Boosting Journalism
Local media needs help. Shrinking local newsrooms and small news startups don’t have travel budgets to send journalists out to tell stories about solutions from other places. We fill that gap.
Stronger Cities
Metro areas are where our most complex problems, from health to climate change to racial inequity, are most deeply felt. They’re also where innovative solutions can help the most people.
Travel Grants
Our travel grants enable journalists to do on-the-ground reporting, which is so critical to telling stories about what’s working and why with texture, color, and deep understanding.
About Neal Peirce
The journalist Neal Peirce spent a career writing about the people, programs, and ideas making cities and metropolitan regions work better for all their people. And he was constantly on the road to get the story.
Stories by Our Grantees
Why Local Medical Examiners are So Important
The people who conduct autopsies make critical determinations about what caused a person’s death. Caroline Tracey went to Hidalgo County, Texas, to see why it’s so important to have a trained medical professional doing the work. Her story appeared in The Nation.
Connecting Chefs to Where Their Food Comes From
A New Orleans nonprofit takes chefs and restaurant workers out on boats to see firsthand how a disappearing shoreline harms the ecosystems where local seafood comes from. Rory Doyle’s photos in The Bitter Southerner magazine showed what they learned.
Medical-Legal Partnerships Show Impact
Sometimes, the cure for a respiratory problem like asthma is forcing a landlord to fix mold or other issues. For this Boston Globe story, Julia Hotz went to Cincinnati to see how a medical program that prescribes legal counsel is paying off for patients.
Informing a Debate over Public Power
Rochester, N.Y., is studying the idea of taking over its local electric utility. Colin Kinniburgh of New York Focus went there to report on the debate–and stopped in the town of Massena to find out how that city’s decision to municipalize paid off for residents.
Searching for Housing Solutions
Missoula, Mont., is facing an affordable housing crisis like the city has never seen before. For the 6-part Missoulian series “Nowhere to Go,” David Erickson went to Portland, Ore., to learn what lessons that city’s extensive housing programs can offer Missoula.
Keeping Trailside Homes Affordable
A new rail trail in Albuquerque promises to bring new amenities but may squeeze longtime homeowners with higher taxes. Peter Rice of the Downtown Albuquerque News went to Atlanta to report on programs that protect residents along that city’s booming BeltLine.
Across the nation, cities are tackling problems like climate change, racial inequities, affordable housing, crime, and public health. Yet resources are shrinking for journalists to get out in the field to report on solutions and spread ideas that make communities stronger.
Our travel grants make stories happen.