After 64 Years, Nonprofit Communications and Media Network Closes -- Remaining Assets Become Society of Professional Journalists’ Scholarship
After 64 years, the Nonprofit Communications and Media Network (NCMN) is ceasing operations and investing its remaining assets of more than $35,000 with the Society of Professional Journalists/Los Angeles Pro Chapter as a new scholarship fund to support future professional journalists for many years.
The scholarship fund, previously awarded and funded by NCMN, will provide an annual scholarship of $1,500 to students who reside in Los Angeles County, Orange County or Ventura County who are currently enrolled in college or have been accepted to college and who will be pursuing a career in journalism. It is named the Nonprofit Communications and Media Network’s Lisa A. Davidson Memorial Scholarship supported by contributions to the Ruth Collander Endowment Fund. Both Davidson and Collander had media careers and supported NCMN.
When the now-NCMN was founded in 1955 with its previous name, the Public Interest Radio and Television Educational Society (PIRATES), the organization became a tool for news media to meet their Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requirements to allocate free air time on public airways to nonprofit organizations. A few decades later the organization changed its name to the Print Interactive Radio and Television Educational Society.
In the late 1980’s FCC deregulation no longer had such requirements. Many media continued their commitment to nonprofit organizations, and do so to this day.
NCMN’s annual media mixer was one of its most popular programs that attracted dozens of prominent news media and nonprofit leaders.
Although participant evaluations consistently reflected very positive feedback about NCMN events, the organization experienced a gradual, long-term decline in membership and program participation, similar to other organizations such as the Publicity Club of Los Angeles (PCLA) and the Entertainment Publicists Professionals Society (EPPS).
Through NCMN’s events, many relationships developed between nonprofit organizations and news media and evolved into news interviews, public affairs talk shows, public service announcements and partnerships.
Contact: Andy Weisser President/Board Member, Nonprofit Communications and Media Network aweisser@earthlink.net; www.ncmnetwork.org; W: 818.703.6444; M: 818.451.7847
Contact: Stephanie Bluestein SPJ/LA President bluestein.spjla@gmail.com