Deadline: 10-Jun-2020
The USAID is seeking applications for Balkan Media Assistance Program (BMAP) Engaging Content Grants (ECG).
USAID’s BMAP goal is to make media in the Western Balkans more competitive in the local and regional marketplaces and strengthen the sustainability of the independent media sector across the region, particularly in the digital space. Maintaining and upgrading production quality, reaching out to new audiences, finding out what their information needs, and interests are, and building trust with them can be a time-consuming and expensive process. This kind of content production and interaction between journalists and the public is especially critical when the need for accurate, balanced, and timely information is additionally underlined by ‘external’ circumstances, such as COVID pandemic, or closing the space for a meaningful public debate.
USAID’s BMAP aims to stimulate the production of highly engaging, quality digital content that will help local media expand their audiences, inform them, and build trust with the public while reporting on public interest issues in innovative, interactive ways.
What do Balkans Media mean by “engaging content”?
The Balkans Media does not just mean interesting stories that people want to read, watch, or listen to. Truly engaging content should:
- Involve audiences in a meaningful public discourse by providing information critical for making informed decisions;
- Target general audiences, but in a new and creative way
- Encourage audiences to devise potential solutions and get involved in addressing problems they see in their own communities;
- Create paths for communication between content producers and the public;
- Enable audiences to contribute to content production in some way, where and when possible;
- Address important social issues and engaging marginalized and/or less informed audience groups in the dialogue
- And/or promote diversification of the experiences and voices featured in media content.
Funding Information
- Grant Amount for individual grants: $10,000 – $15,000
- Duration: Up to 6 months. (Please note that the beginning of the project should be mid July 2020.)
What kinds of things will these grants support?
They want to see proposals for production of quality content in innovative digital packages or reporting projects that will use interactive formats to cover issues that both reflect audience interests and are important to the country’s (or region’s) civic, economic and social development. Grants will support recipients to launch or expand digital content initiatives with the potential to improve their core production, broaden their audience reach, solve a particular issue/problem detected in the local community, attract new types of audiences (marginalized and/or less informed audience groups) but also attract general audience in a new and creative way, facilitate interaction between journalists and audiences or between audience members themselves, and/or increase user loyalty.
This might include:
- Launch or expansion of an initiative, series, or long-term reporting project that will interactively engage broader or new audiences
- Launch or expansion of an initiative, series, or long-term reporting project that will engage general audiences, but in a new and creative way;
- Projects that will generate a meaningful public debate or propose a solution to a specific issue/problem relevant for the community;
- Audience research, surveys, focus groups, or other innovative ways to learn about the information needs and preferences of specific target groups and involve them in content production
Eligible Applicants
Locally registered media outlets in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia.
For more information, visit https://balkansmedia.org/index.php/grant/3rd-call-usaids-bmap-engaging-content-grants