Knight Foundation realizes that the community information ecosystem is not limited to news and information itself, but also access to news and information and the ability to engage with it. Community foundations have the opportunity to play an important role in this evolving landscape.

As the application period for the third Community Information Challenge is closing (the deadline to apply is March 8), Knight Foundation has released a study, Reports From the Field: Place-Based Foundations and the Knight Community Information Challenge, about how place-based foundations are incorporating community information needs into their work.

Michael Marsicano, CEO of the Foundation for the Carolinas, says:

"You cannot conduct meaningful civic work without good information. Engaging citizens without data bears little fruit. Engaging citizens with poor data compromises all future community leadership activities."

What have we learned in the first two years of the Knight Community Information Challenge?

• Foundations are committing significant financial resources to address information needs through and beyond KCIC.
• To be effective, place-based foundations are building capacity to  manage their projects.
• Foundations are increasingly engaging in multiple community leadership activities to increase the impact of their KCIC projects.
• Foundations are engaging in informations initiatives in addition to their KCIC projects.
• Foundations are attracting considerable outside support from funders and sponsors.
• Foundations are also aligning the necessary partnerships and expertise to address their own capacity gaps.
• Through their project experience, foundations are learning more about other projects in their communities and the overall information ecosystem.
• Although for more grantees it is still too early to see evidence that residents are changing their attitudes and behaviors, foundations are putting in place evaluation activities to collect data.

Reports from the field: Place-Based Foundations and the Knight Community Information Challenge provides further insight into these findings, as well as presenting challenges that grantees are facing, what Knight Foundation is learning from the challenge, and a guide on how to address information needs in your community.

Click here to download the PDF of the study.

So far, the Challenge has awarded $7.3 million for 45 ideas in communities large and small. The projects include funding public interest online news sites; creating online hubs to engage communities around specific issues and examining a region's changing media landscape in order to help fill the voids, among many others. Click here to read about past KCIC winners.

Live chats will take place at noon EDT Feb. 16 and 22 at www.informationneeds.org to help answer questions about the challenge. Visit the site sign up for a reminder.

To help educate leaders of community and place-based foundations about media trends and information needs, Knight will host the third Media Learning Seminar March 1 and 2 in Miami. To find out more about the seminar and to register, click here.

Included in this round of KCIC winners are a diverse range of projects - from raising public awareness on vital local issues to creating online community forums to stimulate dialogue among residents to conducting an online cultural treasure hunt. The list of winners also includes the Challenge's first collaboration among several local foundations seeking to make a regional impact. From the news release:

“Information is as important to a thriving democracy as clean air, jobs and schools. As leaders, local foundations are taking the initiative to meet those information needs,” said Trabian Shorters , Knight Foundation’s vice president for communities, who leads the Challenge. “These projects help ensure that everyone has the information necessary to make decisions about their governments and their lives.”

You can read details about all of the winning projects at InformationNeeds.org.

Speaking of InformationNeeds.org, the site has been redesigned in conjunction with today's announcement. There, you'll not only find more information about the Challenge, but also information on the upcoming Media Learning Seminar, as well as plenty of archived video resources from past seminars.

According to the official release, the grants fall into five broad categories:

• Projects designed to improve the flow of information in high-need communities: This includes $45,000 to sponsor a student journalism collaboration between Columbia College and the Chicago Tribune, $35,000 to expand neighborhood coverage on the local site Gapers Block, $45,000 to train high school and college journalists to provide coverage for a new Spanish-language news site,  and $35,000 in training and equipment for citizen journalists - all targeted to underserved areas.
• Projects designed to strengthen information sharing, learning and unique perspectives by and for specific groups: This includes $30,000 to boost the Chicago-area community of Latino journalists, $60,000 to engage hundreds of young journalists to report on how youth are faring in the current economic climate, and $45,000 to fund a community media workshop to support local community and ethnic media.
• Projects designed to create and build new business models: This includes $50,000 to support one of the nation's first L3C journalism co-ops and a $30,000 grant for Northwestern University grad students to help two local community news ventures develop sustainable business models.
• A project designed to support investigative journalism and civic engagement: $60,000 will go to train "reporter monitors" to cover local municipal meetings.
• Projects designed to improve technology platforms and aggregation of news and information: This includes $35,000 to help the Beachwood Reporter develop its business model and $35,000 to enable Brad Flora to improve and expand his Windy Citizen news aggregator.

“The response to this program demonstrates without a doubt that the Chicago region is loaded with talented people and smart organizations determined to find new ways to serve the public’s information needs in these times of enormous change in the media landscape,” said CCT President and CEO Terry Mazany, according to the official release.  “The Chicago area has become a real laboratory for development of the future for community news and information.”

You can read more at the CCT site, and more local coverage of the announcement from Google News.

Much well-deserved buzz over the Reconstruction of American Journalism, a new report by Leonard Downie, Jr., and Michael Schudson. To its credit,  Columbia Journalism Review is reporting even critical reaction.  Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab calls the report "a welcome palate cleanser."

The report supports easier nonprofit designation for news organizations, more foundation money for journalism, changing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting into the Corporation for Public Media, more news organizations based at universities, an FCC Fund for Local News and greater government transparency. The document credits Knight Foundation's work in media innovation. (More on foundation support for news can be found here, for example, and more on open government can be found here.)

On Oct. 2, the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy issued its own report with 15 recommendations for improving the flow of news and information to communities. Topping that list:  universal broadband access, digital literacy and greater news innovation in both the public and private sector.

As a professional reporter, I can tell you, this is a real newsroom. A half-eaten muffin sits on a desk, coffee cups are everywhere. There are no windows. But there is a huge white board, with different colored writing that no one can understand except the people who work here.

One of the people who works here is Laurie Cirivello. She's the head of the Community Media Center. She likes to say she's the mom of The Rapidian. And it's a big family.

"We have 500 people on our Facebook group," Cirivello tells me. "Some of them came to a meeting, some of them have written in comments. Some of them have stepped up and put in massive amounts of hours trying to sort through editorial policy and mechanics. We have 97 people so far who've signed up to be reporters."

Ninety-seven people. Each one of them says they'll put in the grueling, thankless job of being a news reporter. And they're going to do this work voluntarily for The Rapidian. As in, they won't be paid.

Impressed by what the folks from the Grand Rapids Community Media Center and the Grand Rapids Community Foundation have accomplished here? You've got till September 23 to submit your application for the Knight Community Information Challenge. Applications must satisfy three rules:

* Applicants must be U.S. community or place-based foundation (though community partners are welcome);
* Projects have to meet a local information need;
* Foundations must match Knight Foundation’s investment.

Read more about the Info Challenge at InfoNeeds.org.

If you represent a community foundation (or another foundation with a local, geographical focus), check out the challenge website (InformationNeeds.org) for FAQs about the challenge, a webinar on applying to the challenge, and videos from local civic leaders talking about their community information projects.

If you're not a part of a place-based foundation, but you have a great idea, you might be able to partner with your local foundation to apply for the challenge.

The Knight Community Information Challenge helps U.S. communities meet their information needs by offering matching grants to community foundations to fund news and information projects.  If you're a community foundation, or someone looking to start a news and information project, you may be eligible for funding through the challenge. Applications will be accepted beginning Aug. 10. Find out more at informationneeds.org.

Information is the electricity of the 21st century, underlying everything.

In an Aspen Institute report "Civic Engagement on the Move: How mobile media can serve the public good" (.pdf) J.D. Lasica writes "more than 80 percent of Americans ages 5 to 24 will use mobile digital media by next year."

In another of Lasica's Aspen Institute publications, "Identity in the Age of Cloud Computing: The next-generation Internet's impact on business, governance, and social interaction," (.pdf) William T. Coleman explores how mobile media will make civic engagement much easier by providing the user with access to the cloud computing network at any place or time while still protecting the user's identity. 

And for journalists, Mark Glaser at Media Shift is wondering lately if Twitter will change the world and Michele McLellan at the Knight Digital Media Center has blogged about ways for journalists to engage social media users.

Facebook can be used as a reporting tool too with the new NewsCloud Facebook App,

which builds a youth audience through two publications with new approaches to outreach and marketing. One focuses on environmental issues and another is geared toward college students in Minnesota.   

Other good examples of mobile digital media in journalism?