The Pivot Fund

The Pivot Fund is an organization dedicated to supporting newsrooms that inform communities of color and other marginalized communities through funding and technical support. The Pivot Fund will use a methodology of surveys and focus groups to map the landscape of news outlets working to meet the information needs of underserved communities across Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota. The outcomes of these activities are three landscape reports that provide an understanding of the ways in which communities across these states – in particular historically marginalized communities – are receiving news and information, and the opportunities to better serve them with necessary civic information. These reports will inform the design of funding interventions in these states.

The Pivot Fund, established in 2021, is a nonprofit organization committed to expanding and diversifying the journalism ecosystem by raising the profile of, and directing resources to, small- and medium-sized local and rural news outlets led by People of Color. The organization seeks to strengthen and support diverse and independent media outlets that promote the civic engagement of underserved audiences by providing them with quality, credible, and culturally competent news. Many of these organizations enjoy the trust of their audiences but lack access to the latest business coaching, technologies, and capital to make strategic investments. The intended outcome of this grant is to bring greater resources to BIPOC-led and -serving media organizations meeting the news and information needs of historically marginalized communities.