Getting Started: Tips for Funders on Journalism and Media Grantmaking

[Source: Community Information Needs, June 2, 2011]

Five Things You Need to Know, Five Ways to Get Started

Journalism and Media Grant Making: Five Things You Need to Know, Five Ways to Get Started from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

“We don’t do media grants. Certainly not journalism grants.” For decades, that’s what you heard from many foundation leaders in the United States. But today, that’s changing, as the digital age upends traditional media economics, tossing roughly 15,000 American journalists out of work in the past few years. We might call them media grants, journalism grants or community information grants. Regardless of their name, community and other place-based foundations are doing more of these grants.

The reason for this is interesting. Foundations are making more media and journalism grants not for the sake of media alone, but because they are finding they need a healthy news ecosystem in order to achieve their strategic goals.

Enter this booklet, by foundations that make media and journalism grants, for foundations with little or no experience in this field. This quick primer is divided into two parts.

Five Things You Need To Know and Five Ways To Get Started

It is based on the experiences of the leaders of dozens of foundations that have funded local news and information projects. Many of them started out somewhat perplexed by the constantly shifting digital media landscape. Now, their experience and projects can provide inspiration and know-how (plus a few cautions) to help you start on news and information grantmaking.

In the digital age, you have plenty of options. Many do not require large dollar investments. You can fund the efforts of existing media or you can develop your own initiatives. You can work with partners to increase the reach of your efforts or you can create independent organizations. You can build an information component into an initiative you’re already funding or you can research information needs in your community to make your grant making more strategic.

You can call these grants media grants, or build them into your regular program areas. More important is what they do. These are grants that advance the idea of “news in the public interest” – the news that citizens need to run their communities and their lives. They are projects that are done with the values of traditional journalism – the fair, accurate, contextual search for truth. They have the public good in mind.

Because this book is designed as a starter, the authors hope you will use the “Additional reading” pages in the back, as well as visit www.informationneeds.org. That’s the website of the Knight Community Information Challenge, where you can connect with additional resources, including the Knight Circuit Riders, who can provide project management and technical advice as you think through and create your project.