People’s Media Fund Announces $770,000 in 2025 Community Voices Grants
PHILADELPHIA, December 4, 2025—People’s Media Fund (PMF) announced its 2025 Community Voices Fund grant recipients, with $770,000 awarded to 32 organizations and projects. These grants will support media-making projects that strengthen social justice movement-building and community organizing in the Philadelphia region.
The 2025 open call focused on resourcing the crucial role narratives play in shaping how people understand and engage with others and the world around them. This work is particularly important during the increased government defunding of critical news and media structures that provide life-saving information to communities and encourage civic engagement.
"The Community Voices grantees remind us that we’re not alone in a time when the world's problems can feel so immense and many of us feel inadequate in addressing them," said PMF Program Officer Melissa Hamilton. "These grantees challenge systemic oppression and build community and narrative power through media. They encourage us to draw from our collective strength to ensure that diverse communities not only survive but also have opportunities to dream up liberatory futures."
Highlights from this year’s fund include:
- Library Freedom Project ($30,000) — to launch a Philadelphia pilot that equips library staff and residents with critical AI literacy media and the skills needed to protect devices and accounts, navigate surveillance at protests and public meetings, and help neighbors get accurate voting details in a charged political climate.
- Historical Society of Moorestown ($20,000) — to support the "Moorestown Black Voices Podcast,” which seeks to amplify and archive the Black histories, lived experiences, and futures in Moorestown, New Jersey, as well as strengthen civic collaboration by embedding Black histories and leadership into the township’s civic life.
- People's Budget Office ($30,000) — to expand "Defining Safety," a collaborative public art and documentary project that urgently amplifies Philadelphians’ voices on safety and strengthens campaigns for budget transparency, equity, and community-driven alternatives to policing and incarceration.
Applications are evaluated by a local panel of community members who have strong community relationships and expertise around movement building and mediamaking. The People’s Media Fund chooses panelists based on recommendations from local community organizations and leaders. The 2025 review panel consisted of: Aisha Mershani, Andre Simms, Ariel Taylor, Emma Restrepo, Erika Guadalupe Núñez, Fred Pinguel, M. Asli Dukan, Melissa Beatriz, and TK Dinh.
The decisions made by the panel were final and not influenced by the PMF board or staff. This community-led grantmaking process demonstrates the foundation’s commitment to transferring power to communities that have been traditionally excluded from philanthropy and affected by harmful media narratives.
The following are the 2025 Community Voices grant recipients:
215 People's Alliance Education Fund
$30,000
To support the “End Legacy Dumping” project, which seeks to build resilience and a transformation strategy that uplifts the knowledge and experiences of frontline community members confronting areas plagued by persistent, repeated dumping despite cleanup efforts.
A New Dawn Incorporated
$30,000
To support “Roots of Resilience: Media, Land, and Community Power in Mill Creek,” which seeks to amplify the voices of youth, adults, and seniors in Mill Creek through intergenerational storytelling that reclaims community narratives, builds resilience, and strengthens movement-building around land, healing, and justice.
CAIR-Philadelphia
$30,000
To support “Beyond Islamophobia: Stories of Resilience,” which seeks to showcase stories of resilience in the face of rising anti-Muslim racism and amplify moments of hope in our communities.
Camden Parent & Student Union
$30,000
To support “Camden Voices Amplified,” which seeks to empower Camden parents and students through grassroots organizing and independent journalism demanding equity, transparency, and accountability, amplifying authentic community voices, and building lasting leadership.
Care, Not Control
$10,000
To support the "Uncaged Potential" podcast, which continues to increase awareness of juvenile justice issues and youth-led organizing efforts through an audio and visual podcast developed by directly impacted young people.
Centro Integral de la Mujer Madre Tierra
$30,000
To support “Red de Confianza: Información, Cuidados y Movimiento Comunitario,” which seeks to strengthen access to reliable and culturally relevant information in Philadelphia's Latino migrant community, activate a network of community spokespersons to produce verified multimedia content in Spanish, and update a community directory that fosters organizing, advocacy, and collective action based on care.
CMP Radio Foundation
$30,000
To support “Project Engage,” an intergenerational community storytelling project in Chester, PA that: trains youth in podcasting, audio production, and journalism; lifts up the vital histories and cultural legacies of local elders; and empowers Chester residents to shape how their city is seen and understood.
Do Moore Good
$30,000
To expand "Pardon Me,” an impact campaign based on the eponymous documentary, that will grow the West Philly Pardon Network into a statewide training and storytelling hub and launch a statewide digital storytelling initiative that amplifies community voices, builds pressure for pardon recommendations, and increases awareness of second chances as an economic and moral imperative.
FunTimes Magazine
$30,000
To support “Immigrant Voices in the Black Freedom Struggle: A Diaspora Oral History Initiative,” which seeks to capture the firsthand accounts of immigrant voices in the Black freedom struggle by building a digital archive and multimedia storytelling initiative.
Gapura
$10,000
To create a short documentary which will explore the lives and transformative stories of Indonesian immigrants and their families, as well as the importance of art and Indonesian culture in igniting resilience, fostering healing, and building community.
Generocity
$30,000
To support “Movement Building Through Flourishing," which seeks to highlight solutions from youth organizers and communities addressing issues exacerbated by H.R.1 ("One Big Beautiful Bill Act").
Historical Society of Moorestown
$20,000
To support the “Moorestown Black Voices Podcast,” which seeks to amplify and archive the Black histories, lived experiences, and futures in Moorestown, New Jersey, as well as strengthen civic collaboration by embedding Black histories and leadership into the township’s civic life.
Impacto Media
$20,000
To support Impacto Media, a bilingual community newspaper, to continue developing a roster of community contributors, cover policy issues of critical importance, and offer readers practical information to protect the Hispanic community.
Indigenous Peoples' Day Philly
$30,000
To support a media campaign to reinstate Indigenous Peoples’ Day as an official city holiday and continue to amplify the voices of Indigenous peoples and allies.
Inti Media
$30,000
To support Inti Media's bilingual civic engagement efforts and youth media programming that uses journalism, visual storytelling, and short documentaries to empower Latine and BIPOC voters in Philadelphia.
Library Freedom Project
$30,000
To launch a Philadelphia pilot that equips library staff and residents with critical AI literacy media and the skills needed to protect devices and accounts, navigate surveillance at protests and public meetings, and help neighbors get accurate voting details in a charged political climate.
Mighty Writers
$10,000
To support “Narratives of Nourishment to Reimagine Food Futures,”which seeks to empower teens to create powerful digital storytelling and photo-collage projects documenting the planning and creation of Camden's first community-owned, full-service grocery store.
Mindful-Well
$10,000
To support “Unveiled Stories of Parenthood: Rising Together,” which seeks to challenge stereotypes of Black and Brown parenthood by using storytelling to strengthen local parent networks and advocacy.
Native American House Alliance
$30,000
To amplify the stories of Native Americans in Philadelphia, honoring the Native American people of the past who originally inhabited the region, and highlighting the voices, culture, and contributions of present-day Native communities living in the city today.
Painted Bride Art Center
$20,000
To support "Voices of 52nd Street,Then & Now: A Community Archive and Celebration," which seeks to document and preserve the vital voices that contributed to the thriving of the historic West Philadelphia corridor and community, past and present, in the face of stifling gentrification and erasure.
People's Budget Office
$30,000
To expand "Defining Safety," a collaborative public art and documentary project that urgently amplifies Philadelphians’ voices on safety, and strengthens campaigns for budget transparency, equity, and community-driven alternatives to policing and incarceration.
Philadelphia Community Bail Fund
$10,000
To support the “Black Mama's Bail Out Storytelling Campaign,” which will amplify stories of people formerly incarcerated, pre-trial in Philadelphia, through short videos that will serve as the centerpiece of their community education and advocacy work for their annual Black Mama's Bail Out campaign in Spring 2026.
Philadelphia Student Union
$20,000
To support “Project Dream Forward,” a youth-led cultural organizing campaign that seeks to advance a vision for collective liberation using zines, wearable messaging, and film production to transform apathy into action and develop new leaders, while contributing to a citywide movement.
Philly Black Worker Project
$30,000
To support the “With All Due Respect Campaign,” a worker-led fight to regulate Philadelphia’s temporary workers industry and amplify the voices of Black and formerly incarcerated workers navigating exploitative labor conditions.
Practice Space Collective
$20,000
To support “Speculative Horizons: Philadelphia 2126,” a series of community storytelling workshops that will result in an audio anthology told from the perspective of a future generation living in a world transformed by the movement-building work we are embedded in today.
Prison Health News
$30,000
To support Prison Health News' initiative to expand access to health information and support health-justice strategy sharing among disenfranchised communities in prison through a platform where people in prison can tell their stories and educate themselves and others about prison abolition, health justice, and tools for surviving prison.
Rough Drafts
$20,000
To support “Rough Drafts," a podcast that seeks to address toxic masculinity and provide an alternative space for broader-based gender expression.
The Philly Pigeon
$20,000
To support the online edition of the “Late(ish) Poetry Show,” which seeks to develop and amplify the work of poets who personalize, document, and resist the cultural and material impacts of fascism.
Victoria Urban Outreach Tutoring Service
$30,000
To support “Empowering Voices: Youth Narratives for Educational Justice,” which seeks to amplify the voices of youth in foster care and other marginalized communities in Philadelphia.
VietLead
$30,000
To expand "Taking Root," a community-organizer-produced documentary series which seeks to build long-term engagement and cross-racial solidarity, and mobilize Southeast Asian communities toward systemic change.
Vox Populi
$20,000
To support "Black Box Presents: Arts in Action," a media screening and discussion series exploring the role of the arts in advancing movements for social change, and seeking to connect grassroots organizers with local artists to preserve strategies and stories for future organizing.
Welcome Project PA
$20,000
To support the creation of short video and audio that highlights the stories and efforts of immigrant individuals, families, and rapid response teams in Montgomery County and Philadelphia.
For more information, contact Enni Aigbomian, enni@peoplesmediafund.org
About People’s Media Fund
Formerly known as WYBE Channel 35, the People's Media Fund (PMF) was founded in 2018 when WYBE sold its broadcast license as part of the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadcast Incentive Auction and received a one-time payment of $131.5 million. With these funds, PMF supports Black-led, Indigenous-led, and people-of-color led media organizations and media making projects that help communities build their narrative power for equity and justice.
Photo credit: Lori Waselchuk for Spiral Q
