The Public Insight Network is offering up to $2,500 in funds to support public media stations’ efforts at engaging their communities in conversation around topics important to them. The funding is intended to help stations generate content, organize events and meet the information needs of their communities through engagement.

We are offering these funds in an effort to encourage stations to involve their communities more directly in content and discussion around important local and national issues, and to encourage more newsrooms to adopt the PIN model of engaging communities in journalistically relevant ways throughout the editorial process.

Participants at a PIN community engagement event in St. Paul, Minn., sat in a wide circle, joined by event hosts and experts, to discuss how the political rancor of the 2012 election season was affecting their personal lives. (Photo by Meg Martin | PIN)

PIN gives newsrooms the capacity to do smart, targeted crowd-sourcing on deadline. More than 180,000 PIN sources around the country shape news coverage at more than 70 partner news organizations. Sources sign up by responding to online surveys, participating in virtual and in-person forums, playing serious games and meeting PIN journalists in person.

Demographic information and insights are stored in a secure, searchable database. Participating journalists query the network to find knowledgeable sources, test hunches, identify trends and support production of major news projects.

APPLICATIONS ARE CLOSED.