Borderless Magazine NFP is a nonprofit news outlet that is reimagining immigration journalism for a more just and equitable future.
The nonprofit’s work focuses on:
- Reporting: Borderless covers labor, justice and advocacy issues impacting Midwestern immigrant communities through a lens of equity and resilience. In 2020, 94 percent of our stories have been written, photographed or illustrated by people from African, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, or Middle Eastern communities and 45 percent of our stories were published in a language other than English.
- Pathways: Borderless provides pathways for emerging journalists from immigrant and other marginalized communities to report on immigration and learn from professional journalists. We mentor emerging journalists through a mix of paid and unpaid internships, fellowships and one-off projects. Our award-winning team gives mentees comprehensive training in interviewing, writing, research and visual storytelling.
- Immigration Reporting Lab: Borderless gives journalists and newsrooms the tools they need to responsibly report on immigration. This includes our As-Told-To Method, which helps journalists report with immigrants to better serve readers and the communities we cover. We provide training workshops to newsrooms and journalist associations, give other outlets the opportunity to republish our stories, and collaborate with other outlets on larger reporting projects.
These three programs respond to the information and language needs of immigrants and aim to create a more representative media landscape that includes their voices and experiences.
Borderless Magazine NFP is a Section 501(c) (3) charitable organization, EIN 83-1266434. All donations are deemed tax-deductible absent any limitations on deductibility applicable to a particular taxpayer.
History
Founded in 2017 as 90 Days, 90 Voices NFP by Sarah Conway, Alex Hernandez and Nissa Rhee, our work has been featured on Chicago Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, and in Block Club Chicago. We are the winners of the Chicago Society of Professional Journalists’ “Best Start-Up” award and were finalists for the Chicago SPJ’s 2018 awards for “Best In-depth Reporting in a Community Newspaper” and “Best In-depth Report or Series” and 2019 awards for “Best Illustration.
90 Days, 90 Voices began as a storytelling project that amplified the voices of local immigrants impacted by national policies, like the Muslim Travel Ban. Dan Rowell joined the project early on as an illustrator and then art director, and they designed the 90 Days, 90 Voices logo. 90 Days, 90 Voices incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 2018 with the support of Chicagoans who demanded more and better local reporting on immigration. Michelle Kanaar joined the team that year and helped co-found Borderless Magazine. Sarah Conway departed from Borderless Magazine after three years to join City Bureau as their managing editor of civic reporting programs in 2020.
In October 2019, we changed our name to Borderless Magazine and launched a standalone website. We now publish stories every week in English as well as languages like Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin and Filipino.
Editorial Independence Policy
We are members of the Institute for Nonprofit News and we subscribe to their standards of editorial independence:
Our organization retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.
We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support.
Our organization may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.
Our organization will make public all donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per year. We will accept anonymous donations for general support only if it is clear that sufficient safeguards have been put into place that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization and in compliance with INN’s Membership Standards.
