Healing Illinois 2025 Reporting Project Publishes“Healing Through Narrative Change: Untold Stories”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 12, 2025
CONTACT:
Maria McCandless
Director of Communications
Field Foundation
(312) 560-0004
mmcandless@fieldfoundation.org
CHICAGO – The Field Foundation today announced publication of a series of stories highlighting diverse Central Illinois communities and pressing issues they face. The series was produced under the Healing Through Narrative Change Reporting Project made possible by a grant from Healing Illinois.
An initiative of the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS), managed in partnership with the Field Foundation, Healing Illinois was created in 2020 and relaunched in 2023 to address racial disparities impacting residents of Illinois communities.
“The ‘Healing through Narrative Change’ series creates space for collective healing, which is vital to community power building,” Field Foundation President Daniel O. Ash said. “We look forward to the impact of this robust reporting and thoughtful storytelling in sparking dialogue, fostering empathy, and deepening shared understanding among the residents of Central Illinois and beyond.
Home of Press Forward Springfield, the Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln was among 204 community organizations awarded $4.5 million in Healing Illinois grants across the state’s five regions, to advance racial healing through three tenets: community building and engagement, media and storytelling, and education and awareness.
The stories published today by Capitol News Illinois, Illinois Times and NPR Illinois 91.9 UIS were supported by the Healing Illinois pillar seeking to advance racial healing through storytelling and community collaboration.
Managed by Press Forward Springfield, the Healing Through Narrative Change: Untold Stories Reporting Project was inspired by a recent Central Illinois case that gained national media attention.
On July 6, 2024, a 30-year-old white Sangamon County deputy sheriff entered the home of a 36-year-old Black woman who had called police about a potential prowler, and after an interaction, shot the unarmed woman three times. The killing of Sonya Massey prompted almost-daily protests and collective community soul-searching that continues.
The Healing Illinois grant supported three local news outlets in producing news coverage on disparities and tensions within and among the region’s diverse communities, engaging residents and policymakers on complex issues including: the legacy of segregation in the state’s capital; the history of broken U.S. treaties and return of land to Native American tribes; and the impact of events abroad on the area’s burgeoning Muslim community.
As local newsrooms have disappeared across the nation, communities have witnessed fading civic engagement, eroding social bonds, surging misinformation, and dwindling government accountability. This has led to the Press Forward movement, a $500 million national pooled fund launched in September 2023 to invest in news ecosystems.
The goal is to expand resources for local news and build news organizations’ capacity to provide reliable, fact-based information; expose siloed communities to their neighbors and diverse narratives; and initiate and disseminate difficult conversations and diverse perspectives that bring communities together and foster healing.
Launched in November 2023 by the Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln, Press Forward Springfield was among the nation’s first six local Press Forward chapters.
The Community Foundation, founded in 1924, serves Cass, Christian, Logan, Macoupin, Menard, Montgomery, Morgan and Sangamon counties, bringing concerned citizens together to address the important issues impacting this Central Illinois region.
Please find the stories published today at the following websites:
Capitol News Illinois: https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/our-identity-has-been-frozen-in-time-how-native-american-advocates-are-influencing-springfield/
Illinois Times: https://www.illinoistimes.com/news-opinion/economic-gaps-persist-for-blacks-20142512
NPR Illinois 91.9 UIS: https://www.nprillinois.org/equity-justice/2025-05-12/the-heart-of-springfields-muslim-community-1-in-a-four-part-series
All participating news outlets maintained editorial independence.
About the Field Foundation
The Field Foundation is a private, independent foundation that supports community power building in Chicago through strategic investments in civic infrastructure, the creative sector, local news outlets, and organizers. Through its grantmaking, the foundation collaborates with funding partners to distribute more than $10 million annually to organizations and leaders working in geographic priority areas, with a focus on the city’s South and West Sides. Learn more at www.fieldfoundation.org.