Independent news from the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance

Ford Foundation awards grant to Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance 

In September, the Ford Foundation awarded the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance a $150,000 grant in a generous show of support for our work. 

Our team continues to grow at Buffalo’s Fire and the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance. We currently have five staff members, and we expect to hire at least two more by the end of the year. One of those positions includes a managing editor. This growth is possible with the help of funders who support our mission and vision.

We’re thankful for the Ford Foundation’s mission that recognizes “too many people are excluded from the political, economic, and social institutions that shape their lives. In addressing this reality, we are guided by a vision of social justice—a world in which all individuals, communities, and peoples work toward the protection and full expression of their human rights; are active participants in the decisions that affect them; share equitably in the knowledge, wealth, and resources of society; and are free to achieve their full potential.”


The Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, publisher of the online news site buffalosfire.com, fits soundly into the foundation’s mission. We, too, are guided by a vision of social justice. Through our work, we amplify the voices of our community in several ways. We report on our local community in the Bismarck-Mandan area and the nearby Indian reservations in the state.

Keep reading the newsletter for more updates on our exciting plans to use the Ford grant to continue our journalism and media work in our wonderful Native communities.

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear, Founder and Director, Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance

Wááshirahere’- Thank you.

Publisher, Buffalo’s Fire

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Dateline:

BISMARCK, N.D.

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear is the founder and director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization with offices in Bismarck, N.D. and the Fort Berthold Reservation. Jodi spent 15 years reporting for the mainstream press. She's been awarded prestigious Nieman and John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. She also an MIT Knight Science Journalism Project fellow. Her writing is featured in "The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity," published by Columbia University Press. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and she chairs the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. Jodi has won top journalism awards from mainstream and Native press organizations. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.