizens sort out news from noise," said David Hiller, President and CEO of the McCormick Foundation.

2014 marks the 20^th anniversary of the Journalism Program, which has awarded more than $110 million in grants since 1994. "The bulk of these current grants support our work in Chicago and Illinois," said Clark Bell, Director of the Journalism Program at the McCormick Foundation.

Among the approved Journalism Program grants:

• Columbia College Chicago ($300,000) over two years for continued support of issues-based town hall meetings and C-LINKS, a citywide news literacy and journalism skills-building program for high school students and teachers in Chicago Public Schools, created in 2006 in partnership with the McCormick Foundation.
• Free Spirit Media ($300,000) over two years to expand its youth journalism programs.
• American Society of News Editors Foundation ($225,000) over two years for support of a national series of community workshops on news literacy.
• Illinois First Amendment Center / Illinois Press Foundation ($200,000) over two years for First Amendment and news literacy educational programs.
• Community Media Workshop ($200,000) over two years for support of Chicago's community media and audience engagement programs.
• Community Renewal Society ($200,000) over two years of continued support for the Chicago Reporter.
• Northwestern University / Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications ($200,000) for two years of continued support for the Medill Watchdog Program activities and to enhance the work of the Social Justice Initiative.
• Facing History and Ourselves ($150,000) for a two-year partnership with the News Literacy Project to lead students in an exploration into the choices that journalists make in reporting news stories, as well as the consequences of these choices.
• Illinois Humanities Council ($150,000) over 2 years for continued support of neighborhood discussions around news literacy.
• Stanford History Education Group ($150,000) over 18 months to design an assessment to measure news literacy skills.
• Street-Level Youth Media ($150,000) over two years for support of a multimedia journalism program and online news literacy hub.
• True Star Foundation ($150,000) over two years for youth journalism and news literacy training.
• Pacific News Service / New America Media ($125,000) over two years for support of a national network of community and ethnic media.
• Columbia University / Columbia Journalism Review ($100,000) over two years for support of the United States Project, which aims to improve coverage of state and local government.
• Community Television Network ($100,000) over two years for youth journalism training.
• Global Integrity ($100,000) for one year of support for State Integrity Investigations, a thorough, data-driven analysis of transparency and accountability in state governments.
• Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting ($100,000) for one year of support for expanding resources for journalists covering agribusiness.
• Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting ($100,000) for one year of continued support for a community news program.

Veterans Program

The McCormick Foundation's Veterans Program focuses on helping veterans find quality employment, and also help them navigate the diverse and fragmented array of services available to them. While there are positive trends in veteran unemployment, the unique barriers to employment face by veterans persist.

"It can be tremendously confusing for a returning veteran to find program that help them re-integrate into society," said Eli Williamson, Director of the Veterans Program at the McCormick Foundation. "With more than 40,000 nonprofits dedicated to veterans across the country and a VA system that struggles to meet the demand, it is of vital importance to highlight the pathways to the right programs with the greatest ease."

Among the approved Veterans Program grants are:

• New York University ($1,000,000) over two years for the Welcome Back Veterans Dual Diagnosis Program at the Cohen Military Family Clinic, addressing substance abuse and addiction issues relation to veterans' mental health concerns, specifically post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, traumatic brain injury and family stress.
• DePaul University The Irwin W. Steans Center ($245,000) for two years to increase capacity of Chicago's faith based community to serve veterans and their families.
• National Able Network ($150,000) for one year to scale the Veterans Forward program and create employment opportunities in IT and manufacturing.
• The Chicago Lighthouse ($100,000) over one year for the Veterans' Employment Project to train and assist visually impaired and other veterans in finding and retaining employment.
• Give an Hour ($100,000) over one year to improve their online infrastructure to increase the number veterans who utilize their free mental health services, and to begin work with Illinois National Guard and Reserves to provide referral services for military sexual assault victims.
• Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy ($100,000) for one year to develop the Veterans in Philanthropy Initiative which will work to create a pipeline of Veterans into the nonprofit and philanthropic space.
• Teach For America ($100,000) for one year to support Teach for America's Chicago region in providing local veterans the opportunity to continue their service to their country as Teach For America corps members.
• Thresholds ($100,000) for one year to support the Thresholds Veterans Project addressing homelessness, employment, mentoring, substance abuse treatment, health services and trauma-based therapies.
• Additional grants were approved for McCormick's Civics, Early Care and Education programs, including:
• Children's First Fund ($250,000) for one year for the Chicago Public Schools Global Citizenship Initiative which encourages students to actively engage in researching and formulating questions, discussing controversial issues and developing action plans to address problems in their communities.
• The Kindling Group ($100,000) to support a documentary that will bring to life the challenges families face in seeking access to quality early care and education programming for their young children.

About the Robert R. McCormick Foundation
The Robert R. McCormick Foundation is committed to fostering communities of educated, informed and engaged citizens. Through philanthropic programs, Cantigny Park and museums, the Foundation helps develop citizen leaders and works to make life better in our communities. The Foundation was established as a charitable trust in 1955, upon the death of Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the longtime editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune. The Robert R. McCormick Foundation is one of the nation's largest foundations, with more than $1.5 billion in assets. For more information, please visit www.McCormickFoundation.org, follow us on Twitter, and "Like" us on Facebook.

SOURCE Robert R. McCormick Foundation