Ampers Projects

MN90: Minnesota History in 90 Seconds will deliver Minnesota history statewide in a fun, entertaining and informative manner. It will make more Minnesotans aware of the way history impacted their lives helping them to make more informed decisions in the future. Ampers will produce and distribute forty-five (45) 90-second segments in FY22.

Minnesota Native News is a five-minute weekly segment that explores social, economic, cultural, health issues, and more facing Minnesota's Native American communities. It will be produced in such a way that it will be relevant to Native American as well as non-Native Americans living in Minnesota. The Minnesota Native News team will produce 40 to 44 newscasts in FY22.

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is a 30-minute radio show and podcast where the hosts bring out some of the Native narratives, missing from the typical media landscape. The producers will focus on real people and their real stories as they tell them. The shows will shine the light on Indigenous voices expressing their own experiences, touching on a wide range of issues and perspectives. Ampers will produce 39 to 43 Native Lights radio shows and podcasts in FY22.

For Counter Stories, representatives from Minnesota's Latinx, African American, Native American, and Hmong communities will come together to discuss race, identity, social justice, and culture, in a region grappling with demographic change. The group will produce 58-minute shows that the radio stations can air as one-hour or two half-hour shows. The team will produce 46 to 50 half-hour shows which will also be produced and distributed as podcasts in FY22.

Listeners of Racial Reckoning: Bearing Witness will hear hosts compare notes from the week's events, connect the dots from past and present experiences, explore racial patterns in our state, and engage with community members and experts to talk about the racial upheaval and awakening we are seeing as well as the impact it's having on our culture and community. The shows will provide a unique opportunity to showcase narratives from our state's history that have been absent or marginalized, by allowing BIPOC on-air hosts and guests to share the information through their eyes and perspective. Ampers will produce 23 to 26 half-hour shows that will air on the radio which will also be produced into longer (35 to 55-minute) podcasts.

The Ampers digital archive, website & social media project ensures Ampers and its member stations comply with Minnesota Statute 129d.19. The statute requires grantees receiving Legacy funding through the Ampers appropriation to archive all Arts & Cultural Heritage programming produced with the funds, make the programs available to all noncommercial radio stations eligible for these state grants, and make the programs available online for all Minnesotans now and in the future. This project maintains the infrastructure needed to comply with these requirements and also helps to distribute the artistic, cultural, and historical programs to more Minnesotans.

For our Racial Reckoning: Ground Zero Documentary, Ampers will produce a 60-minute radio documentary (or two 30-minute documentaries), two podcasts, as well as a video chronicling this historic moment in Minnesota as our communities grapple with unfolding events in this season of racial upheaval and change, during the police trials for the death of George Floyd. The documentaries will follow members of a BIPOC reporting team, covering stories from people within Minnesota's diverse communities. Through their eyes, the documentaries will examine and confront many complex and traumatic historical issues regarding our institutions and legal system, as the tense situation unfolds in real-time, and as the world watches.