Grants for Journalism

Craig Newmark Philanthropies supports public charities that further our priorities of trustworthy journalism, voter protection, women in technology, veterans and military families. Specifically:

• Our trustworthy journalism and information ecosystem priority focuses on efforts that promote an honest press and counter disinformation. 
• Our voter protection priority focuses on defending the Fifteenth Amendment. This work includes voter registration, legislation and policy, and improvements to the electoral system.
• Our women in technology priority focuses on national initiatives that are working to solve the gender gap in technology. 
• Our vets and military families priority focuses on efforts that help vets and their families from a broad, national perspective. We typically fund local efforts indirectly, via the Bob Woodruff Foundation.

Our Mission

Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy.

Program Area: Journalism

Building a sustainable future for local news.

What We Fund

Knight Foundation supports free expression and journalistic excellence in the digital age. Our goal is to promote informed and engaged communities, which are vital to a healthy democracy. 

We are committed to defending the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, including freedom of the press and freedom of expression, in the face of both long-standing threats and unprecedented challenges emerging as technology changes the way we communicate.

Our work supporting journalistic excellence is built on three pillars:

• Technology innovation: We invest in ideas that leverage technology and data for reporting and storytelling, engaging and empowering audiences, and combating mis/disinformation. We also seek to advance the responsible use of artificial intelligence and identify potentially game-changing technologies to advance the practice of journalism. 
• Local news: We support the development of sustainable, replicable business models to support local news. We invest in innovative approaches to local journalism, including new audience engagement strategies to expand quality reporting, rebuild trust and increase civic engagement. We help public media, traditional news organizations and local TV news stations keep up with the changing ways people are consuming and engaging with news and information.
• Talent and learning: We invest in people and networks driving innovation and diversity in journalism, accelerating the digital and cultural transformation of the field. We promote digital literacy among citizens. We help journalists prepare for the future through peer-to-peer learning, skills training and leadership development. We underpin journalism education through endowed Knight Chairs at major universities.

Several aspects of our work are currently aligned in our Trust, Media and Democracy initiative. The intiative includes grantmaking, research, convenings and a Knight Commission drawn from across media, law and academia. The Commission is seeking powerful solutions to the crisis of trust in institutions -- including the media -- that weaken our democracy. 

NIHCM Foundation supports timely health care journalism that informs efforts to improve the health of Americans and that examines emerging health issues and their implications for cost, quality and access.

Grants provide funding for:

• Health reporting.
• Educational opportunities for health care reporters.
• Support for documentary films and their public engagement campaigns.

NOTE: This call for applications is a discretely different call from the previous two North American Innovation Challenges as it is very focused on baseline research.

Introduction

As a part of the Google News Initiative’s $300M commitment to help journalism thrive in the digital age, we’ve launched GNI Innovation Challenges to support projects that drive digital innovation, help publishers understand their communities and develop new business models. The GNI funds sets of projects from around the world that meet specified criteria, with the intent of producing learnings that can be shared with the wider industry.We are taking an exciting turn this round of the North America Innovation Challenge by calling for projects which focus on a fundamental challenge for local publishers: understanding and serving the needs of your communities. The changes in our digital world requires both a fresh understanding of a community’s needs and an understanding of how to communicate the benefits and values of a news organization back to its community.As local news organizations strive to address the needs of their communities and attain financial sustainability, this North America Innovation Challenge will support projects that tackle the challenges of better understanding and serving communities to enhance the relationship with their varied audiences. To achieve this we’re encouraging news organizations to further develop learnings about their audiences through rigorous research.Google will fund selected projects up to $200,000 and will finance up to 70% of the total project cost. Special discretion on the total project cap may be considered by the Jury depending on the scale and impact of a very large collaborative effort.Eligible Projects The North American GNI Innovation Challenge will focus on projects that demonstrate how they plan to tackle the challenges of better understanding and serving their communities in ways that demonstrate the value of journalism to enhance the relationship with their various audiences. Every community is a unique place, distinct from yet still linked with others around the world. Every audience, whether it is urban or rural, wealthy or poor, young or ageing has a way in which it processes, participates in and perceives local news. The path to sustainability includes diligently understanding the communities publishers serve and applying those learnings to their work.Applicants should address how their plan might approach the following steps:

• Step One: Using survey, focus group and other data-driven methods to establish a baseline understanding of the community’s informational needs and expectations - from accountability journalism to “news-you-can-use.” This should include an assessment of the perception of your news offering from within the communities.
• Step Two: Incorporate those learnings into adjustments in product design, editorial strategy and messaging.
• Step Three: Repeat step one based on the product and messaging changes.
• Step Four: Disclose what you’ve learned and evaluate how it might impact your ongoing approaches.

Projects should be about rigorous testing and research that plan to share both the instruments they develop and the results with others in the industry. They should not be about soft research eg. forming advisory groups or embarking on listening tours. Approaches that are intended to be repeatable by the organization and/or replicable by others will be favored during assessment.

All four phases of the projects should be delivered within one year (including the testing stage) and successful applications will lead to the disclosure of a report about implementation and sustainable change within your organization.Example projects could include:

• Community engagement: Based on rigorous research methods, using surveying tools, forming a community listening project, involving online events, facebook forums, SMS/ whatsapp based research.
• Revenue: Based on a structured methodology, a project to sell more subscriptions by asking survey respondents to financially support a local news organization with messaging A/B tested against moral segmentation (protect the vulnerable -vs- long standing service to community)
• Infrastructure: Integrating customer databases across media types and departments, to create a holistic view of customers and provide seamless service.

U.S. Press Freedom Accountability Project

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in collaboration with the News Leaders Association (NLA), launched the U.S. Press Freedom Accountability Project in light of the unprecedented attacks on journalists around the United States. The initiative will support reporting on press freedom violations and accountability.

The U.S. Press Freedom Accountability Project, funded by CPJ, is providing grants between $2,000 and $5,000 for newsrooms reporting on threats to journalists in the U.S., with a priority to pieces that can be published in one to three months. CPJ and NLA seek applications from newsrooms across the country. News organizations can apply, or freelancers with a publication on board willing to publish their work.