Nielsen Foundation 2022 Grantmaking Highlights

Originally published on The Nielsen Foundation

The Nielsen Foundation envisions a more equitable world where everyone counts and everyone has opportunities to succeed. Our mission is to support organizations that give voice and opportunities to historically under-represented groups and communities.

To advance this mission, the Nielsen Foundation provided more than $2.0 million in grants to 53 nonprofit organizations in 2022 across our priority areas of representation in media and technology, educational access and persistence, and economic mobility and well-being. This included:

• $1.19 million in Community Grants to 44 organizations strengthening diverse communities across the United States through education, economic mobility, and media and technology programs
• $522,500 in continued support for Discover Data and the TechDiversity Accelerator, our two Signature Programs promoting data education and economic mobility
• $250,000 in Data for Good grants to support organizations using data in innovative ways to advance representation in media and technology
• $64,000+ in Volunteer Grants across more than 1,000 Cause Cards from Nielsen employees who logged 12+ volunteer hours in a quarter and/or recently joined the company

Advancing representation in media & technology

• Through the 2022 Data for Good Grants Program, we funded five creative projects using data to drive greater representation in media and technology. Grantees include: Ghetto Film School, Pathos Labs, The Trevor Project, The USC Norman Lear Center Media Impact Project and Wiki Education Foundation.
• We supported Inevitable Foundation in publishing the first-of-its-kind Cost of Accommodations Report, providing a roadmap for talent and producers to create more equitable working environments for disabled talent in writers’ rooms and on set.
• We provided continued support to grow and develop diverse students and leaders building careers in the media industry, in collaboration with the International Radio and Television Society (IRTS) Foundation, National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Leadership Foundation, and the Advertising Research Foundation’s WIDE initiative.

Encouraging educational access & persistence

• The Discover Data education initiative, a collaboration with Discovery Education and the National AfterSchool Association, has reached approximately ~772,000 students to date with resources to improve student learning with data and interest in data careers. In 2022, Discover Data added curriculum on timely topics including social media and environmental justice, added Spanish language resources, and launched a new Q&A tool for students to connect with data experts.
• Our three-year grant to Teach For America continued to support the next generation of equity-oriented education leaders. Through the grant, TFA is developing a more rigorous, holistic evaluation process to directly assess the skills and experiences that enable a positive impact on students,

Promoting economic mobility & well-being

• We expanded our support through a new multi-year grant for the TechDiversity Accelerator at Tampa Bay Wave, which promotes diversity and inclusion in the tech startup industry. Since 2018, cohort companies from across multiple countries have raised an average of $3.1M more and added 9 more jobs, compared to startups in other accelerator programs.
• Through our support of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) since 2020, direct relief grants and capacity building programs reached approximately 823 Black-owned small businesses. The grant supports organizations that have limited access to traditional business financing in historically disinvested neighborhoods in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and the Twin Cities.
• In 2021 and 2022, Year Up served thousands of students nationwide. Our three-year grant to Year Up continued to connect young adults with living wage careers through an evolving menu of new, innovative program models that have reached approximately 1,200 young adults over the past two years.

View the summary here to learn more about the Nielsen Foundation’s 2022 grantmaking.