MNN instituted one of the first community media grant programs in the country, providing video equipment, staff and training for community groups in New York City. This program helped groups to document some of the most historically significant issues of the 1990s and 2000s, including AIDS activism, labor organizing, police brutality, community gardens, immigrants' rights and LGBT rights. MNN ended the grants program in 2008, which triggered a series of events that resulted in the 2019 US Supreme Court case "Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck"