Fostering Media Connections

“A copy of form 990 is provided to the board of directors for review and approval prior to filing.”

“Conflicts of interest are monitored through regular communication with staff. A review of all potential conflicts of interest is performed by the board annually.”

“The process for determining compensation of the organization's top management includes a review and approval by independent persons, comparability data, and contemporaneous substantiation of the deliberation and decision. The organization utilizes websites such as indeed.com, salary.com, and glassdoor.com to determine market wages for a given grographic location and similar position.”

“The process for determining compensation of the organization's officers and key employees includes a review and approval by independent persons, comparability data, and contemporaneous substantiation of the deliberation and decision. The organization utilizes websites such as indeed.com, salary.com, and glassdoor.com to determine market wages for a given grographic location and similar position.”

“The organization's governing documents and policies are available for public inspection upon request.”

“Fostering media connections is a non-profit news organization that uses a mix of investigative, accountability and solution-oriented journalism to drive reform within the systems that serve vulnerable children, youth and their families.”

“Youth voice program: fmc's youth voice program began in 2016 as a journalism training program for young people with lived experience in the foster care or juvenile justice systems. In 2020, under the leadership of our new youth voice program manager, we generated 57 personal reflections and opinion pieces from young people with foster care or youth justice experience. This included, for the first time, a photo-essay from an up-and-coming photographer about his experience as an essential worker during the pandemic. The youth voice program expanded this year to include contributors from minnesota and texas, and soon, washington. Beyond writing in our pages,contributors work with the fmc team to create opportunities for people to participate in virtual events focused on youth experiences and challenges related to higher education, racism, homelessness and more.”

“Fmc shines light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust, while heightening public dialogue about critical topics that systems-involved children, youth and families face. We measure impact in three ways: 1) policy change; 2) media pickup; and 3) readership. Policy change: fmc's coverage has repeatedly driven policy change at the local, state and federal level. Since launching in 2010, fmc has been critical to changing federal law affecting the educational rights of foster youth, extending the foster care to age 21 in california and a wide range of reforms in our home base of los angeles county. For example, our coverage of the states' failure to meet the requirements of the federal every student succeeds act foster care mandates led to millions of new dollars spent to provide rides to school for foster youth in california, rhode island and colorado. In addition, we made sure that media outlets and public officials across the country understood the needs of the relatives who step up to care for foster children. We were so effective that georgia found nearly 3 million to increase pay to relative caregivers, and two members of congress penned an op-ed in the hill that relied heavily on our work calling for better support of these families. Media pickup: key to fmc's theory of change is the ability to drive follow-up coverage in mainstream and niche news outlets, ensuring our stories and the critical issues they cover reach the broadest possible audience. In fy 19-20, we had 1,103 total instances of media pickup (compared to 938 the previous year), including outlets such as the washington post, time, the los angeles daily news, the atlantic, the new york times, the appeal, teen vogue, vice, public radio and television stations, and many more. Readership: fmc's audience ranges from child welfare and juvenile justice workers to policymakers, members of the media and youth. Over the last fiscal year, our readership grew by more than 50 percent, building on our new sustainable reporting hubs in new york and now the midwest”

“Marketing consultant 27,455 3,741 7,571 recruiting 1,266 1,266 0 editor 25,775 0 0 freelance journalists 80,266 0 2,997 youth voice stipends 30,987 0 0 consulting 0 1,875 1,875 web designers 800 200 0 honorarium 500 0 0 photography 2,190 0 0 development 142 0 0 research 349 0 0 interns 4,392 0 0 adoption advocate 1,033 0 0 translation 1,200 0 0 total 176,355 7,082 12,443”