How we work
our impact
We offer grants of up to $25,000 to individual journalists and collaborative efforts between all forms of media in Alaska. Additionally, we offer larger grants to major collaborative media projects.
We support training for Alaska journalists through the Alaska Press Club and the University of Alaska-Anchorage Department of Journalism and Public Communications.
Funded Projects
“Bringing Visual Arts into Focus” Victoria Barber & Kerry Tasker, Freelancers
$5,500 Arts Reporting Grant to Victoria Barber and Kerry Tasker for a series of arts coverage in print, online and on social media, throughout 2025. “Anchorage artist brings whimsical portraits of animals to life in the graphite jungle” (ADN)
“Josie’s Story: From 19th-century Sitka to her escape from the Holocaust” Tom Kizzia, Anchorage Daily News
$5,000 Arts Reporting grant to Tom Kizzia for an eight-part series in the Anchorage Daily News about the first settler girl born in the U.S. territory of Alaska. Her U.S. citizenship would be a live-saver decades later, when, as an elderly Jewish widow, the Nazis took over her parents’ homeland of Germany, where she had returned to live. The series examines Josephine Rudolph’s early life, and the development of Alaska as an early U.S. territory, through the days of the Second World War.
“The Most Unique School District in America” KDLL, Alaska Public Media and Anchorage Daily News
$9,100 grant to KDLL for a five-part series on the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, which includes tiny schools in sovereign villages accessible only by air, schools in Russian Old Believer communities with their own school schedule based on the community’s observances, and more traditional, suburban schools. This project was broadcast on KDLL in Kenai, Alaska, and rebroadcast on Alaska News Nightly, through Alaska Public Media, which reaches a statewide audience. Its written stories were published in the Anchorage Daily News.
“Strengthening our community through Arts and Culture” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
$5,000 grant for the weekly publication of Latitude 65, the News-Miner’s arts and culture magazine, and coverage of the arts in its daily issues.
"Neighbors: Stories from Anchorage's Pandemic Years" Anchorage Museum & Anchorage Daily News
$40,000 grant for the multimedia and community sharing project “Neighbors: Stories from Anchorage’s Pandemic Years,” a collaboration between the Anchorage Museum and the Anchorage Daily News to collect and reflect the experiences of Anchorage residents during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“ANCSA At Fifty” Indian Country Today, Alaska Public Media, Anchorage Daily News
$60,000 grant for coverage of the fiftieth anniversary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Winner of the Regional Edward R. Murrow Award.
$13,000 grant for coverage exploring the community dynamics around sexual assault in Nome and efforts to heal long-standing unequal treatment
“Mental Health Mosaics: Colonization and Mental Health” Anne Hillman/Alaska Public Media, OUTNORTH
$15,000 for reporting on mental health issues and community engagement.
$21,548 for community-based COVID-19 reporting.
“The economic impacts of climate change on rural Alaska Native communities” Meghan Fate Sullivan/Indian Country Today
$5,000 grant for reporting on resilience and adaptation to climate change in rural Alaska.
$22,000 to Sol De Medianoche to increase publication of Alaska’s only Spanish language newspaper from semi-monthly to monthly.
“Climate Change and the Bering Strait” Yereth Rosen/Arctic Today
$1,720 grant for reporting on how the changing climate and oceans are affecting life and work in and around Nome as a key strategic point on the Bering Strait.
“Pulse Magazine: Health Care for Alaskans” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
$15,000 for the expansion of health care coverage
Other ways we support Alaska journalism
Training & Professional Development
We began funding training in 2020. In partnership with the Alaska Press Club and the University of Alaska-Anchorage Department of Journalism and Public Communications, we sponsor training and internship activities for Alaska journalists and journalism students to augment the annual Alaska Press Club Conference. Since 2022, we have sponsored a Legislative Reporter Exchange in which a small newsroom reporter spends a month covering the Alaska Legislative session in Juneau. A University of Alaska journalism student works at the home station during the same time period. The Legislative Reporter Exchange has continued as an annual program.
COVID-19 RAPID RESPONSE NEWS ORGANIZATION GRANTS
In an effort to support Alaska news coverage during the coronavirus pandemic, ACE-J awarded $70,000 in grants to 21 newspapers, radio and television stations statewide to help strengthen their ability to serve the public while operating safely. The grants helped to fund laptops, video, audio and other digital equipment so that news organizations could continue to inform the public while reporters and editors worked remotely and in the field.
Grants were awarded to Anchorage Press, Chilkat Valley News, Ketchikan Daily News, Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, Nome Nugget, Petersburg Pilot, Sitka Sentinel, Skagway News and Wrangell Sentinel newspapers; radio stations KYUK in Bethel, KUAC in Fairbanks, KHNS in Haines, KBBI in Homer, KRBD in Ketchikan, Koahnic Broadcasting and KNBA, KTOO in Juneau, KFSK in Petersburg, KCAW in Sitka, KUCB In Unalaska and KSTK in Wrangell; and KTUU-TV in Anchorage.
Read more about our COVID-19 Rapid Response grants here.