Many Questions. Some Answers.

I came across many questions on Dan Gillmor’s blog today.  Here are some of the answers I posted on his site. Why can’t New Voices give grants to independent entrepreneurs?  As we explained earlier here, the terms of the Knight grant simply don’t allow us to re-grant the money to anyone who does not have nonprofit status.

But we are soliciting independent ideas. If you want to share them, I’m working to raise funding for them. The best way to do that is to fill out the one-page Project Summary (PDF).

For now, an independent creator would need to be affiliated with a 501(c)3. That’s explained in our FAQs.

What might be an example of an ongoing project vs. a new venture? I don’t want to limit the creativity of any of the applicants, but it might consist of a community web site that wants to add a low powered FM radio newscast.  Or a weekly newspaper that wants to add an online component. 

New Voices funding is not intended to pay anyone’s salary. It is intended to help create a project that we hope proves to be so valuable that you can then use it to leverage other financial support.  We aspire for these initiatives to try to become self-sustaining.

What about independent entrepreneurs?

Welcome to the New Voices blog. Citizens media projects are already provoking a lot of discussion, and we know the projects to be funded New Voices grants will add to that dialogue. We invite your comments and tips, your questions and reactions.

I’ll start this blog by addressing a query that many of you have already registered. Namely, why isn’t New Voices funding open to anyone with a worthy project? Why does it exclude grassroots efforts from independent entrepreneurs?

The simplest answer is that J-Lab, under its grant from the Knight Foundation, is limited to regranting the money only to nonprofit or educational institutions. Period.

That doesn’t mean we are not interested in independent initiatives. If you look at the Project Summary PDF form, we invite people who do not meet New Voices guidelines to share their good ideas with us. While we can’t make any promises, J-Lab will do its best to see what other funding we can make available.