Reasons to be Cheerful gets $100,000 for climate and water reporting

The solutions journalism-focused digital publication Reasons to be Cheerful received $100,000 in funding from the Walton Family Foundation to produce “Waterline,” (https://reasonstobecheerful.world/welcome-to-waterline/) a reporting project surfacing solutions stories at the nexus of water, climate and food. Through two stories per month, the project is highlighting the new and innovative ways people are protecting and sustaining the resource all food systems rely on. The grant covers costs for story production and promotion, as well as subsequent impact tracking. The series of 24 stories began in July 2023 and will run over the course of one year. The proposal to funders promised to center the voices of those whose lives most closely intersect with water issues — food producers, energy workers, rural residents and Indigenous groups — to show how these communities are deeply involved in pragmatic, non-ideological sustainability solutions, and the surprising intersectionality between their work and the work of conservationists.