The Media Institute for Social Change launched in 2006 to help train, support and inspire emerging media producers.

Our flagship program was a Summer Documentary Program that taught college students the journalistic, artistic and production skills necessary to produce radio and short film documentaries. Over ten years, we hosted more than 100 college students, and helped them mature their interest in social issues to professional skills and media careers. After ten sessions, the program concluded in 2017.

Over the years, we have hosted (for five years), a Student Sustainability Film Festival that recruited short films about what colleges and communities are doing for sustainability; and (for two years), we hosted Citizen, an event and media classroom space on the popular N. Mississippi Ave in Portland.

More recently—and currently—our energy and efforts are towards launching and supporting local media platforms. We helped form the first Board of Directors for XRAY.fm, and secured the first round of funding to launch a new radio station in Portland. That station has been named “best” in Portland consecutive years and by, oh, so many people and media outlets. It is really great! We continue to work with XRAY.fm, hosting “The Non-Profit Happy Hour” and hosted five sessions of Radio U, a training program for emerging radio producers.

In 2015, we also helped KXRW in Vancouver, Washington and continue to serve as the fiscal sponsor; and, in 2017, we helped a struggling newspaper in southern Oregon, the Rogue Valley Messenger, transform into a vibrant nonprofit publication and organization.