Deadline: April 9, 2014
Applications are invited for the 2014 Rising Voices Micro-grants for Online Citizen Media Projects. Do you have an idea for a project to help your local community use citizen media to tell their story? Do you need funding and support for it to become a reality? Do you want to be part of a network that helps bridge the digital participation gap worldwide?
If you answer “yes” to all three questions, then we invite you to take part in the 2014 Rising Voices Microgrant Competition. Rising Voices seeks proposals that share their mission of using online citizen media as a tool for self-empowerment, understanding between people, and social change.
Benefits:
- Awarding up to 10 micro-grants of between USD $2,000-2,500 to projects with a strong and clear idea for how to provide training and ongoing support to a local community.
- New grantees will join the Rising Voices network and will be featured on Global Voices.
Eligibility:
- This funding opportunity is open to private individuals, groups, networks, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Guidelines:
Rising Voices seeks proposals that share our mission of using online citizen media as a tool for self-empowerment, understanding between people, and social change. We are looking for projects that:
- Actively engage members of a local community that is “underrepresented” online, either demographically, linguistically, or geographically. We are especially looking to support leaders who themselves belong to these communities and know how and why citizen media could benefit community members. If the applicant is not a member of the community, local residents or community members must be a part of developing and implementing the project.
- Provide training, mentoring and leadership. We want project leaders who are eager to share their knowledge and skills with others. Through hands-on training in citizen media production and storytelling techniques, participants will feel equipped and confident to take full advantage of the tools. Ongoing support is essential in the formation of a productive digital storytelling community.
- Tell digital stories about issues important to the community. After participants take part in training workshops they are ready to share their voices with the world. We are looking for stories that give insight to the community, their challenges or successes, told from a uniquely personal perspective.
- Use free and widely available citizen media tools and social media platforms. This may include blogs, microblogs like Twitter, free software like Audacity for editing audio, SoundCloud, Audioboo, or Radioteca. Video sites like YouTube and Vimeo, or mapping with OpenStreetMaps. You might also consider using social networking sites like Facebook to distribute your content.
For more information, click here.
