New Voices was an incubator for pioneering U.S. community news ventures launched during the early days of community news startups and citizen media ventures. It helped fund the start-up of 56 innovative local-news websites between 2005 and 2010. The projects were selected from a total of 1,533 applicants. New Voices was administered by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism. It was funded by grants from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Projects in the first four years of the program received $12,000 to launch and another $5,000 in the second year, if they successfully started up and raised $5,000 in matching funds. Support was increased in 2009 and 1010 to $17,000 in the first year with another $8,000 available, if matched, in the second year.
The grantees were selected by the New Voices Advisory Board. To learn how the first five grantee cohort groups did, see our 2010 publication: New Voices: What Works.
Additional learning resources for the grantees and other media entrepreneurs is available at J-Learning.org, a how-to site with training in web site reaches and digital tools, and the Knight Community News Network, a self-learning portal to guide news entrepreneurs in launching and responsibly operating local news and information sites.
