Sacramento Bee wins $21,000 Facebook grant to fund new series elevating community voices

The Sacramento Bee has won a $21,000 grant from Facebook to fund a new series of creative art and reporting work from emerging writers and artists from marginalized communities in the Sacramento region.

In partnership with local social justice nonprofit Sol Collective, the Community to Newsroom Pipeline series will “amplify and elevate the voices of residents living in underserved communities” by recruiting up-and-coming writers and artists and publishing stories, videos, poems and more on The Bee’s platforms, according to the Tuesday announcement by the Facebook Journalism Project Community Network.

The grant will be used to pay writers and artists for their work, as well as support regular workshops for the series in collaboration with Sol Collective and other community organizations on topics related to journalism and art.

“Historically, newsrooms have not reflected their communities,” McClatchy’s Director of Community Funding Initiatives and West Region Editor Lauren Gustus said in a statement. “At The Bee, we’re working daily to diversify our team, sources in our reporting and the perspectives we offer — across political, socioeconomic, ethnic and gender fault lines, among others.”

“We’re grateful for Sol Collective’s collaboration and look forward to expanding to other partners as we together build a more inclusive future.”

Sol Collective is a community-based nonprofit “whose mission is to provide artistic, cultural, and educational programming, promote social justice, and empower youth of color, marginalized, and underserved communities through art, activism, music and media,” according to its website.

Sacramento has an equity problem. How we address it together will be part of Stephon Clark’s legacy

The Bee was one of 30 Community Network recipients announced in January. The grant program — led by the Facebook Journalism Project and Lenfest Institute for Journalism — started last summer to support projects “aimed at building community and new paths to sustainability in local news,” according to the program website.

“This diverse group of Community Network grantees are creating initiatives that shift the focus from coverage for communities to coverage with communities, enabling greater collaboration between news organizations and those they aim to serve,” read the Tuesday announcement.

The Bee and Sol Collective hosted their first event for the Community to Newsroom Pipeline series Jan. 29 at The Sol Collective Arts and Cultural Center. More information about the event can be found here.

Editor’s note, Jan. 30: This story was updated to include information from Jan. 29’s Community to Newsroom Pipeline event.