The Greater Montana Foundation, founded in 1958 by Montana Broadcasting pioneer, Edmund B. Craney, announces 2023 grant awards totaling $340,000. See below for a complete listing of this year’s grants.
This grant was for production of the “EB Awards”, held in Billings on June 23, 2023 to recognize excellence in news production, promotion and public service by Montana broadcasters, radio and television. The “EBs” are named in honor of Montana broadcast pioneer Edmund B. Craney, founder of the Greater Montana Foundation. These prestigious awards are presented annually during the Montana Broadcasters Association annual convention.
https://www.mtbroadcasters.org
Leadership Montana exists to develop leaders committed to building a better Montana through knowledge, collaboration and civility. This grant will support Listen First Montana, a program in the form of a series of podcasts during the first year of the COVID pandemic. Thus far, over 40 episodes have been distributed involving individuals of all backgrounds sharing heartwarming, educational, informative, occasionally heart-breaking but all distinctly unique and personal stories. Leadership Montana is currently working on a special mini-series connected to their Indigenous Immersion Initiative.
https://www.leadershipmontana.org
To support this award-winning non-for-profit Montana digital, text and multimedia news organization, providing distribution to Montana news outlets for free re-publication, this grant will support a sixth season of the Long Streets Project with a focus on covering Montana’s increasingly urgent housing and job markets as well as track out state and local leaders are trying to pull the state toward meaningful solutions.
https://www.mtfp.org
For continuing support for the Friends of Montana PBS Program Fund, including various ongoing MTPBS programs such as 11th and Grant and Backroads of Montana. Exciting new productions include, George Bird Grinnell: Saving the West, Landscapes of a Western Mind: The Story of Ivan Doig, and Higgins Ridge, Jonnie (working title), and a wide range of news and public affairs programming.
https://www.montanapbs.org
University of Montana Broadcast Media Center
Montana Public Radio enriches the mind and spirit, inspires a lifetime of learning and connects communities through exceptional programming. This grant supports various radio, online and streaming programming including statewide news and analysis, economic and legislative reporting, MTPR’s weekly literary program, The Write Question, The Big Why, a program that seeks to answer questions from the Big Sky, and a wide variety of information and cultural programming that represents the unique character of Montana.
https://www.mtpr.org
This grant supports Under the Big Sky, and ongoing storytelling series produced and distributed by MTN. The series focused on first-person storytelling centered on businesses, individuals and organizations that drive commerce in Montana.
https://www.kxlh.com/ and various local television websites in the Montana Television Network.
This grant supported a videography crew to attend the commissioning of the USS Montana to provide documentary footage and background video for use by Montana media and for future documentary
production, and for archival purposes. The production crew covered the June 25, 2022, commissioning into the U.S. Navy fleet of the Virginia Class nuclear-powered fast attack submarine USS MONTANA at Norfolk, Virginia.
https://ussmontanacommittee.us
This was a commercial grant made in September to support a MTN/KRTV reporter for travel to Washington, D.C. to work with the Scripps Capital Bureau in covering the progress of the Farm Bill, including interview with the Montana Congressional delegation.
https://www.krtv.com/search?q=Farm+Bill
Crazy Mountain Museum
This program will be a 26-minute video documentary bout Jessica Zemsky, accomplished Montana artist. The purpose is to educate and inspire audiences of all ages who gain from here insight and style of painting, drawing and teaching. Her unique perspective and eloquence are evident in her art, and in her speech and writing.
Read more here.
Billings Good Evening LLC
“Your Opinion Please” is a short documentary that derives its name from a weekly call-in radio show that aired from between 1998 and 2008 on Yellowstone Public Radio. The documentary showcased carefully curated excerpts from the show, which provided calls with a live platform to express their opinions on various local, national and cultural issues.
Passion and Purpose for Veterans in Agriculture
Bear Hug Cattle Co. provides veterans with the resources and knowledge to be successful in the ranching industry by offering transitioning service members a 10-week intensive course. Bear Huge Cattle Co. is veteran owned and operated. This grant supports a three-part film series of approximately five minutes each to tell the story of the good work of Bear Hug Cattle Co. in supporting transitioning veterans.
https://www.bearhugcattlecompany.org
The mission of this project is to bring Montana history to life and to continue to educate Montanans about historic women of our state. The EHP, with NXNW Creative Strategies, will create two 30-minute documentary films about six prominent women in Montana’s history. These films are companion pieces to the awarding-winning 2022 film, "The Story of Us,” also supported by the Greater Montana Foundation.
https://extremehistoryproject.org/
This grant supports a video project, Outside Kind, a series of videos helping to tell the story of why landowners and sportsmen need to come together to promote healthy communities and working landscapes, increase a sense of caring and stewardship for Montana’s public resources and enhance newcomers understanding of Montana, and help our communities welcome them.
https://www.onemontana.org
4:08 Productions
Music is important to Montanans. Begun over 6-years ago with the production of the first installment, The Montana Sessions is an Emmy-nominated series featuring a wide spectrum of home-grown music in spectacular setting across the state. This grant will help fund 8-new episodes of this widely viewed and enjoyed series, filmed in 4-K.
https://www.montanapbs.org/programs/montana-sessions/
One in Five Hundred is a documentary film that will explore the sociological effects and scientific caused of the devastating floods that tore through Yellowstone National Park and its surrounding gateway communities in June of 2022.
https://sfp.montana.edu/
This grant supports a short-form documentary seeking to humanize Montana’s meat industry and show the risks, opportunities and rewards the state’s beef producers are experiencing within the current food system. Driven by first-person narratives, this film will highlight how ranchers are envisioning a new system and working to better connect to Montana consumers.
https://aeromt.org/
https://www.reframingrural.org/
MAPS is a nonprofit educational organization whose mission is “to empower, inspire and prepare Montana’s next generation for future success through professional media arts instruction, engaging community service and compassionate mentoring.” This GMF grant supporters the general operations of MAPS.
https://www.mapsmediainstitute.com
The MAPS Media Lab is the statewide outreach program of the MAPS Media Institute. This program integrates media arts with service-learning curriculum in order to inspire and prepare rural, underserved youth to succeed in the 21st Century. This grant supports MAPS professional artist-educators travel to rural and tribal communities and facilitate community media arts workshops with middle and high school students.
https://mapsmediainstitute.com/programs/maps-media-lab/
In mid-2018, the Missoula Butterfly House and the Insectarium and Montana Public Radio began collaborating on an idea for a new podcast. Together, they launched Bug Bytes. The purpose of Bug Bytes is to inspire an appreciation and understanding of insects, and introduce and educate listeners about and amazing world of insects and arthropod species that we share our planet with. This grant will support this fun and interesting series of podcast and radio episodes.
https://www.missoulabutterflyhouse.org
This grant was awarded to the University of Montana J-School to support various student productions and internships. The School of Journalism faculty and students produce a variety of radio, television and online programming throughout the academic year. This could include the Legislative News Service, documentary film production, The Native News Honors Project Montana PBS News Brief, Business: Made in Montana, graduate student broadcast projects or other initiatives.
https://jour.umt.edu/
The grant supports continued development, distribution and multi-media promotion of Turtle Island Tales, a PBS Learning Media program focused on Indigenous foods, health and culture of First National children and their families.
https://turtleislandtales.org/aboutus
This grant supports plans to write, film and produce and educational video detailing the early warning signs and risk factors for suicide and suicidal ideation and how to seek help from a trusted adult. The
video will be distributed to schools withing Flathead County at no cost to the district and will serve as a resource to teachers to start the conversation with their students about mental health and overall well- being.
https://www.natechutefoundation.org/
Thank you for your interest in the Greater Montana Foundation. Deadline for the next grant cycle will be April 1, 2024.