Our team at Concordia University, Montreal, is thrilled to announce that Documenters Canada has received a Partnership Development Grant worth nearly $200,000 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to continue growing across Canada over the next three years.
This grant builds on an earlier Partnership Engage Grant between Concordia University and The Green Line, a hyperlocal, award-winning news outlet based in Toronto. The project has also been funded by the Inspirit Foundation. The new funds are a major milestone for us as we deepen our impact and expand to new communities.
Documenting in progress
Across Canada, people are feeling the damaging effects of a serious decline in local news. Reduced access to trustworthy information is fueling a growing disconnect between community members and the decisions that shape their daily lives, weakening community ties. Documenters Canada, inspired by Documenters.org in the U.S., was launched in September 2024 to respond to this moment.
Our mission is to equip people to engage in their communities in new ways while improving the amount, quality and trustworthiness of local news and strengthening public accountability.
Since the launch in Toronto, The Green Line has trained 7 Documenters to cover local city meetings and public consultations, publishing 33 sets of notes and 23 short videos based on the notes. What we learned will help us refine our training, support materials, and community-building practices in the expanded project.
You can read more about our training process and find resources on our website to create your own Documenters program.
Our priorities
With this new funding, we are excited to strengthen our work in Toronto, in partnership with The Green Line, grow our Montreal site, which is currently under development at Pivot Média, thanks to the support of a grant from the Inspirit Foundation, and expand to a rural community, in partnership with The Crowsnest Pass Herald in Alberta.
The funding we received also includes more resources for supporting research on Documenters Canada, which will help build theory around how organizations can grow public participation and trust in local news and information.
A collective work
Building Documenters Canada and securing this second round of funding involved heavy lifts from all our partners. The Green Line in Toronto has been an important partner in helping us pilot the project.
We are grateful to the team at The Green Line, Anita Li, Sebastian Tansil, Yara El Murr, and James Westman, for their work on the ground.
Nicole Blanchett from Toronto Metropolitan University is co-principal investigator on this grant and has been a big support.
Max Resnik, Director of Growth at the Documenters Network at City Bureau in the U.S., has been very generous with his time and resources, helping us learn from the incredible work happening in 25 Documenters sites across the United States.
We are just getting started, and we would love to hear from you. If you are interested in bringing Documenters to your community, partnering with us, or just learning more, reach out at documenters-canada@concordia.ca.
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