Keeping It Currant: July 2026

Welcome to the latest issue of Keeping It Currant, a newsletter brought to you by Social Currant & Girl and the Gov®. If you’re new here, this monthly inbox drop lives at the intersection of the creator economy and the social impact space, providing the latest need-to-know on how to navigate this rapidly evolving digital space. And since we’re doing introductions, before you scroll, be sure to pop in and say hello in the Social Currant’s Slack channel for creators, here.

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ADD TO THE CAL

Creator events to add to your cal

Creator Economy NYC’s July Mixer & Panel:

About: Creator Economy NYC and TopFan are hosting a mixer that’ll feature an evening of networking and connection between creators, marketers, platforms, and industry leaders. The mixer will focus on what it means to create a sustainable, long-term creator business, and how to do it.

When: July 28, 2026; 6:30-9:30pm EST

Where: Midtown Manhattan [NYC]

REQUEST TO JOIN

Webinar: How to cover campaign finance data as a creator

About: News Creator Corps and OpenSecrets are hosting a webinar for creators on how to find, analyze, and share campaign finance data. The webinar will focus on giving attendees the practical skills needed to turn complex campaign finance data into the content audiences want to learn from. Included will be coverage of essential finance laws, FEC document navigation, and an introduction to brand-new OpenSecrets tools that designed built to break down details on candidates and individual races.

When: August 5, 2026; 12:30pm EST

Where: Virtual

REGISTER HERE

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OPPORTUNITY BULLETIN

Creator-centric openings to go after

Apply for the News Creator Corps fall 2026 Trusted Creator Fellowship: Taps mic – is this thing on? It sure is, and so is the News Creator Corps fall 2026 Trusted Creator Fellowship, which is taking applications through August 17, 2026 at 11:59pm EST. The 8-week virtual program is centered around teaching creators’ tactical skills like fact-checking, sourcing, and interviewing to not only up-level their content, but to ensure info shared is accurate. Additionally, the program provides creators that complete the program with a $5,000 stipend. Get more deats and apply here.

Apply for the Pinterest Inclusion Fund: Year six loading… Pinterest’s annual Inclusion Fund incubator program is now open for applications. The program taps creators that are actively building out their presence on the platform and connects them with educational resources, financial support, and creator-meets-Pinterest growth opportunities. The fund specifically aims to uplift and foster content creators that meet the platform’s criteria for inclusive features. The application, available here, is open through August 4, 2026 at 9pm EST.

Pitch yourself for paid campaigns via Social Currant: Getting paid to post about what you care about is a win for you and a win for your audience. On the Social Currant platform, creators like you are able to connect directly with leading progressive organizations to discuss paid collaboration opportunities and more. Join the Social Currant platform here to browse and apply for the latest.

Apply for the Kansas City Chiefs Kingdom Creators: Football szn is right around the corner, and the Kansas City Chiefs are coming in hot… with the launch of a creator program designed to be an all-year endeavor that aims to connect the team’s fandom through creative storytellers. The program is set to bring in creators across niches [you don’t need to be sports-only to be a fit] and feature three-tiers to meet different creator needs. The application to apply is available here.

Apply to be a Dayton Art Institute Influencer: ICYMI, the cultural center that is the Dayton Art Institute has an influencer program that brings creators together, offers BTS sneak peeks and previews, access to events, and more. The Ohio-based program – which doesn’t require participants to be located in Ohio, BTW – can be applied to here.

RESOURCE ROUND-UP

Save ‘em, share ‘em

→ For the creator that’s on the hunt for grants to grow their biz: Is there a grant for that? Probably, you just need to know where to look. That ‘where’ happens to be located in the Transform The Hustle Substack, which puts a round-up of grants to apply to, that range in focus from small business to media to climate to film, and beyond, in inboxes monthly. Subscribe to Transform The Hustle here.

→ For the creator looking to master the ins-and-outs of brand deals: Made for creators by creators, YouTube’s new five-part video series, The Brand Deal Desk, has launched to demystify the dynamics of brand deals. The series features creators Max Fosh, Erin White, and Grace Andrews, and includes the skinny on tactics that can be used at-large to ink brand deals, along with how to skillfully tap into YouTube Creator Partnerships. Watch the series here.

→ For the creator who’s wondering why their emails keep getting flagged: When it comes to social algos and shadow-bans, the reasons for outcomes can vary more than your average Costco variety pack. However, when it comes to g-mail, the reasons why emails are getting halted or thrown to someone’s SPAM box are actually pretty straight-forward. This quick guide drops the most common mistakes coming from g-mail inboxes, whether they’re the inboxes of creators, brands, orgs, or anyone else for that matter.

→ For the creator that wants to connect their community members: Those publishing on beehiiv have been #blessed with a new feature – one that takes a little from the Substack-verse and a little from the Slack orbit. The feature is the ability to launch an in-house Community for one’s subscribers – think members-only built intentionally to foster discussion, connection, and interfacing creator-to-audience, and audience-to-audience. Learn more about the feature here.

→ For the creator looking to expand into the WhatsApp universe → WhatsApp recently announced that it’s launching usernames, a feature that has the potential to benefit brands and creators alike pending on where the app decides to carve its future path. In any case, TBDs on the platform aside, now is the moment to reserve a username. Get ahead of the curve and reserve your username [personal brand, brand, org, etc] using these instructions from Female Founder World.

STATUS QUO

Reports, stats, & data to know in the creator world

Pew Research’s Report on Health and Wellness Info: A new report from Pew has revealed that an astonishing 6 in 10 women get their health and wellness information from influencers. While there’s a lot to unpack from this report, what’s clear is that there’s a serious argument to be had for supporting, uplifting, and funding doctors, scientists, and other licensed professionals on socials [hint, hint, health orgs].

Social Insider’s Reels Stats Report: As they say the devil’s in the details, and so is the data. In the case of this new data deep dive from Social Insider on Reels’ performance, the metrics paint an interesting picture, putting the performance of Reels v. Carousels head-to-head paired with the differences in performance for different account sizes. And while that data may open the floor for debate on whether Reels or Carousels drive better results, what’s clear is that the content from accounts with under 50K followers is being pushed more than that of larger accounts – a great argument to make to possible org and brand partners for handing over that dough. For more insights, tap into the full report here.

YouTube’s 2025 Impact Report: For anyone who's ever been told that content creation isn’t a real job, YouTube’s 2025 Impact Report may help you win that argument in the future. The core reason for that – and your feature argument-to-be – YouTube’s creative ecosystem contributed $60 billion to the GDP of the USA, and that’s not counting all of the other creative platforms. Read through the full report here.

PLATFORM UPDATES

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INSTAGRAM → Following the bad press that was the AI-remix feature, the platform has unveiled a new update – the ability for creators to swap out the music on their posts. A win for anyone that’s ever decided they no longer like a jingle or decided that there’s a song that works better with their messaging, the feature gives posts [and their creators] a longer shelf life.

NETFLIX → Continuing in its efforts to compete with YouTube, Netflix has launched a partnership that’ll go live in August with top publishers – think Teen Vogue, People Mag, Food & Wine, etc – to bring their content to the platform. The partnership comes as many classic print pubs have launched YouTube channels with quality content and quality viewership, and takes a ‘let’s put our heads together’ to increase both. In particular, this partnership will be one to watch for the editors, creators, and hosts that work with these pubs, and have carved out their own niches on social as well.

TWITTER → The copy cat antics between social platforms continues with a new update from Twitter. The app has launched a new video editor and recorder in the iOs version, with the goal of increasing quality, in-house made video. The new tools include the usual suspects like green screen capabilities and captioning.