Impact Stories

News Ambassadors, an initiative that facilitates collaboration between journalism schools and public radio newsrooms, was awarded $10,000 in microgrants from Listening Post Collective to support engagement with KBIA in the 2024-25 school year. As News Ambassadors works to train participating new-academic partnerships in democracy-focused solutions reporting, the microgrants will cover community listening in order to improve their solutions reporting. News Ambassadors was also awarded a $30,000 grant from Scripps Howard Journalism Fund to support journalism students receiving mentorship from trained journalists, many of whom are accredited SoJo trainers and/or Complicating the Narratives Fellows. The mentorship aims to increase the likelihood of the stories’ being strong enough to air on partners’ newsroom stations at the end of the semester, and the grant will support efforts to match mentees with journalists in parts of the United States for enriched, similar learning experiences.

Colleen Hagerty has found success and inspired confidence while reporting on wildfires, their consequences, and what can be done about them. One of the solutions articles she wrote, “The Government Set a Fire in New Mexico. It Burned 341,735 Acres,” garnered a tip from someone working in prescribed fires who she said “was only comfortable doing [it] since he could see my deep understanding of the subject and desire to show the complexities of it.” Another source said the piece “sparked a positive conversation with his neighbors about sharing details of what has gone right, not just what has gone wrong, in the fire recovery process in their community.” She also did a Q&A to respond to interest from the audience for her newsletter “My World’s on Fire.” This reporting also led to a collaboration with the HotHouse newsletter to create a practical guide for people who want to engage with the process of prescribed fire in their neighborhoods.

A 2024 academic article titled “Beyond the Classroom: Evaluating Solutions Journalism Education From the Perspective of University Graduates,” and published by Kyser Lough, Karen McIntyre and Kate Roff in the Journalism & Mass Communication Educator journal, demonstrated the benefits of solutions journalism for career prospects. The research stated: “A high portion of participants indicated that their solutions journalism education helped secure employment, and 80% of participants said that the practice had an impact on their careers. Half of the participants shared that solutions journalism was discussed in the interview process for their position, was part of their hiring process or employment advertisement, and/or strengthened their resume. [...] Solutions journalism education also shaped graduates’ career trajectory, the publications they targeted in job searches, and/or their level of satisfaction with their work.”

A Colorado housing initiative run by Lutheran campus ministry, LuMin, received $50,000 from a couple who had economic hardship in college after they heard a solutions story about the organization on NPR. The story, by Emma VandenEinde, was originally broadcast on KUNC, a local public radio station in Greeley, Colorado. LuMin is an organization in Fort Collins next to Colorado State University that subsidizes housing-insecure or homeless students. The donors who had no financial assistance during their college years wrote a letter explaining their donation to LuMin and ended by saying they “would not have known about your organization had it not been for the piece NPR did.”

The Day, a daily publication based in New London, Connecticut, covering the eastern part of the state, raised $100,000 in support of its Housing Solutions Lab. The editorial project has led to the production of solutions-oriented stories such as “Branford Manor residents make a difference with mold complaints.” The revenue generated came from the local community foundation The Day had received financial support from previously, an organization referred by the first foundation, and an audience-focused fundraising campaign. The Day participated in the Lab for Journalism Funding organized by the Local Media Foundation, which also acts as fiscal sponsor for the news organization.

The BBC’s solutions-focused documentary film “Power of Mama: the women firefighters of West Borneo,” about the organization of the same name in Borneo, also known as TPOM, raised the profile of its model for climate mitigation as well as that of the elderly women living in the community who actively contribute to protecting the environment. The film was translated into Indonesian and spread widely in the community. Its local filmmaker, Rita Utari, says: “From the experience of making this film, the members of TPOM increasingly feel confident in their abilities both as individuals and as women … TPOM has also received support from local governments after [they became aware of] the film. Specifically, a verbal promise from the Ketapang Regency that they will receive Social Security Assistance for health benefits and assistance with agricultural equipment from a Legislative Assembly member.”