Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Grant Enables News Nonprofit to Expand into New York

NEW YORK - Sept. 19, 2017 - PRLog -- Fostering Media Connections, a rapidly growing news organization, has received a $150,000 grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to cover the child welfare systems in New York City and State for the next two years.

The State of New York had the fourth largest foster care population in 2015 with more than 20,000 children in care. New York City had more than 9,000 children in foster care as of May, making it the second largest foster care system in the nation after Los Angeles County.

"We're thrilled to be supporting the journalistic work of Fostering Media Connections," said Jeannine Balfour, senior program officer for the Hilton Foundation. "This is a tremendous opportunity to expand and elevate media coverage on foster youth in New York City and we look forward to more consistent, engaged, factual reporting on the complex issue of child welfare. We believe that the coverage generated by Fostering Media Connections will serve as an advocacy and awareness tool, and our hope is that it will be this coverage that will inform both the city and state of the needs of foster youth in New York City."

Based in Los Angeles with satellite branches in Washington D.C., Arizona and Wyoming, Fostering Media Connections is amid a national expansion that will bolster its coverage throughout the U.S.

"We're extremely thankful to the Hilton Foundation for supporting our expansion into New York," said Daniel Heimpel, president of Fostering Media Connections. "With new leadership in New York City's Administration for Children and Families, this grant comes at a time when our mix of accountability and solutions-oriented journalism can drive substantive attention to reform that's needed and reform that's already underway."

With the grant secured, Fostering Media Connections is looking to immediately hire an experienced reporter and editor who will produce and oversee coverage of child welfare in New York City and State.

Fostering Media Connections publishes news site The Chronicle of Social Change and magazines Fostering Families Today and Adoption Today.

Fostering Media Connections is a 501 c (3) nonprofit organization that harnesses the power of journalism and media to improve the lives of vulnerable children, youth and their families.

About the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation was created in 1944 by international business pioneer Conrad N. Hilton, who founded Hilton Hotels and left his fortune to help the world's disadvantaged and vulnerable people. The Foundation currently conducts strategic initiatives in six priority areas: providing safe water, ending chronic homelessness, preventing substance use, helping young children affected by HIV and AIDS, supporting transition-age youth in foster care, and extending Conrad Hilton's support for the work of Catholic Sisters. From its inception, the Foundation has awarded more than $1.5 billion in grants, distributing $109 million in the U.S. and around the world in 2016. The Foundation's current assets are approximately $2.6 billion. For more information, please visit www.hiltonfoundation.org.