Knight Foundation

Informed & Engaged Communities

What We Fund

Engaged Communities

Browse Projects

Featured

News & Updates

Get Updates On Engaged Communities

News Releases

Knight Blog

Twitter

Publications

In The News

About our Engaged Communities Strategy

Trabian Shorters, @TSatKF, on Knight's Communities Program strategy
To help sustain healthy communities in a democracy, Knight aims to increase the ability of individuals to engage in change. Knight fosters initiatives that develop in people a strong sense of belonging and caring, timely access to relevant information, the ability to understand that information, and the motivation, opportunity and skills to take sustainable action on a range of issues throughout their lives.

Knight Foundation fosters innovative approaches to increasing engagement skills in the community development field. The foundation funds programs that use technology to foster engagement. It supports individuals as agents for engagement, with a focus on youth leadership, social entrepreneurs and local institutions. Knight supports naturalization campaigns to increase the number of citizens who are highly motivated to engage with their communities.

Part of Knight’s activities focuses on 26 communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers, with donor-advised programs in 18 and program director-led programs in the eight ”resident Knight communities” (Akron, Ohio, Charlotte, N.C., Detroit, Mich., Macon, Ga., Miami, Fla., and Philadelphia, Pa.).

Knight experiments with innovative approaches to community engagement such as engaging community foundations nationwide in addressing community information needs, using community-wide social games to bring residents together, and partnering with local and national agencies to get more black males engaged in their communities.

The foundation has invested more than $841 million in its communities program since 1950.

Engaged Communities Project Categories

Resident Communities

Nonresident Communities

Staff