BY JODI RAVE
Did you have fun shopping during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, buying lotions, jewelry and hi-tech gifts that will make friends and family – even yourself – happy?
Today, we ask you to shift your attention to community needs on this national day of giving.
Today, we ask you to help kick off the charitable season as a part of #GivingTuesday.
Today, we ask you to remember the handful of Native nonprofit organizations serving the media needs of our rural and urban tribal communities. All of us who live in, and represent, Indian Country have a story to tell.
The Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance was founded to raise the visibility of news and events that effect American Indians. You can donate to our mission as part of our national campaign with NewsMatch. For every dollar you contribute, it will be matched up to $1,000 from individual donors. Go to the NewsMatch site for more information.
Our organization was certified as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in June 2016. We aim to support independent media operations to create a greater news presence of American Indians. The IMFA currently supports depth reporting, media literacy and the creation of a national broadcast network for Native news and programming. Ultimately, our work can help revitalize indigenous languages and culture locally, regionally and nationally. We are a groundbreaking organization that is building the foundation for a national, Native-inspired, autonomous media network.
We will advance and enhance community storytelling by providing training and mentoring in our primary focus areas, which include digital print, in-depth, explanatory reporting, radio news, podcasting, and broadcast programming. We publish news on our existing platform at Buffalo’s Fire.
The IMFA participants will include tribal grassroots media makers, such as reporters, filmmakers and photojournalists. Our goal is to provide participants with the resources, skills and support they need to deliver news coverage in tribal communities.
With the support of donors, we will change the status quo of programming and information relative to American Indians. We will create a modern media venue where our Native youths will be visible. Without support, our Native populations will remain hidden and obscure, relegated to the historical image of the warbonnet-wearing Indian. Our communities will remain uniformed without viable media operations that serve the people.
As a grassroots-driven media organization, the IMFA can share information and knowledge that will help our Native communities grow and prosper. We understand that a vibrant society is shaped by the economy. Strong economies and democratic governments are shaped by citizen’s rights to be engaged, heard, seen and informed.
We’re set to establish IMFA as a trusted independent American Indian news organization.
Like a river, we will let stories flow to bigger waters from the source, gently guiding them through our channels.
Jodi Rave Spotted Bear, Executive Director, Lakota, Mandan and Hidatsa, is an award-winning journalist. Her awards and recognition span honors from the Pacific Northwest Society of Professional Journalists and Native American Journalists Association to the U.S. Military Journalist of the Year to Columbia University’s Let’s Do It Better project. She received a Nieman Fellowship for journalists from Harvard University. She was also a Peter Jennings Project Fellow of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Spotted Bear, Mandan-Hidatsa and Lakota, has a journalism degree from the University of Colorado-Boulder. She reported on American Indian issues for more than a decade for Lee Enterprises. She founded the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance to help create an informed society knowledgeable about current events and topics in Indian Country.
