The Urbana Champaign Independent Media Center’s mission is to foster the creation and distribution of media and art that emphasizes underrepresented voices and perspectives, and to promote empowerment and expression through media and arts education. Over the past 26 years, the UCIMC has brought hundreds of thousands of residents to events in downtown Urbana, supported hundreds of emerging artists, and incubated dozens of community based projects.
Recently, several news sources published stories about a federal indictment of Representative Ammons where the UCIMC was mentioned.
In response, we would like to share with our community the following context.
In 2021, UCIMC received a grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) for a Non-profit Incubator to strengthen the capacity of local organizations working to alleviate the impacts of poverty and violence in Champaign County. We are grateful to Representative Ammons for her advocacy in addressing this and many local needs.
UCIMC was selected for this grant based on our longstanding experience in operating a fiscal sponsorship program that has supported the development of over 60 organizations. The majority of the Non-Profit Incubator grant funds were pass-through funds to support organizational capacity building for seven emerging nonprofit organizations over 12 months. These participating organizations received training and support through five modules: Statutory Requirements, Nonprofit Leadership, Digital Marketing, Grant Writing, and GATA (Grants Accountability and Transparency Act) Certification. Contracted experts supported each module. The program was successful and all seven organizations completed the program with good standing as formally recognized 501c3 organizations.
As part of the Digital Marketing Module, UCIMC chose to contract with Tatianna Ammons to support incubator participants in creating and improving their websites and digital marketing. Tatianna Ammons was selected due to her experience in the subject area. The selection of Tatianna Ammons was transparent and approved by our board of directors; her selection was in no way influenced by Representative Ammons. UCIMC paid Tatianna Ammons a total of $9,990 dollars to support seven organizations over the course of the grant and she completed all work to satisfaction. UCIMC submitted her work for reimbursement, no issues were flagged by DCEO, and UCIMC successfully administered the grant. We are grateful to Tatianna for her support in the success of the program.
As the story unfolds, the UCIMC encourages our community to remember that the U.S. Constitution guarantees due process with the presumption of innocence. UCIMC is a non-partisan community based organization that supports human rights for all residents.