IECF Immediate Past Board Chair Dr. Paulette Brown-Hinds was recently honored by the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce with the 38th annual ATHENA of Riverside Award for her work in news media and journalism.

The mission of ATHENA of Riverside is to open doors of leadership opportunities for women through inspiration, education, cultivation, and mentoring. The ATHENA committee annually honors a person who furthers that mission at a luncheon at The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa. During the program, the committee also awards multiple scholarships to women currently enrolled at the collegiate level in a local school.

Michelle Decker, IECF’s CEO and President, shared her congratulations for Paulette’s achievement, saying, “Paulette has helped the community overcome its lack of visibility on the CA stage. She has helped position us and we’ve needed that because we have too few philanthropic dollars here in the region.”

Some of Paulette’s current initiatives, including Mapping Black California and Media in Color, have ensured that communities of color have a voice in the media landscape. At IECF, in 2022, Paulette established the Journalism & Media Fund to support local and regional journalism and to build a pipeline of talent in the sector.

Paulette is the founder of Voice Media Ventures, publisher of Black Voice News, a Stanford University JSK Sr Journalism Fellow, and an advocate for community media. An award-winning columnist and Knight Digital Fellow, Paulette has nearly 30 year’s experience in media, communications, and community engagement. She earned a BA in English Literature from CSUSB and a MA and PhD from the University of Riverside in English Literature.

As a life-long student of African-American literature, culture and history she leads Underground Railroad Study Tours for the Black Voice Foundation, stewards a collection of slavery artifacts, and is the founder of Mapping Black California, a community mapping and STE[A]M initiative identifying the assets of the Golden State’s African American community and introducing Black youth to the power of GIS technology.
Congratulations, Paulette!

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