Historic wildfires have ravaged Northern California over the past several seasons, and forecasters warn the trend will undoubtedly continue. During the disasters, emergency communication has proven to be one of the most challenging factors. North State Public Radio in Chico, California recognized the problem and began an initiative to hear from people in the region about what information they need most during wildfires. Then they got to work providing that information with their own broadcast and reporting resources.

From the beginning, WNIN’s bilingual podcast ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? has focused on meeting the community where they are — virtually and in-person. That’s meant figuring out how to connect with them on WhatsApp, which is quickly becoming a go-to destination for finding and sharing news.

Colorado has the fastest-growing Black immigrant population in the country. That’s the focus of season two of KUNC’s podcast “The Colorado Dream,” Hosted by Stephanie Daniel. She told us how her reporting came together and how the conversations she had without microphones shaped the season.

If you live in hurricane country, you most likely know you need to have a plan for when storms come. But not everyone knows exactly what that plan should look like, and it can be confusing to keep up with directives from official sources.

In 2021 and 2022, this station’s priority has been to better serve the Black audience in the Tampa Bay region and, to do so, they forged partnerships with Black media organizations in the region. The partnerships and collaborations paid off with a groundbreaking series that aired and was published in July.

While New England sweltered this summer, Reporter Amy Feiereisel put together a fun summer engagement project around ice cream.  It was a great lesson in how fun news and projects can really engage audiences and communities.  

In 2021, Maine Public launched its ‘News Connect’ project to ensure that new Mainers have access to reliable information about what is taking place in the immediate world around them. Through their work engaging with immigrant communities, Ari stumbled upon a story about how the Cambodian community was snapping up green crabs for traditional Khmer dishes.

In 2021, reporter Jessica Meszaros started collaborating with a local group to get the voices of farmworkers on how climate change is affecting them. She told us about how the project evolved and how they brought the work back to the community.

Since the summer of 2021, Blue Ridge Public Radio in Asheville, North Carolina has been working to connect with younger audiences in the region. BPR’s Director of Content Catherine Komp told us how their work came together and what’s coming next.

In a series of essays by and for Spanish speakers, they’ve been able to share stories that reflect the heart of the Latinx community in Northern Illinois. News Director Jenna Dooley tells us how the project came together and how it fits with the rest of their Spanish language initiatives.

When legislation started passing in Oklahoma that impacted students, the team at KOSU noticed that they hadn’t actually heard from those students. They set out to get their perspective, and the project has grown into an ongoing series that will extend through the 2022 midterm elections. They told us how the stories came together and what they’ve learned so far.

The team at WNIJ in northern Illinois has been addressing information needs for its Spanish speaking audience through a new digital community called Hola. Using its grant from America Amplified, WNIJ has been able to hire folks to help translate its content into Spanish. Northern Public Radio’s News Director Jenna Dooley shares these insights into her station’s work.

For hundreds of years, Filipinos have made their marks in communities across Alaska but have largely been excluded from its history — and especially in news media. KTOO is changing that.

Decibel is the community-led journalism project at Austin PBS in Texas. The team has set out to amplify diverse voices through listening sessions and in-depth reporting that addresses communities information needs. Most recently, Decibel released its Del Valle Resource Guide after spending nearly a year in the community. Decibel’s Executive Editor Samantha Guzman explains how her team worked to address this community’s information needs.

Music is at the heart of the city of New Orleans, and now it’s at the heart of their public radio station’s engagement strategy, too. Inspired by the podcast Song Exploder, producer Alana Schreiber is bringing musicians into the studio to break down one of their songs. She told us how that process has made her a better listener and how she envisions the city’s music scene as a gateway to building a stronger relationship with between WWNO and the community.

We talked to energy and environment reporter Rachel McDevitt about how she used the texting platform Subtext to crowdsource questions for her recent story: Driving an EV in Pennsylvania: range anxiety, charging and maintenance.

For the past few months, Tampa’s WUSF Public Media has been partnering with local Black media groups to better serve the Black community in the Tampa Bay area. Multimedia reporter Daylina Miller shares how the station built these partnerships, how they’ve worked and what they hope to do together moving forward.

For the past few months, Kentucky-based reporter Katie Myers has been covering labor movements in Appalachia, culminating in a three-part series focused on West Virginia. She told us about how this reporting came together, and how she hopes to use what she learned in the process to tell stories in Eastern Kentucky.

Since late last year, Adam Rayes at KUNC in Greeley, Colorado has been working to reach people in eastern part of his state. We asked Adam to tell us how he built trust among ranchers who are facing dwindling water supply in this rural community, and how his engagement informed the three-part series he wrapped in January.

Sarah Alvarez started in civil rights law before becoming a senior producer and reporter for Michigan Radio, the Ann Arbor-based NPR affiliate. Believing that journalism is a service that should be responsive to the needs of all, Alvarez wanted to find a way to fill the information and accountability gaps in communities where those things are needed the most, typically low-income neighborhoods.