Journalism Fellowship for Stories for Change in American Religion Initiative

The Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC) is a non-sectarian research and community engagement center at the University of Southern California. CRCC’s mission is to advance the understanding of religion in society, and equip faith leaders to build just and equitable communities.

We conduct empirical research to understand the power and impact of religion in the US and globally; and we make this knowledge applicable and available through books, media, reports, public events and leadership development programs.

Read more about CRCC and its history

CRCC’s team consists of scholars, journalists and faith leaders. The Stories of Change in American Religion Initiative is led by our executive director, Richard Flory, a sociologist with expertise in religious and cultural change, youth and young adults, urban life, civic engagement and faith-based organizations. The journalism fellowship is led by Megan Sweas, a former magazine editor, book author and freelance journalist.

Journalists who apply to work on stories as part of this initiative should be interested in religion, producing in-depth journalism and engaging with scholars. We expect journalists to report in-person, interview many sources and go back repeatedly to fully understand a community’s dynamics and spirituality. In other words, we are looking to support good journalism and not PollyAnnish puff pieces. We also expect journalists to be engaged with CRCC scholars, who will look for themes and insights about the nature of social change, American religion and Christianity across the stories collected by journalists (more on that below).

Journalists may work in any and all media, including written, audio, video, photography and social media.

We welcome applications from freelance journalists, multimedia teams, and reporters on staff of a publication. If you are on staff at a publication, we ask that your editor/supervisor write a letter of support that confirms you will be given the time to devote to this project.

We encourage journalists at all stages of their career to apply to the project. If you are a student, please note that we will be announcing a student fellowship in the near future.

All stories for this round of funding have to touch on Christianity in the United States. While we are interested in transnational forces, we are unlikely to fund many international projects, simply due to budget. As mentioned in the information webinar on the website, we see an opportunity to fund local religion reporting.

We know how valuable your time is and want to give you realistic expectations. If you think you have a compelling idea, please make the case of why it’s important that you, as a journalist based outside of the United States, tell that story. Also include how you plan to distribute the story.

Please continue to follow CRCC (sign up for our newsletter here) to learn of future funding opportunities, which we hope may support international stories.

The first 100 stories as part of this initiative will focus on stories of change in American Christianity. Stories must involve a leader, organization or community driven by Christian commitments. This includes Christians working within secular or multifaith spaces, as Christians live within pluralistic contexts. We are interested in stories from underrepresented communities and from diverse denominational, racial, ethnic, gender and class backgrounds.

Your pitch should show how religious leaders, organizations and communities actively are engaging with challenges in their congregations and their communities. Your reporting may answer one or more of these questions:

• How are people of faith adapting their congregations, faith-based organizations, perspectives and theologies?
• What kind of change are they making in society and how?
• How are they evolving spiritually?

We encourage you to go beyond or bring complexity to dominant narratives, such as disaffiliation or Christian nationalism.

Read CRCC’s Guide to American religion: Finding Stories of Change

A good question, considering CRCC is interested in stories of underrepresented communities! In past projects, CRCC also has looked at themes of social change in all faiths and communities that did not explicitly define themselves as religious. We are currently seeking funds for future rounds that focus on change in non-Christian and non-religious communities.

That said, 62 percent of Americans identify as Christian. Because American Christians exist in increasingly pluralistic contexts, we encourage your stories to reflect the diversity of the communities in which they are situated. We believe there are plenty of stories waiting to be told from this group. At a time when there are fewer resources for reporting, this initiative will allow journalists to show up in-person and report stories more deeply than they usually can.

On a practical level, we are focused on American Christianity because we were able to launch our Stories of Change in American Religion Initiative with a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., which focuses its grantmaking on American Christianity. It also has a long tradition of supporting secular religion journalism, including through grants to Religion News Service, the Associated Press, The Conversation and National Public Radio. Here is how the Lilly Endowment describes its support for journalism:

“The Endowment also seeks to foster public understanding about religion by encouraging fair, accurate and balanced portrayals of the positive and negative effects of religion on the world and lifting up the contributions that people of all faiths make to our greater civic well-being.”

The University of Southern California and the Center for Religion and Civic Culture are secular, non-sectarian institutions. Lilly Endowment funded this project with the understanding that it will support independent, secular journalism about Christianity. Through our previous journalism project on engaged spirituality, CRCC has a track record of funding independent journalism. All editorial decisions will be at the discretion of the journalists and editors at their outlets.

Applications are due on Monday, May 4, 2026 (Midnight PT). We will review applications and respond to people by July. We will then set selected journalists up within the USC system and arrange travel to our project orientation, which will take place at University of Southern California October 5-7, 2026.

Reporting on this project will continue through 2028.

The project is best suited for longer-term projects or slow journalism. We encourage you to reach out to our media partners to pitch breaking new stories.

Journalists may produce stories in any format. We encourage applicants to think about how you might share the stories in different ways: written (print/online), audio, video, photography and social media.

You are welcome to produce analysis, commentary and essays, but these should be grounded in reporting.

We have no requirements on the length of publication. While we want to support journalists’ ability to report stories deeply, we understand that not all publications will publish long in-depth pieces of journalism.  Short, focused stories also may have a wider reach. You might consider creating multiple versions of a story for different publications. The final publications should be appropriate to their audience and venue. All editorial decisions will be at the discretion of the journalists and editors at their outlets.

If you are working on a book or producing a long documentary, you could pitch a realistic portion of the larger project that CRCC can support. Final products should be published by the end of 2028, so you may want to publish a shorter piece of your larger project.

Journalists also may have the opportunity to contribute to book projects through the project as well.

While CRCC will provide support upon request, all editorial decisions will be at the discretion of the journalists and editors at their outlets.

Journalists are encouraged to publish with their own publications (secular or religious) and with CRCC’s media partners. With deeply reported stories, there are frequently opportunities to spin off multiple versions of a story. Your reporting might be of interest to local audiences, audiences interested in religion as well as other specialty publications.

Audio journalists will have the opportunity to work with Inspired Media to create stories for distribution through its podcast and network of public radio stations. Inspired Media formerly produced and distributed Interfaith Voices throughout the country. You may also propose stories for an existing podcast or radio program.

Religion News Service and Religion Unplugged have agreed to consider pitches from project journalists.

Next City, a solutions journalism publication focused on urban issues, will partner with local newsrooms to create a reporting hub across 10 cities. Each newsroom will produce three stories about the efforts of local faith groups to create solutions to urban issues. Stories will be republished locally, with Next City and possibly with a religion-focused publication. Next City will also highlight solutions emerging from the hubs as part of its podcast and webinars. If you’re interested in learning more about the Next City partnership, please contact us at crcc@usc.edu.

The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture will re-post all stories from this project on a centralized website.

If you are an editor at a publication and interested in being a media partner on this project, please contact us at crcc@usc.edu.

News organizations are welcome to apply to the project. If you are an editor/producer, there are a few ways you can approach the application:

You may encourage a staff reporter or freelancer to apply in partnership with you. Please give the applicant a letter of support, indicating that they have the support of the publication. The applicant will determine whether the award is paid to them directly or to a media organization on their behalf.

Publications may apply directly, noting who will be responsible for the story and communication with CRCC, and who will be responsible for the reporting (if those are different).

You may consider pitching a series of stories, which allows an organization to request additional funds that would support an ambitious project or special features, such as multimedia or social stories.

One person from the organization should be responsible for the application and the stories, and participate in the professional development programming. This may be an editor or producer who can share the knowledge gained with a larger team or the reporter. The journalist who has the most direct knowledge of the story being reported should be the one engaging with scholars in conversation.

CRCC is recruiting a team of scholars to work on this project (if you are a scholar, email crcc@usc.edu). This team will analyze the collection of 100 stories to look for themes and insights about the nature of social change, American religion and Christianity. Their role is to look for “metastories” across the collection of stories that journalists collect.

CRCC hopes to build a network of journalists and scholars who can support each other in their respective work. Journalists are welcome, but not required, to consult with CRCC and any of its scholars on their stories. Journalists will also become sources for scholarship.

In order to facilitate this learning process, scholars will look at the final published stories. But as one journalist who worked on our engaged spirituality project said, a lot of interesting material ends up on “the cutting room floor” in journalism. This journalist appreciated that the collaboration with CRCC ensured that this material is not lost and may even advance our knowledge of how religion operates in the world.

To share insights and additional information not included in the final pieces, CRCC will ask reporters to provide additional information:

• Virtual meetings and follow-up conversations: Journalists will participate with scholars in conversations about what they are seeing in their reporting.
• Close-out Questionnaire: At the end of the reporting process, journalists will be asked to complete a questionnaire that allows them to share their observations.
• Interview with a key leader: Journalists will decide which of their sources can provide CRCC with the most needed context for the story. Journalists also will obtain informed consent (through a signed form) from this key leader, ensuring CRCC has this person’s permission to review the audio and transcript of the interview. (Read more about informed consent under the “Ethical Issues” section of this report.)
• Short summary of the story
• 3-5 photographs

CRCC will use the summary and photos to create a directory of stories published from the project (see the directory from our engaged spirituality project).

CRCC will provide professional development and a network of support to allow journalists to engage in this type of reporting.

Journalists will attend an in-person orientation in Los Angeles (October 5-7, 2026). This orientation will cover subject matter expertise and conversations about skills such as religion reporting, ethnographic reporting, and solutions journalism.

We will also host five virtual meetings and follow-up conversations about the project. We expect that journalists and scholars may connect and support one another throughout the project and beyond.

Selected journalists will be awarded $5,000 per story, with additional funds available as warranted.

With the award, we seek to incentivize in-depth reporting at a time when newsrooms and freelance pay rarely allow journalists to spend extensive time in the field. We also want to allow journalists to dedicate their time for professional development and engagement with CRCC scholars.

If you do not anticipate requiring more than $5,000, you will skip the question on the application about additional funding.

If you anticipate requiring more than $5,000, the application will ask you to explain how you will use the additional funds. Please include estimates, and describe how the funds will support the depth and scope of your reporting and/or production.

We will work with you on an exact budget if you are selected for the project.

Additional funding may cover:

• Multi-part series
• Multimedia such as photography, videography, audio recording
• Travel: Ideally, journalists will report local stories with national significance. When appropriate, we will fund travel, including transportation, lodging, meals and incidentals. You may look up actuals or use a per diem rate, up to $2,500 per trip.
• Funding CANNOT include durable supplies, technology or equipment, such as cameras or computers.

CRCC staff and experts in religion journalism will be involved in evaluating applications and pitches. After reviewing the applications and pitches, we may interview finalists. Being selected for an interview does not guarantee that your application has been selected.

Reviewers will evaluate the originality and newsworthiness of the pitch and its alignment with the project themes. Pitches should focus on a Christian leader, organization or community. They should seek to explore the initiative’s central questions: How are people of faith adapting their congregations, faith-based organizations, perspectives and theologies? What kind of change are they making in society and how? How are they evolving spiritually?

We also will evaluate the plan for reporting and publishing. A strong reporting plan will include your access to sources and why you are the person to tell the story. You should also include what type of media you want to publish in and where you plan to publish the story. Our desire is that stories will be distributed as widely as possible.

We will look to select a balance of stories, featuring underrepresented communities and from diverse denominational, racial, ethnic, gender and class backgrounds.

Finally, we are interested in journalists who want to grow and learn, whether they are veterans or new to the religion beat.

Our goal is to capture 100 stories, so we anticipate that the selected journalists may work on multiple stories as part of this initiative.

There are a few ways to pitch multiple stories:

• Pitch a series of related stories, i.e., on congregations in a particular city or region, or faith-based initiatives focused on a particular issue. In your pitch, please provide us with an overview of the series along with specific stories (including people/organizations to be featured) and a publication plan.
• Selected journalists may have the opportunity to pitch CRCC directly in the future. Apply with your best pitch and please indicate on the application that you are interested in working on multiple stories.