Facebook Launches New $25 Million Funding Program to Assist Black Creators
As part of its ongoing effort to support diversity and inclusion, Facebook has today announced a new $25 million funding program to assist black creators.
As explained by Facebook:
“We want to empower the next generation of Black storytellers to become successful. By participating in this initiative, creators will receive the support they need to help them propel their careers to the next level, grow their community of followers, and build a business across Facebook Inc’s family of apps.”
The program will be open to creators aged 18+ with a minimum of 10,000 followers on either Facebook or Instagram – a combined follower count of 10,000 across platforms doesn’t count.
As noted, the initiative is part of Facebook’s renewed commitment to supporting diverse voices, and improving representation. Facebook’s working to improve its efforts on this front following the recent #BlackLivesMatter protests, which once again put a spotlight on racial division, while Facebook’s also looking to enact the recommendations of its recent civil rights audit, which raised various concerns with the platform’s processes.
In addition to this, Facebook is also running a series of events in August as part of National Black Business Month, which will look to celebrate and promote the work of black-owned businesses and creators.
The platform’s also looking to work with civil rights groups to address their concerns, which lead to the recent Facebook ads boycott – though much of that focus was on divisive comments posted by US President Donald Trump. Facebook, as yet, is not looking to take action on – but then again, it did remove a video posted by the Trump campaign earlier this week.
Facebook has a way to go on this front, but initiatives like this should help to improve representation, even if Facebook isn’t willing to meet all the suggestions raised by civil rights groups.
If you’re interested in Facebook’s new black creator program, you can learn more and apply here.
