At the Rudolf Augstein Foundation, journalism is both legacy and strategy. Executive Director Stephanie Reuter reflects on strengthening resilience in a fragile media landscape, from supporting exiled journalists to investing in local news and building a broader base of philanthropic support.

How does supporting journalism fit into the broader mission of the Foundation? Why do you think it is important to support it?

Journalism is in our DNA. Our founder, Rudolf Augstein, established DER SPIEGEL and is widely regarded as one of the most influential journalists of Germany’s postwar era. Throughout his life, he stood for rigorous, investigative reporting and an informed public. In 1962, he was even imprisoned for publishing a critical article, an enduring testament to his uncompromising defence of press freedom.

This legacy continues to shape our work today. Since its inception, the foundation has been committed to strengthening the journalistic and information ecosystem. Democracy is never a given. It must be constantly defended and renewed. Free and independent journalism is not optional; it is a cornerstone of any functioning democracy.

Did your approach to supporting journalism change in recent years as a response to the rapidly changing environment?

Yes, our approach to supporting journalism has evolved markedly in recent years, shaped by an increasingly volatile and fragile media landscape. At its core is a clear priority: strengthening resilience.

Given limited resources, we focus on helping newsrooms become more sustainable, reinforcing their economic viability while ensuring journalism remains relevant and future-ready. Investments in innovation are key to this.

A defining moment came in 2022. The launch of the JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile was a direct response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the sweeping repression of independent media in Russia and Belarus. Within weeks, journalists were forced into exile and entire newsrooms were silenced. Supporting exiled journalists had not previously been part of our portfolio, but the urgency of the situation called for swift, coordinated action. Together with partners, we established the JX Fund as a rapid-response, multi-stakeholder mechanism, bringing together foundations, civil society, and public funding to provide financial support, infrastructure, and networks that enable journalists to continue their work in exile.

Alongside this, we have broadened our focus. Building on our “Wüstenradar” study, we place greater emphasis on local journalism and its importance for democratic cohesion. We are also exploring new intersections between journalism and the arts, for example through collaborations with the theatre sector to engage audiences in new ways.

Our funding practice has also evolved.

Where we once focused primarily on intermediaries and infrastructure providers, we now support newsrooms directly, exclusively through pooled funds such as Civitates, the JX Fund, and the Media Forward Fund.

At the same time, we see our role in media policy becoming increasingly important. We actively advocate for conditions that enable independent journalism to thrive and understand ourselves as advocates for an informed society. In short, our approach today is more focused, more adaptive, and more systemic, aimed at strengthening the long-term resilience of journalism.

Supporting Journalism in Germany and Beyond

Which organisations are eligible for your support?

Our work is primarily focused on supporting organisations in Germany and German-speaking countries. At the same time, we engage in collaborative, pooled funding initiatives to extend our reach beyond national contexts and contribute to cross-border and international efforts. Given our limited resources, we focus on early-stage funding, deploying risk capital to support new initiatives at a critical stage.

In what forms do you support journalism?

We support journalism through a combination of collaborative funding mechanisms and flexible grantmaking approaches. As outlined above, direct support to individual newsrooms is provided exclusively through pooled funds. These partnerships allow us to work more strategically, leverage shared expertise, and increase our overall impact. At the same time, we remain open to new proposals on an ongoing basis. We do, however, encourage prospective applicants to contact us in advance to discuss whether their project aligns with our strategic priorities.

Our grant sizes typically range from €5,000 to €100,000 per project. We offer both multi-year core funding, aimed at strengthening organisational resilience, and project-based funding for specific initiatives. Overall, our approach is designed to be accessible, collaborative, and responsive while ensuring that our resources are deployed where they have the greatest impact.

Do you provide any other assistance beyond funding?

Beyond funding, we offer guidance and connect our partners to relevant expertise and networks, helping them strengthen their development and impact.

The Need for Patience and Persistence

What is the most important lesson you have learned from supporting journalism?

One of the most important lessons we have learned is that supporting journalism requires patience and a long-term commitment.

Building this field of philanthropy does not happen overnight. It takes sustained effort, trust, and collaboration. Coming from journalism ourselves, our challenge was never a lack of understanding of editorial independence. Rather, our focus has been on how to develop journalism as a field of philanthropy in Germany. To this end, we actively engage with the German Association of Foundations, where we contribute through advisory roles, lead a working group on communication and journalism, produce reports, and host workshops to raise awareness and strengthen the field.

For many years, we have worked to encourage more foundations to recognise journalism as a vital area of support. Independent journalism is relevant to virtually every philanthropic mission, as it underpins informed societies and functioning democracies. Yet awareness of this connection still needs to grow.

This is why we are particularly grateful for cross-border initiatives such as the Journalism Funders Forum. They create spaces to exchange ideas, share knowledge, and develop joint strategies. Ultimately, what is needed is a much broader base of funders committed to this essential field, because the future of our societies depends on it.

What were the biggest challenges you have had to face so far?

As a shareholder of the JX Fund, the designation as an “undesirable organisation” in 2025 presented a complex and challenging moment for us. On the one hand, it can be seen as a stark reminder of the relevance and impact of its work in supporting independent journalism under difficult conditions. On the other hand, it has very real implications for our partners and members of our team, particularly for those with personal or family ties to Russia.

A further challenge lies in the long timeframes of policy change. For years, we have advocated for granting charitable status to non-profit journalism. This demand has now been included in the federal government’s coalition agreement for the second time, yet implementation is still pending. This reinforces the need for persistence and sustained engagement.

How do you assess the success of your programmes? Can you share a particular success story?

An impact-oriented approach is central to our work. We are constantly guided by the question of how we can increase our contribution to the common good.

Clear goal-setting is therefore essential, as it provides both direction and a shared sense of purpose.

As a grant-giving foundation, logframes are typically developed by our partners, with us offering feedback and support throughout the process.

One of our standout success stories is the funding of CORRECTIV.Lokal. The model originates in the UK, where the Bureau of Investigative Journalism launched the Bureau Local. Its core idea is to strengthen local journalism by connecting reporters, sharing data and tools, and enabling collaborative investigations on issues of public interest that resonate at the local level. Together with CORRECTIV, we brought this model to Germany and adapted it to the local media landscape. Today, the network includes around 2,000 journalists. It has enabled numerous joint investigations, strengthened collaboration across newsrooms, and helped bring underreported local issues such as housing, environmental concerns, and public spending into the public spotlight.

Why this example? The entire ecosystem benefits from this. We are particularly interested in approaches that have the potential to create strong leverage effects.

Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?

Pooled funds are a powerful way to increase impact while offering an accessible entry point for new funders, who can benefit from the expertise and networks of experienced partners.

Where no such fund exists, we encourage reaching out to foundations active in journalism. In our experience, we all share a strong commitment to growing this essential field and to exchanging knowledge.

On the fifth birthday of the Limelight Foundation, its Director, Alinda Vermeer reflects on this critical moment for journalism in Europe, discusses the foundation’s focus on public interest journalism and the broader ecosystem, shares insights into its ambitious €150 million funding goal, and explains why a systemic, long-term approach is essential to sustaining independent journalism.

The foundation is relatively young, why was it important to establish it? What gap in the journalism funding landscape did it intend to fill?

This is a very timely interview, because we have just celebrated our five-year anniversary. The foundation was set up in 2021 to protect and strengthen independent journalism in Europe and its watchdog role in society, with the idea that democracy only works if you know what is going on and what those in power are doing, because then you can make informed decisions. Basically, it was inspired by the hard-hitting journalism of some of the organisations that are now grantee partners and the role that this work fulfils in society.

It happened to coincide with the moment where a number of funders were reconsidering their priorities and shifting focus away from, for instance, working in Europe or supporting European journalism. But that growing gap in the European funding landscape wasn’t necessarily the reason to set up Limelight, it was more inspired by the importance of this work and our founders’ sense of responsibility to protect it.

Even before that shift in focus by a number of foundations, there wasn’t enough funding. I remember, back then I was still working in the NGO sector and was so thrilled that a new funder was willing to support this work.

The foundation describes its mission as strengthening Europe’s information infrastructure. What does that mean in practical terms?

On one hand, we support public interest journalism. We support cross-border investigative networks and public interest newsrooms that focus on specific European countries, but also organisations that support journalists and newsrooms, for instance when they are in legal trouble or under digital attack. Then we also support targeted work to strengthen the enabling environment, for instance, countering SLAPPs.

But we focus on the information infrastructure more broadly, because we feel that you cannot focus exclusively on journalism if you want to support it properly.

The revenue model was broken by the loss of advertising revenue and audiences shifting to reading news on social media.

From the outset, we have looked at the wider ecosystem in which journalism functions. Producing honest, reliable information is one thing, but it must also reach people. This has become increasingly difficult through big tech platforms, which have at the same time become instrumental in rising authoritarianism around the world.

In practice, it means that we look also at the role of tech, for instance supporting the enforcement of EU laws against big tech companies to ensure that they respect fundamental rights, including our right to information, or bringing accountability and transparency to the tech sector in other ways.

So our program has two pillars. On the one hand, the public interest journalism pillar, which is by far the biggest part of our work. On the other hand, there is what we call the tech and information ecosystem pillar, which focuses on the role of tech platforms through the public interest journalism lens: what the whole infrastructure should look like for public interest journalism to flourish.

Why Journalism Funding Needs a Scale Change

Limelight has ambitious plans to build a €150 million fund for journalism. How did you arrive at that number and how do you plan to raise it?

 I’ll take you back to a year and a half ago, when we started thinking about what the strategy for the next couple of years should be. We realised that we had become the leading journalism fund in Europe, but also that we had a very modest budget of less than EUR 7 million per year. That made no sense, or at least not to us.

We also thought about the context in which we operate, and we know that our societies are confronted with so many crises: rising authoritarianism, climate crisis, geopolitical instability, technological disruption. A healthy information infrastructure plays a key role in confronting these issues.

At the same time, we saw so much funding for journalism disappear from Europe. The revenue that the sector itself can generate can never close that gap. And then think about the amount big tech companies invest, for instance, in AI. The Guardian reported that last year alone they jointly invested 155 billion.

This is the context in which we operate.

To secure journalism’s future, the whole scale must change. We have to stop thinking short term and look at much longer term, at least the next 10 years.

What do we want to be able to support? What should we be supporting to help this sector survive and thrive? This is how we started thinking, and then we looked at our portfolio and thought that the way we have structured works, and the organisations we fund do fantastic work and we can see the impact of that. So what else can we do? How much can we grow?

It is not to say that 150 million invested over 10 years is all that is needed. Philanthropic funding should be a catalyst. In that sense, we also hope that it will unlock larger funding pools from public and private sectors that recognise the fundamental importance of this work.

To answer the question of how we plan to raise it, let me first say what we plan not to do. We don’t want to coordinate existing funding or take it away from others. We regularly encounter a “scarcity mindset.” I don’t think that this mindset serves this work at all, especially not at this critical time for the sector. It focuses too much on the short term rather than more systemic changes, and it holds back long-term impact.

Instead, it is about encouraging funders who are new to this field to join this mission by making them see the fundamental importance of public interest journalism and healthy information infrastructure to all the things they care about, be it climate, health, or whatever mission they have.

It is our hope that we can look beyond the usual suspects, funders who are already on board with supporting democracy, and look to funders who do not yet have that as part of their portfolio. If you look at the climate sector, it can be done, but it is indeed very ambitious.

Flexible Funding and a Targeted Approach

In what forms do you support journalism?

 We mainly give financial support, typically for three years. Our preferred way of working is giving unrestricted funding, and we provide this where we can. We don’t work with open calls, but when we scope new partners, we speak with a lot of people in the sector, whether they are grantee partners or experts in the field. We call them referees. On the basis of their inputs, we make a decision on what to prioritise next.

We don’t accept unsolicited applications, simply because our team is too small and we don’t want organisations to waste time drafting fantastic proposals that we cannot support, even though we want to, because our budget is already allocated for the year. Potential grantee partners can fill out a form on our website giving information about their organisation and how they align with our strategy, and we do respond to all these requests. We don’t want to be a fully closed organisation that is impossible to approach, and I don’t exclude the possibility that we will do open calls at some point.

This is our preferred way of working. With the traditional business models collapsing, you just can’t do your best work as a journalist if you constantly have to fundraise, report, or work in a big jigsaw puzzle, figuring out what funding goes where. You just need to be able to pay rent, retain talent, and strengthen your team or your digital security. You need to be able to innovate, if necessary. Core funding enables you to do that. We also feel that it’s the best way to guarantee editorial independence.

Do you provide any other assistance beyond funding?

Where it is helpful to our grantee partners, we are happy to act as sparring partners. We really enjoy doing that, connecting with them on the organisational challenges they face. We also connect them to others in our network, for instance, journalism support organisations.

Building a successful revenue model is very important with the amount of funding that has left the field, and we don’t want to pretend that we are the ones with that expertise. It requires hyper-local expertise, and we don’t have that in-house. There are better ways to approach it, for instance through peer learning or having a dedicated consultant who knows the specific local context.

We are one of the donors behind the Revenue Axis run by OCCRP, which helps investigative journalism outlets navigate the changing funding landscape and achieve long-term financial sustainability by figuring out new ways to monetise the work, not with a one-size-fits-all approach, but with a view to what works in that specific local context.

We try to be realistic about what we can provide in-house and keep our team quite small so the overhead remains low and as much funding as possible goes into the field.

Which organisations are eligible for your support?

 When we look at our public interest journalism portfolio, geographically it is focused on Council of Europe countries. We try to support organisations in countries where press freedom is under pressure or where there is hardly any funding available for journalism. That is, of course, a very long list of countries.

We fund a mix of smaller and larger organisations.

We look at the financial dependence that organisations would have on us, and we try to spread the risk there.

So we support, for instance, some larger, cross-border investigative networks, or newsrooms that have very diversified income and are in a relatively strong position, or small newsrooms that may just be starting out or may only have one other funder. So we balance that. We don’t want to say that we don’t support organisations at all if they have a certain level of dependence on us, because we think that you have to be realistic. It’s very difficult to find funding in certain countries.

Some of the organisations that we support have a global focus, for instance, cross-border investigative networks or support organisations like Media Defence, which gives legal support to journalists around the world. But when it comes to newsrooms, they often have a focus on their specific country.

Why an Ecosystem Approach Matters More Than Ever

What is the most important lesson you have learned from supporting journalism?

Before I started working at Limelight three years ago, I had worked for nearly a decade in legal representation of journalists. I think the most important lesson now is still the same: journalism is under threat from every angle, and I have only seen it increase over the past 10 years.

There is a financial threat, with the advertising revenue being absorbed by big tech companies and the change in news consumption, but also a legal threat, especially SLAPPs. When I started representing journalists as a lawyer, it was typically articles with a mistake that would get you into legal trouble. Now it is often the really good journalism that gets you into trouble, especially because it is so effective.

Digital threats have also increased, blocking of websites, spyware infections, you name it. Online violence has also become a massive threat, and it can also spill offline. And then an insight that comes more from my days at Limelight: reaching audiences is increasingly difficult because of the big tech platforms.

Journalists have an incredibly challenging job, and their resilience has amazed me again and again. It also makes me hopeful, because they keep going even if their work comes at a high personal cost. But the sector can’t thrive under so much threat, and I think the main lesson for me is that the philanthropic sector has a role to play, giving them the backing that they deserve. Yeah, this is a slightly depressing lesson.

What were the biggest challenges you have had to face so far?

 Over the past couple of years, it has been a very big challenge: how to allocate a limited budget when there are so many organisations that deserve support. Even if we grow, I think it will continue to be the case. Making these decisions is difficult.

But I think that an even bigger challenge is the fundraising target. We do think that it is critical to have a flourishing media sector to keep our democracy strong and our society stable, and we urgently need that support at a much bigger scale.

After the USAID funding cuts last year, when so much funding for journalism disappeared overnight, and US democracy is being dismantled bit by bit, you would think it would be very easy to make a case for new allies and new funders. That has not yet been the case. I don’t know whether it is complacency, or a feeling that we are immune from this level of democratic backsliding, or a sense of this problem being too big for us to take on.

Our biggest challenge now is driving home the message that we do need to act now and at a much bigger scale, and the response needs to come from a much bigger group of people and donors than just existing journalism funders.

How do you assess the success of your programs? Can you share a particular success story?

 We have an impact framework that helps us keep track of our grant-making and our own organisational development. The main goal of this framework, and of our own monitoring and reporting, is to make sure that we work in line with our strategy.

When it comes to journalism, it is quite hard, because you can have all these KPIs about supporting this many newsrooms that published this many investigations and this many people have read those, but this tells only a very small part of the story. When it comes to measuring the impact of journalism, we work with change stories. We zoom in on a newsroom to see what our multi-year support has enabled them to do, whether it is on the organisational side, strengthening their team, bringing new skills on board, improving their financial sustainability, or on the journalism side, what it meant in terms of accountability, or connecting a global crisis to a local context, or amplifying voices that might otherwise not have been heard. We try to look at all the various forms of impact over the course of years.

In terms of one single success story, it is really hard, because we come across so many fantastic success stories on a daily basis. On the other hand, we have only been around for five years, and some of this impact materialises over the course of, say, a decade.

What is interesting to see, though, is the reporting from some of our grantee partners on the impact of important investigations that have happened even before we were set up. This also informs our own way of looking at the impact of the journalism we support now.

The Panama Papers investigation is a good example. It is coming up to its 10 year anniversary and we see the impact from recovered public funds to resignations or convictions of political figures, to legal reforms, to the impact on journalism itself in normalising large-scale, cross-border collaboration or secure data sharing. It really helps you understand what to look for and how much patience to have.

But it is also a success that the newsrooms that we support help 500 million Europeans to access independent news, or that some newsrooms are still going, but without our support they may have had to close doors. This is great to see.

Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?

Consider an ecosystem approach. It is important to fund the cross-border network that you know from the headlines, but which is made up of local journalists and local newsrooms. You also need to look at each of these newsrooms individually, and they often struggle to get funding. Maybe there is no government funding available in their country, or private funding potentially comes with strings attached. So consider looking beyond those networks to the smaller players as well.

Then, as the next step, look at the support that will be needed when journalism is published because it may get people into legal trouble, or it may result in a digital attack. What happens then? How do you ensure that you set your partners up for success in the long term? How can they keep going beyond that investigation and survive these attacks?

Finally, look at the role of tech. Producing information is one thing, but it has to reach people. What do you need to support to make sure that information reaches the audiences?

I get that, as a first piece of advice, it is a bit daunting, because budgets are typically far too small to do all of that in a way that makes sense from a strategic point of view. So the second piece of advice is: don’t hesitate to team up with others. Together, you can work at a larger scale and achieve meaningful impact.

So these are the two things: take an ecosystem approach and team up with others.

Journalism is the “oxygen of the political system,” says Riccardo Ramacci, Head of the Media Programme at the Mercator Foundation Switzerland. In this interview, he reflects on why a healthy and pluralistic information ecosystem is essential for democracy and discusses the foundation’s approach to supporting journalism.

Why does Mercator Switzerland support journalism? How does this align with your broader organisational mission?

 Journalism, and the broader information ecosystem, are vital cornerstones of democracy. We consider the two to be strongly dependent on one another. This is especially true in a country such as Switzerland, where there are a lot of elements of direct democracy and political rights give citizens a lot of power to make important decisions. Democratic decision-making requires trustworthy and reliable information. Journalism is the oxygen of a democratically organized political system. In our philanthropic work, the topic of journalism aligns with all the other fields we are involved in, such as climate change and education. A healthy and critical information system, as well as strong and pluralistic media, are important to have constructive discussions about an equitable and ecologically sustainable future.

Has the focus of your journalism programme changed since it began?

 Yes. We started pretty organically through two of our thematic funding areas, democracy and digital transformation. In a democracy, the transformational crisis of media is a really important issue and a challenge for democracy itself. That’s why we’ve launched several media related projects and also some studies to look at the challenges of, for example, local journalism.

Similarly, we realised that the evolution of the digital public sphere was one of the most important aspects of the digital transformation society. That’s why we’ve launched some media literacy projects. We realised that through these two approaches, we could achieve a lot more impact if we combined them under one journalism program. As such, all the media related projects are now coherently bundled up together within one portfolio.

What kind of support do you provide within this portfolio?

It really depends on the needs of the grantees. We provide financial support: everything from bigger tickets, like long-term core funding and organisational development, through smaller project-related financing. In addition, we offer tailored capacity-building through our “coaching pool”. External experts provide advice or consultation on issues that concern our grantees. This can range from questions around the organisational structures, leadership, and strategy development to financial planning, fundraising, and communication concepts, et cetera. We also provide a professional analysis of the organisations themselves to identify the next steps they should take to develop further and strengthen themselves for the future.

Who is eligible for your support?

Our primary focus is within Switzerland, but we have an increasing European perspective with some projects and networks. This stems from the conviction that we cannot solve the societal challenges we currently face within national borders.

The focus of our support for the media and journalism funding is on what we call “information ecosystem organisations”. We focus on projects which typically serve more than one news outlet and strengthen the entire sector itself. This can mean legal aid or capacity-building with physical or technical infrastructure, but also networks, knowledge transfer, et cetera.

We also promote certain forms of new collaboration, because we believe that interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration is a key approach to the development of the media sector, which is currently in the midst of a transformation crisis. We pool different resources while still maintaining, of course, the plurality of the system.

But we do not provide direct media support. We only contribute through pooled funds, such as the Media Forward Fund or Civitates, to maintain arm’s length, which is a really important aspect for us when it comes to journalism funding.

We also support media literacy projects in order to improve the perception of news and journalism and stimulate the demand for information. So organisations which complement the education system, are also eligible for our funding.

What is the most important lesson you have learned from supporting journalism?

When we entered the field, we didn’t realise how complex and unique it is. Journalism is a commercial product which can be monetised, but it is also a common good which serves the higher purpose of informing society within a democratic system. Maintaining the balance between these two logics is not an easy task. For a philanthropic organisation it can be challenging to assess where it should and can be active, in collaboration with which actors. It is important to determine where philanthropy has a role within the media sector.

Another lesson was that you need patience and a long-term perspective for the funding and capacity-building, because it takes time to reach the public or build up a wider audience.

How do you assess the success of your programmes? Is there a particular success story you can share?

In the journalism program,  we work with a theory of change. In addition, we develop an impact framework with specific goals for each project, in close collaboration with the grantees. One of the crucial aspects for success is the key impact on one target group. This could be an audience or other journalists. Although to record a measurable change is sometimes tricky in this field.

The other aspect is the financial stability and health of the organisations, which is probably one of the most crucial and important questions in the field of media and journalism. You can measure this quickly and easily when you look at the budgets, the financial planning, the resources, and also potential new revenue streams.

Both aspects are vital to assess success. There needs to be a clear value for the target groups, but it is also crucial to maintain financial stability.

As far as success stories go: The first grantees of the Media Forward Fund, which received funding in the beginning of 2025, already show promising signs of growth thanks to philanthropic investment. One grantee could more than double its newsletter subscribers and gain more than 30% paying members within a couple of months.

What were the biggest challenges that you have had to face within the journalism programme?

The dynamic and constant change of the field and the sector. Many of the premises we originally had were quickly overhauled by technological or political developments. There is far more demand for funding than there is supply. Consequently, a lot of great and fundable ideas remain unfinanced. Resources and knowledge are leaving the ecosystem a lot quicker than new funding comes in. In this situation, prioritising what to fund remains a constant challenge for us.

And I already touched upon this earlier, but it also remains a challenge to precisely define what constitutes public interest journalism, what is the public value of journalism, and what this definition means for our work.

Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?

One piece of advice might be obvious, but I would really recommend it: seek the advice of actors and organisations which already work in the field, such as the JFF. There are also other great organisations which provide a lot of insights. This was immensely helpful when we started the programme. Reach out to all these actors but also listen to the grantees and the field itself. Be courageous and start somewhere. It does not have to be perfect right away. To have an actionable approach and not to get lost within theoretical frameworks is also very important.

Collaboration is not only key for the grantees, but also for funders. My advice would be to collaborate with them as much as possible to strengthen impact, but also to navigate the complex question of what public interest journalism really means.

Jonathan Heawood, Executive Director of the Public Interest News Foundation, explains how the organisation is tackling the current crisis in public interest journalism and its focus on regenerating local news in the UK. He outlines their three pillars, shares insights into how they support news media, and reflects on the balance between vision and reality in supporting journalism.

Why was it important to establish the Public Interest News Foundation? What is your mission?

 It was important to establish the foundation back in 2019-2020, for the simple reason that there was a crisis in public interest journalism. In the UK, there had been a government-backed review of public interest journalism, which simply said there is a huge market failure, applied both at national and local levels, and in relation to investigative journalism. We established the foundation to address that whole crisis in all its forms.

But the mission has evolved over the five years. Now we are much more tightly focused on the crisis in local news, because we feel like that’s where the crisis is sharpest, and also there are the most exciting opportunities to build something new. Our mission is now to regenerate local news in the UK and we have set ourselves a deadline: we want to do that by 2035.

How do you define “public interest news”? Who is eligible for your support?

 We actually have a definition in our constitution. It really boils down to ethical, accurate, impartial news that informs and empowers people on matters that are relevant to us as citizens or as members of our community. That is the broad definition.

The one part of this which is sometimes controversial is where we stay impartial. Certainly in the UK there is a tradition of quite vigorous partisan journalism, some of which I think is undeniably in the public interest. But for our purposes as a charity, we had to narrow the definition slightly so we can only legally support outlets which are impartial.

And now, do you focus only on local media?

In practice. That’s a shift and we have been around for five years doing a range of activities, and we have a little bit of carryover, so some of our activities still apply to non-local media, but the vast majority is now local in practice.

In what forms do you support journalism?

 The simplest element is the financial, but actually it is a quite small part of what we do. We are technically an intermediary foundation, so we do not have an endowment or a living donor providing us with unrestricted funding. We have to fundraise in order to fund. So, what we can then do with the money depends a little bit on the motivation of the people funding us.

In the UK there is only a small number of funders who have given us money. In order for us to make grants directly to news organisations, we are still working at that. It is growing, and we are aiming to build a much more significant, multimillion pound fund to invest in capacity building for local journalism.

That’s still the dream. But in practice, quite a large part of what we do is not financial. It is more about advocacy. We work to try to change the law or with big stakeholders like the BBC or Google, Facebook, et cetera, to try to create a more enabling environment for public interest, local journalism. That’s working with news providers to understand their needs and challenges and aims, but it is not directly providing them with money. It is trying to use other tools at our disposal to create an environment in which they can thrive.

Then we also have our Local News Futures programme, which is more about bringing local news providers and other people together to really imagine what the future might look like and to celebrate innovation, to explore completely different ways of doing journalism, to think about in-person journalism and live journalism: anything which seems to put the needs of the local community first and foremost. So essentially, we have three pillars of activity. One is financial support, one is advocacy, and one is what we call futures, which is mainly about convening, networking, and imagining.

When it comes to financial support, what do you fund? Can organisations come to you directly for grants, or do you have calls?

Again, it varies, because in each case it depends on our relationship with whoever is providing us with the funding. One example is that we now run an annual programme, the Tenacious Journalist Award, where there is an open call every year and we invite news providers to come to us with a vision for a really impactful piece of journalism that they otherwise can’t afford to produce. We select up to 10 people to win the financial award. That’s very tight project funding that we then give them, and we work quite closely with them to provide non-financial support, to keep them focused on how to achieve the greatest impact.

But we also have a very different type of support where we can act as a fiscal host or a fiscal sponsor to a news provider. In this case, we can provide much more unrestricted operating support. We play a much more hands-off role. We have taken an administration fee like any other fiscal host and then let the news organisation do what they want to do. So we can really operate in very different ways, depending on the relationship.

What is the most important lesson you have learned from supporting journalism?

 I think it’s the constant negotiation between the ideal and the real, between what you want to do and what’s actually possible right now. That applies in so many different ways. We can go to conferences, and we are inspired by amazing visions of the future of journalism. People want to turn journalism on its head and do it in new, amazing ways. We come away thinking that this is fantastic. And then we meet some actual journalists, who are actually doing it day by day, and they do not have time or head space to think about these big, amazing new visions.

It is not how they were trained or how they have worked, if they have been in the industry for 10, 20, or 30 years or more. So you have to negotiate. You don’t want go to them and say, throw out everything you know, and explore this new, innovative, exciting model of journalism. You need to work with them where they are now and just try to create capacity for them to start to lift their heads up and look around, be inspired, and think about what’s possible.

But it is the same with the funders. As I said, we are an intermediary. We have relationships on one side with newsrooms, on the other side with funders. In the UK, very few funders have ever funded journalism. It is still a very small and very new field. We think that any funder who cares about democracy, community justice, the environment should fund journalism as part of their portfolios. We think they should be funding it with large, unrestricted capacity building grants. We absolutely believe that is the right thing for them to do, but they are not there yet. So we have to work with them slowly.

If they are curious but would rather work with a small project-based initiative, then we will do that to try to build trust and familiarity, and then over time we try to move towards something bigger and bolder. This is the constant negotiation between what we want to do, what we think is ideal, and what is actually possible in the real world.

What were the main challenges you have had to face so far?

Fundraising. For us as an intermediary foundation, simply the fact that journalism is a new, embryonic field in the UK. Intermediary foundations sit in a strange place in the ecosystem, in some ways a really wonderful place. We get the best of both worlds, but sometimes it can also be slightly awkward. Are we a funder or aren’t we? Are we in the room with other funders sharing our experience as a funder or are we in the room as a fundraiser, in which case the funders feel more cautious about being open with us?

Again, just navigating some of those tensions and trying to build the trust that we are here primarily to support funders, to support journalism, and that we think we can add value to that. But it takes time to change a culture.

How do you assess the success of your programmes? Can you share a particular success story?

We don’t have a single overarching impact framework. We would like to manage a multimillion-pound capacity building fund, and then we would have much clearer success measures. But at present, because we work in so many different ways, it does not feel right to try to create a unified theory of change.

But, as an example, there is the Tenacious Journalist Award, where we have given ten grants to ten different newsrooms to pursue ten different investigations. It has led to some really great journalism. I was talking to one of the journalists the other day who has been investigating the use of synthetic opioids in East London, where a particularly toxic type of synthetic opioid has hit the streets. It seems from her investigation that it has led to a very large number of deaths. But also, as a result of her investigation – and because she was talking to the local authority, local charities, and the local medical providers – there is an increase in the availability of the antidote, which could actually save people’s lives. The antidote was not widely available because the problem was not well known. This has changed. So I genuinely think that the journalist saved lives. It is an amazing impact.

Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?

 The advice is really simple. It is the advice you would give to funders in any context: Go and find an organisation that you really like, that you think is well led, that has a good, clear vision and is making a difference, and give them as much money as you can afford with as much freedom as you can allow, and sit back and see what happens. I guarantee that it will at least be interesting.

Ebru Akgün, Programme Manager, Informed Society at Adessium Foundation explains why supporting journalism is central to the foundation’s mission, shares insights into their focus, and highlights both the opportunities and challenges of sustaining a healthy information ecosystem in Europe.

Why is it important for the Adessium Foundation to support journalism? How does it fit into your broader strategy?

Adessium is a Dutch family foundation that works on various topics with the aim to foster positive societal change. We operate three programmes, one of which is dedicated to a well-functioning information ecosystem in the digital age.

We have been funding journalism for over 15 years, with a consistent focus on strengthening networks that produce high quality cross-border investigative journalism. Over time, we have developed our approach to ensure we meet the needs of the changing information ecosystem. We believe that quality information is key to informed decision making, whether that’s by politicians, policy makers, business leaders, or the general public.

In the early years, we mostly supported organisations that focused on accountability work. Over time, we have expanded the types of organisations we support to make sure that information that’s relevant for broader audiences is also produced. We don’t dictate what needs to be done but, provide general support to journalism organisations and aim to help strengthen them. In addition, we support press freedom and media defence work, and have taken a key interest in the impact of digitisation and technology on the information ecosystem.

In what forms do you support journalism? Do you work directly with news organisations or through intermediaries?

 Our Informed Society programme tries to cover different parts of the information ecosystem, but if we just zoom into those who produce journalistic content, we support nonprofits that engage in cross-border collaborative investigative journalism. We support those who directly coordinate the work and who often publish through their partners. Typical examples are Lighthouse Reports, Investigate Europe, and Correctiv Europe.

We also support intermediaries because we believe it is key that complementary funds exist for those whom we do not fund directly, but who are the partners of our grantees. The network of our network, so to say. We have funded Journalismfund.eu for many years and currently co-fund IJ4EU. Additionally, we are among the founding partners of Civitates, where we co-created the sub-fund that focuses on fostering public interest journalism at a national level within the EU.

What are your focus areas?

Geographically, we focus on the EU. We don’t restrict our funding to any specific themes, primarily because we believe that our partners should be those who identify which topics are most relevant to society and need to be investigated. It is to respect their editorial integrity, but also because we want to provide partners with space and flexibility to develop expertise or to expand their topical areas over time.

In addition to financial support, do you provide any other assistance?

Our main approach is to provide multi-annual core funding. In addition, we fund complementary activities such as strengthening infrastructure (e.g. tooling that benefits the broader field, support mechanisms for access to information, etc.).

Where it makes sense, we provide additional earmarked funding to our partners for specific organisational development priorities. This usually entails bringing in external expertise and support. We identify the challenges and needs together with grantees but make sure they remain in the driver’s seat and select and contract external support. This could be a consultant who helps with fundraising, for example, or building income generation capacity.

What is the most important lesson you have learned from supporting journalism?

 More and more, our partners struggle to distribute their content and findings effectively. With the proliferation of AI-based search and retrieval, the way people consume information is once again transforming. Content producers, including journalism groups, are losing control over how to reach broader audiences or retain direct relationships. In the long run, this undermines the viability of quality information providers.

But I’m also seeing more and more organisations adapting to this reality. Various groups are putting more focus on intentionally and effectively distributing information by, for example, hiring an impact producer, or trying to at least make that a skillset carried by someone within the team.

We see some of our grantees partnering up with different kinds of stakeholders to make sure that publications can reach those affected by the investigation topic, or those who can affect social change. It makes me hopeful to see these efforts succeed in reaching relevant and broader audiences and showcase why journalism in itself continues to be really relevant.

How do you assess the success of your programs? Is there a particular success story you can share?

 We assess the success of our partnerships by keeping an eye on the objectives that are set at the very beginning. We do this in three areas: the substantive work and impact of the organisation, organisational development objectives, and objectives around the way we work together.

What we really focus on in these partnerships is seeing how organisations become stronger so that their expertise can flourish. When I look at the journalism portfolio specifically, the primary success indicator is relevant quality information in the public interest being produced and making an impact.

We look for creative and effective ways of reaching different kinds of audiences. We don’t have any specific audiences that we aim to serve ourselves, it’s rather following our partners and understanding what has been done differently per investigation to make sure that it’s not the same people behind the same paywalls that are receiving all the information.

Another aspect we look at is the kind of role our grantees play within the information ecosystem: what they manage to contribute within their own network. Think of organisations that develop a new kind of methodology, or a tool that helps others investigate stories in a different way, or organisations that have discovered a new way of creating information. For example, Bellingcat really revolutionised how OSINT can be part of investigations. They have inspired not only other nonprofits, but even legacy media, to adapt their entire newsroom to include this way of collecting information and producing new content.

Another example of changing the information ecosystem is Forbidden Stories, which also influences the incentive of why a story is being investigated, making solidarity a key incentive to continue the investigation of a silenced journalist and hopefully deter future threats to journalists. We also have some grantees, such as The Examination, who are experimenting with how better collaborative models can be developed. This includes providing support to their investigative partners so that the collaboration works better for everyone.

To mention an example of success, I could share Lighthouse Reports’ work. About two years ago, they published an investigation with local journalists in the Netherlands on an algorithm which was used by the municipality in Rotterdam to flag potential fraudsters in welfare support. It turned out that this algorithm was actually targeting migrants, specifically single mothers. Because they managed to reveal this, in the end the municipality decided to stop using the algorithm. But what was also very interesting to follow in this example was that Lighthouse Reports did not only collaborate with local partners who then published behind paywalls, but also managed to distribute the information in a way that it reached the people who the investigation was about, the single mothers. I think this is a really striking example that shows how you can make sure that the information doesn’t only reach the same audience which can afford to consume news.

What were the biggest challenges that you have had to overcome or that you still struggle with?

 One that I think we will continue to struggle with is the unpredictability of the funding landscape. There are a couple of funders that are very stable and consistent with their strategies and provide multi-annual support. But what’s out there is not enough to allow our partner networks to really strategise and think about how they are going to become stronger and more futureproof.

The fact that the largest global funder, the US, has cut its global development support in many areas, including journalism, just brought this to a whole new level. There are so many organisations that are now either shutting down or going through their reserves. The entire ecosystem is quite vulnerable at the moment. It made very clear that there was an over-dependency on US public funding in Central and Eastern Europe. Even for organisations who had successfully diversified their funding streams, it turned out that some of the intermediaries they were relying on were also dependent on US funding. We saw organisations that went from having five funders to having none.

One of the biggest challenges we’re about to face due to these funding cuts is that national newsrooms are going to shut down in certain countries where no independent quality information is going to be produced anymore. Or it’s going to be small and competing with unintentional or intentional undermining factors, like disinformation and misinformation. The watchdog role of these outlets will be weakened, and quality information will be reaching less people, thus not informing decision-making. This is something that we are really going to feel in the future.

Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?

 It is crucial to have a healthy information ecosystem to support your line of work, regardless of what your foundation focuses on. If you are a foundation that works on broad topics, like democracy, the environment, or social change, the production of information is going to be crucial in the success of your strategy.

Within this whole information ecosystem, I don’t think we all have to do the same thing. What is important is that we complement each other. As one of our grantee partners recently said, a healthy democracy needs media plurality, but it is also crucial to have plurality in the strategies of funders. We should not all jump on the same thing. We need funders who focus on the local level, on the national level, the regional level, and the international level. We need funders who focus on cross-border investigative journalism, but we also need funders who focus on other forms of public interest journalism. We need funders who focus on supporting the ecosystem or the infrastructure that enables information production, funders who support conferences or training, who support FOI requests of journalists. Then we need funders who support press freedom more broadly, who ensure that there are emergency mechanisms that can support journalists being attacked for the impactful work they do.

So there is a lot to support in this space, and there are different ways of starting to experiment with this. If you make your first grant in journalism, you don’t have to have a full strategy right away. You can take your time in building that up.

We, as funders, need to be in conversation about how we are going to complement each other. I’m not inherently opposed to having thematic funding either, as long as it’s not extremely short term and not overly restricted. In places like the Journalism Funders Forum and other informal settings where funders inform each other and exchange ideas, there are plenty of lessons, but there’s also plenty of inspiration to discuss these questions.

Crystal Logan, Co-Executive Director of the Reva and David Logan Foundation, explains how funding journalism connects to their broader strategy and shares insights into why Europe is a key part of their portfolio. She stresses the value of risk-taking in funding, the interdependence of different forms of support, and the Foundation’s role in helping smaller organisations grow.

Why is it important for the Logan Foundation to support journalism? How does it fit into your broader philanthropic strategy?

 We believe that journalism is truly essential for the health and vitality of civic participation and debate. Consequently, we believe that it’s the surest protection of our freedom and democracy. Journalists can affect large-scale, lasting change, and that addresses the other areas that we fund: social justice and arts granting. In those areas, we grant to address the systemic issues that are plaguing our society, including inequity, indifference, suffering, and neglect. Journalism can bring light to some of those issues and hold those in power to account. All our granting is intersectional and interlinked, and journalism is essential to support the Foundation’s mission and protect those most vulnerable in our society.

As a Chicago-based foundation, why do you think it is important to support journalism in Europe?

 We support journalism in three main geographical locations: in the US, Europe, which includes the UK, and Latin America. We live in an age of globalisation. Issues, whether societal, environmental, or political, don’t stop at borders.

We consider Europe to be an important and critical region in the world that really needs to have a healthy journalism ecosystem. One of the things we’ve learned from funding in Europe is that there are many innovative ideas that stem from lots of cross-learning pollination. Some of the most seminal/creative innovations in journalism practice have come from Europe, and we consider Europe to be a key part of our journalism portfolio.

In what forms do you support journalism? Who is eligible for it?

 We support journalism in several different ways. We are able to support any organisation which is involved in the journalism ecosystem, those I would call journalism and those which are journalism- adjacent. That includes supporting traditional outlets, most of them being national investigative outlets such as Disclose and BIJ in London. We also support cross-border investigations, collaborations; so organisations such as Investigate Europe, who understand that the issues they report on need a regional lens. Symposia and training are core parts of our European strategy.  We fund the Logan Symposium, run by the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London, and others such as the Disruption Network Lab.

It is very important for us to make sure that we give journalists across the world not only the funds and the resources to be able to do journalism, but the training and tools that they need. And time to think, which sometimes is underrated.

We also support databases like Good Jobs First, a US organisation which has a Europe focus as well, and has interesting tools such as a violation tracker. Forbidden Stories, ACOS, and GIJN are also in the portfolio. It’s really a little bit of everything that could be associated with journalism.

What do you consider the most important element of your support? Is it possible to rank them at all?

I don’t think so. To be honest, they are all interdependent. In today’s world, we have to look at all the separate elements needed to create an effective journalism ecosystem, something that’s healthy and continues to produce excellent work. Journalists can’t produce their best work if they haven’t got the training and the skills to do it. They also have to look after themselves and make sure that they understand the security concerns; and they need the data as well. So it’s all interlinked. The core mission is to produce incredible journalism that creates meaningful change.

What is the most important lesson you have learned from supporting journalism?

For us as an organisation, one of the lessons we have learned is how many brave, talented journalists are out there, and that journalism that tells the truth and engages audiences does make a difference for freedom and democracy. To be honest, without truth, we have nothing, and we are in real trouble.

The most important lesson as a funder is that it’s okay to take risks and it’s important to be fearless. It’s good to go outside your comfort zone and identify and support people that others might not.

What were the biggest challenges you have had to face so far?

Honestly, the biggest challenge in Europe is learning the landscape, in both the funding world and the nonprofit world, being able to truly understand cultural differences, nuances, and languages, and keeping up to date, because things are changing so quickly.

We have a number of languages on the team, but it’s different to read in a language that you are not fully fluent in. That’s definitely been one of the biggest challenges and limitations that we’ve had. We also rely on organisations that now publish in English, and that helps us overcome some of those challenges and ask colleagues and others who can provide guidance as well.

How do you assess the success of your programmes? Is there a particular success story?

We have so many success stories, I don’t think it would be particularly fair to single out one organisation. This is our 60th year at the Foundation, so we’ve been doing this for a very long time. How do we assess success? I would say initially our process begins with lots of due diligence. We test things from a lot of different angles. We speak to a lot of people. We read, we listen. We like to tell people that we lurk in the shadows, and we have one saying: “you know it when you see it”.

I think that’s really the way that we assess the success of our programmes. But you know, it really differs from organisation to organisation. For others, success might mean a great investigation. But for us it’s a number of factors – one of the things we look for is whether an organisation is able to take the next step. We fund a lot of smaller organisations, and our focus is to be a catalyst. We don’t want to be a “sustainer” organisation, we are not big enough as a foundation to do that. So one of the things we want to do is to give smaller organisations a push and give them the support that they need to take it to the next level. If they are able to do that, that is a great success for us. If they are able to diversify their revenue streams and grow in the way they need to grow, then for us that’s true success.

There may be a reference to metrics, but that’s not something that we focus on. Each organisation is different, and we always ask them to define their own success. “If we give them X grant”, what would they consider to be a success with that funding? In doing that, it’s a conversation and partnership from the beginning.

We understand that success is relative, especially with everything that is happening in the world. We’ve had Covid and many things that have never happened before. Now the withdrawal of USAID funding and the rise of authoritarian regimes… So I think success today also means finding and cultivating organisations that are flexible and able to evolve. That is something that we definitely look for. We want grantees to be both proactive and reactive.

Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?

Think laterally. Journalism is an excellent means to help bring more public attention to some of the causes that you care deeply about. If you’re concerned or apprehensive as a prospective new funder, it’s important to reach out to others who are already funding journalism. There’s nothing that traditional journalism funders like more than speaking to potential new funders. Check out funding mechanisms and organisations in this space who provide a lot of support in Europe, including the Journalism Funders Forum, among others.

What I would always recommend to people: go to a journalism festival, a symposium, a conference, and get a better feeling of what it is about, what the impact is. Listen to journalists, what their challenges are, what they need to be better at, and what they are hoping to achieve. Go out and investigate what speaks to you and start by funding something that you feel comfortable with.

Penelope Winterhager, Managing Director of the European Fund for Journalism in Exile (JX Fund) explains how the Fund helps independent media outlets forced into exile quickly restart operations and reach audiences back home, and provides insights into how they support emergency needs, foster sustainability, and fill gaps in the funding landscape.

The JX Fund has a very special mission: supporting media in exile. Why was it important to launch such an initiative?

We were initiated in 2022 by two foundations, the Schöpflin Foundation and the Rudolf Augstein Foundation, who joined forces with Reporters Without Borders. What we had seen was that not only more and more journalists needed to leave their countries, but whole media outlets. Especially when the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine started, whole editorial teams had to leave the country due to repressive measures.

What was missing in the funding space was quick and unbureaucratic support to get back on their feet and reestablish in exile. We saw that if you don’t support them right after they go into exile, it’s getting more difficult to reconfigure, and we said, OK, we try to change that: Let’s create a pooled fund to help those media.

What you have to consider is that most outlets that go into exile don’t leave with a business plan, with what they want to do. If you were, for example, a TV station before, it’s not necessarily the same as what you do in exile. You need time to arrive personally, and you also need time professionally. The area medium faces fundamental questions like: What is our editorial offer? What channels do we serve? How do we keep in touch with sources and colleagues who are still in the country?

So, you have this first period of emergency support, and then if exile continues, the medium arrives at a second period in which they try to become more self-sustainable.

How do you define media in exile? Who is eligible for your support?

That’s an interesting question that we were asking ourselves as well. To define media these days is quite challenging. Is every YouTube channel a medium or not? And we had two more challenges. We support independent media in exile, so we created definitions for all three categories, which can change due to circumstances. In the beginning, when you just arrive in a country, there are different criteria than later on.

Being independent means you don’t have a connection to political parties, actors, or to a politically exposed person, and are not state funded. Those media would not be eligible.

To identify as media, you have to publish journalistic, non-fictional content on a regular basis – not, for example, a book once a year. The published content must cover current affairs and be socially relevant.

Finally, exile means to report for people who are still in the country, mostly with some colleagues and sources still there. But a significant part of the team is located outside.  We support media that still want to serve audiences in the country, not diaspora media. We are supporting media from countries where press freedom is suppressed, and media must leave to continue their work.

How do you support these organisations? Do you offer grants only, or do you also provide other forms of support?

We support on three levels. First, we continuously map all offerings that exist so as not to duplicate anything. We have a database and if somebody turns to us, we try to match them with these offerings. By collecting these existing opportunities, we also see gaps, not only financially but also structurally. Secondly, we give grants, and we try to do this with open calls, wherever possible, so as to not only give chances to selected organisations that we know.

And third, we saw a need for structural support. For example, we initiated a media incubator when the outlets first arrived in exile and had to reestablish themselves as an organisation, to support immediate challenges, such as what is the right legal entity, what channels, what technology to use, how to communicate safely, etc.

Over time, when the basic editorial structure is set up, new questions arise. We are about to start a programme on entrepreneurial skills for exiled media, on how to further build audiences, generate money, and thus become more self-sustainable when funding declines.

Do you focus more on emergency support or long-term sustainability?

It depends on the situation. Right after or during a crisis, we focus on the emergency. After 6-12 months, plans for medium- and longer-term need support. We do fund media in times of transition into exile – but not for 10 years. We aim to help in the emergency and medium term.

 You mentioned that the Fund has existed for three years. How many organisations have you supported so far?

 We have supported around 85 media outlets in exile by now, with around 132 grants. Additionally, we have implemented around 36 projects, like those incubators.

We always try to understand the media landscape of a country to best support single outlets. We have been supporting media from Russia, Belarus, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. I believe we have quite a good overview over those landscapes – something that was missing in the field. We continuously assess how many media outlets are in exile, what channels they use, what topics they serve, which audiences  they reach, what their budgets look like, and what funding they need. We publish the results in the form of studies or country profiles to provide a better understanding of the landscapes and potential funding gaps for the media but also for other funders and supporters.

What is the most important lesson you have learned?

 I think one of the most important lessons is that rebuilding media in exile is not a linear thing. It’s not that you go into exile, you start something and build on it with a fixed plan. There are new challenges constantly, and you need to be innovative and reconfigure your media. Channels can be closed because of repressive measures. Security needs to be rethought. Colleagues may be imprisoned back home. These are things that you cannot plan for. I think exiled media are often the most innovative because they reinvent themselves constantly.

Not new but ever prominent is the dependency on visas to continue reporting in exile. Often visas and residence permits are connected to your income. If for some reasons a medium loses its funding and has to terminate work contracts, then these colleagues also lose their right to stay in the country. It is a huge issue. At the same time, we see autocratic governments worldwide on the rise and more and more media under pressure to leave these countries to continue their work. But financial support for those media is not growing at the same pace. This is one of the biggest challenges.

What other significant challenges have you had to face so far?

 An organisation like ours needs to be extremely flexible. We continuously assess the needs of the community, assess what everybody else in the field is doing, and quickly fill the gaps with tailor-made programmes.

Challenges can come from autocratic governments, such as new legislation that criminalises consuming reporting or blocks access to the content of the medium in the country. But it can also come from the funders themselves, such as the funding freeze of USAID, or from big tech who take apps from the app store or deprioritise content. You need to find the right way forward in a constantly changing environment.

Is there a particular success story you can share? In general, how do you assess the success of the programme?

Success can be measured on different levels. For me, it means diversity and impact. There are 64 media outlets in exile from Russia. They cover different regions, different channels, different topics. We helped to keep this diversity of voices alive. This is the only way to ensure that there is an informed audience or civil society.

We know that these media still reach a substantial audience back home. Due to the use of VPNs, this is not an easy task to measure. But there are ways, and we can say, sticking to Russian media in exile, that they still reach between six to nine percent of the Russian speaking adult population. I think this is a great success. Especially if you take into account that about 48 times as much money is being spent on propaganda and censorship in Russia than on exiled media.

Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so? Do you have any specific advice about supporting media in exile?

Always look at the media landscape. Don’t just look at the prominent media, or the famous outlets. There are many important regional media, or those focusing on certain topics. Look into these, because in times of news fatigue and rising repressions, they are often more capable of reaching audiences and being relevant than the larger ones. Always look at the whole set of voices that continue their work in exile.

A second hint would be: look at the innovations of those media in exile. I think we can learn a lot from them as they are some of the most innovative in the field: how to circumvent censorship, how to deal with platforms that don’t always treat content evenly, and how to reach audiences with news fatigue. We should see them as partners, learn from them, and interact with them.

Maribel Königer, Director of Journalism and Media at ERSTE Foundation, highlights the importance of supporting independent journalism to protect democracies in Europe. From fellowships to pooled funds, the Foundation’s evolving approach aims to strengthen media resilience, for which it is essential to develop sustainable business models.

Why is it important for the ERSTE Foundation to support journalism? How does it fit into your broader mission?

The Journalism and Media programme is embedded in our Europe and Democracy programme. We define the problem here: liberal democracy is under threat. Europe’s democracies remain fragile and unprepared to withstand internal and external socio-economic, technological, and geopolitical disruptions. One of our answers to this problem is that we want to support high-quality independent media and journalism in CEE. We have been doing this since the very beginning, only a bit differently; now we do it with a wider focus.

Together with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (and the Robert Bosch Stiftung, who left some years later), we started the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence. At that time, in 2007, we were focused on the Balkans because we thought that countries in Central Europe who just became members of the European Union – Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, et cetera – were good, so we should focus on South Eastern Europe, on countries which are not yet there. As a fellowship it was meant as an investment in people, in investigative journalists, and for many years this was our only project in the field of journalism.

Then in 2018, we were shocked about what happened in our surroundings. Jan Kuciak and his fiancé were killed. Hungary and Poland changed their laws and their attitudes towards independent media. Also in the Czech Republic, politics became hostile towards independent media. Suddenly we became aware that focusing on the Balkans to support independent journalists and good journalism in CEE is not enough.

First, we enlarged the scope of the fellowship to the – back then – so-called Visegrad countries. Then we saw a decline in the media scene: the well-trained journalists that came out of this fellowship had no platforms anymore on which to publish. A lot of media were gone. What could we do now, if they cannot tell their stories to their audience anymore? The geographically enlarged fellowship was embedded in a platform called “Reporting Democracy” where articles could also be published.

It was clear from the very beginning that we don’t want to invest directly in media. Actually, we cannot. As an Austrian savings bank foundation, the core shareholder of Austria’s biggest bank, Erste Group, we are only allowed by our statutes to invest in nonprofits. There are a lot of nonprofit media around, but we also saw a risk of conflicts of interest in both directions, as well as reputation risks. Then we discovered the wonderful tool of pooled funds.

What are the advantages of these pooled funds?

We very much like the idea of joining forces. The leverage is bigger. If you put money in a pile, you can support media with higher amounts, or longer, or more of them, and have more impact. Also, you can delegate the delicate task of selecting the media you support. You have a qualified jury to do that. It’s much more efficient if several foundations join into a fund.

Civitates was the beginning. Its sub-fund for public interest media has a focus on Southern and Eastern Europe. That is important for us because we have a strict geographic focus on Central and Eastern Europe. Our revenues are the dividends of our share in Erste Group, one of the biggest financial service providers in Austria and Eastern European countries.

In 2021, we were approached by the Media Development Investment Fund. They presented us with the idea of Pluralis. An impact investment fund was something new for us. Pluralis guarantees editorial independence for legacy media by investing in publishing houses in Eastern Europe; a smart concept. By now, Pluralis has a portfolio of three important media in Poland, Slovakia and Croatia and it plans to grow further.

Finally, we became one of the initiators of the Media Forward Fund, focusing on Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.

So, your journey as a funder of journalism started in the Balkans and ended in Austria?

Indeed! If you had told us 18 years ago, when we started the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence, that we would one day be supporting innovation in Austrian media, we would have laughed in disbelief. But the media ecosystem in Austria is in danger, like in many other countries. The market is in an extremely precarious situation, public interest media struggle to survive although (some even say: because) there is a lot of public funding.

The Media Forward Fund supports – with much money for a short and limited period – media organisations that apply with a convincing business idea. Good journalism is the precondition, but it’s not what is funded. You should apply with a smart idea to scale up your business or to secure more stable resources.

How would you explain this substantial growth in the Foundation’s engagement for journalism?

ERSTE Foundation reacted in a timely manner to what was happening to the media scene and in journalism. We all see the threats everywhere: Autocratic regimes attacking independent media, media capture, disinformation campaigns, decreasing societal trust, and increasing technological and economic disruptions put public interest media and critical journalism in CEE at high risk.

After the quasi organic growth of the portfolio, we now have a clear strategy. The foundation worked on its overall strategy and one of our goals for the next few years is a healthy media ecosystem in CEE that upholds democratic values, combats misinformation, and empowers communities with reliable information. We therefore invest in and support sustainable and independent free media and fact-based critical journalism. This is how a single project topic developed into a consistent programme portfolio. The consequence was that I changed my position. As of July 2025, I am the Director of Journalism and Media. After 18 years as Director of Communications with the journalism projects as my second task, I switched focus.  

In what other ways do you support journalism?

 In Vienna, together with Presseclub Concordia and the Forum für Journalismus und Medien (fjum), we organise in-person and hybrid press briefings with researchers and experts from our other programmes. Journalists get firsthand information on the political, economic or societal situation in other countries, often just before elections in a given country.

Through the funds we support, we also offer capacity building. The Media Forward Fund, for example, is not only funding the development of business ideas in media but is also coaching to develop business skills.

What is the most important lesson you have learned from these programmes?

I have two lessons in mind. Firstly: Most journalists are passionate about and very good at their job, but many of them have no idea about the business side of media. New media outlets with a great mission will die very quickly when no one looks at target groups, funnels, revenue plans, and the like. Even proper accounting or having a business plan is not a given. This lack of basic business skills or appropriate competent personnel in young media is so obvious that, today, many foundations or intermediaries offer tools known from the start-up world: media accelerators and incubators. Media viability became also a very important topic in conferences.

This brings me to the second lesson: Why is it so important to build a sustainable business model? Because relying on a single resource – be it a donor, be it public funds of your community, be it, well, USAID – can have fatal consequences. In January it became clear that a full focus on a single source, as generous as it might have been in the past, causes real problems. Sustainable business models (meaning also diversification of revenue streams) are crucial for media viability but also for media pluralism.

What were the biggest challenges you have had to face so far?

One big challenge is to explain to people why the media are in such a problematic situation at all. Just 10 or 15 years ago, people founded newspapers to make money, and not to be funded. Today, classical public interest media have lost their business model. But there are still big, powerful media groups, for some it is still big business. So explaining why some media need funding is a challenge.

Fortunately, we haven’t had challenges such as smear campaigns yet. But everyone knows that independent media and their funders are under constant threat of authoritarian attacks. It has become a risky business to be a foundation supporting what should be the most natural thing in the world in a liberal democracy: free media.

How do you assess the success of your programmes? Is there a particular success story related to supporting journalism?

Usually, our projects include process assessment and impact measurement. The Media Forward Fund, for example, is constantly assessing its brand new processes and results. It just started one year ago, and one term is two years. If the grants have had a real impact on the businesses of the grantees, we will soon see, with the first cohort ending the programme in one year. The application process was also assessed and some selection criteria have been changed in the second round. For example, we wanted the business part and editorial part to be clearly separated. That works for the New York Times, sure, but if you are a three-person, brand new, young organisation, then it is not possible. So we changed this criterion. Now you must agree that these entities will be separated once the medium has grown…

These seem banal things, but it is important to realise when something does not work and change it. The real success will be, in two years, to have businesses that double their subscription base, or make money on theatre stages with their concept, whatever they applied with.

Whether our funding has societal impact is, of course, very difficult to measure. I would take Pluralis as an example which pooled philanthropic investment in media matters. Gremi Media, the publisher of Rzeczpospolita in Poland, is part of Pluralis’ portfolio. Having kept one of the biggest Polish newspapers as a free, independent one is very important. It is a centre-conservative paper with fact-based reporting. This also shows that our goal is not to support a certain agenda. It is about the quality of journalism and media pluralism. In Slovakia, Petit Press, publishing the daily SME, has in Pluralis an owner that is backing the editors in a very hostile public environment.

Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded or supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?

 First of all, I would ask them to imagine that there is no more media where they can talk about their main topics, be it climate, culture, environment, equality, or whatever. People would get their information only from social media, from influencers, from AI bots. If you think that this might be a really bad situation, then start supporting media and journalism.

My advice for newbies would be to start with a pooled fund. You don’t have to fund media directly, trust in experts. My other advice is that, if you are unsure what kind of pooled fund you should turn to, then come to the Journalism Funders Forum. This is a peer group of foundations which are happy to give anyone advice about the risks, realistic goals, about what you can gain, et cetera, by funding journalism. Or look for foundations that already support journalism, everybody is happy to share their knowledge. The main thing is: do it.

Adrian Arena, Director of the International Human Rights Programme at the Oak Foundation, highlights the importance of a healthy information sphere by supporting independent journalism to hold power to account and ensure citizens have access to accurate information. He emphasises the value of local expertise while sharing insights into how the Foundation supports journalism, reflecting its commitment to strengthening democracy and human rights.

What is Oak Foundation’s approach to supporting journalism?

At a meta level, the human rights movement seeks to unlock truth and inspire justice – in brief, to hold power to account. Independent and investigative journalism is critical to that task. As a human rights programme, one of our priorities is also to ensure a healthy information sphere. This demands that citizens have access to reliable, accurate information.

Professional, rigorous, courageous journalism is foundational to democracy.

The foundation is a founding member of Civitates. Why do you think it was important to be part of the consortium?

Our early membership of Civitates was a strong expression of solidarity with civil society and independent media. Both are critical partners in the defence of democracy.

As a pan-European mechanism, Civitates permits us to access partners in national contexts where we have no footprint or expertise. It provides an assurance in terms of rigour and strategy.

What do you think of the advantages of similar pooled funds? Are you a member of any other?

 Yes, we are a member of the EU Artificial Intelligence Fund, EPIM (addressing migration in the EU), and various pooled funds in the United States.

We are a small team. Pooled funds give us an opportunity to expand our footprint, but without increasing headcount. Perhaps more importantly, they provide an excellent opportunity for peer learning and strategizing.

In what other ways does the foundation support public interest reporting?

Aside from participation in Civitates, we make bilateral grants to various news outlets and investigative journalists in our priority regions.  We generally provide core support and trust the outlets to pursue their journalistic mission with professionalism and integrity. Some organisations maintain specific newsrooms on certain issues. Lighthouse Reports, for example, does this with respect to migration, which is an important programmatic focus for us. We support Lighthouse for this specific work.

But our engagement with the sector goes beyond the journalistic product. Journalists are under frequent attack in the discharge of their duties. We support organisations that assist journalists at risk, including defending them from SLAPPs (Reporters Shield) or organisations which provide emergency assistance and services.

Do you have open calls for these grants, or do you invite organisations to apply?

As a program we do not have open calls, but maintain an open mailbox where anyone can lodge an inquiry. In some of the more restrictive environments in which we work, an open call would not work. In those contexts, trust is paramount, and we work hard to understand the local partner community. We invest in relationships.

I know that Civitates has, however, routinely pursued open calls. This can be useful to surface promising initiatives in new or unfamiliar contexts.

What is the most important lesson you have learned from these programmes?

One key lesson – and it is very simple – is to take the necessary time to understand the national context. Alternatively, work through an intermediary (like Civitates) that knows it already. Local understanding is critical.

What were the biggest challenges you have had to face so far?

 A clear but not always obvious challenge is to properly assess the quality of the journalism produced. You need to have someone who reads content in the local language and can speak to its tone and quality. We have also had to calibrate our expectations around audience and sustainability. These expectations must be appropriate to the national context.

How do you assess the success of your programmes? Is there a particular success story related to supporting journalism?

As I mentioned previously, one of our overarching goals is to hold power to account. Independent media partners have done exactly that. Their list of accomplishments is long. Partners have exposed malfeasance, corruption, and abuse which, in turn, have led to prosecutions, sanctions, fines, and regulatory change. There is a clear path of success.

Do you have any special advice for organisations that have not funded/supported journalism yet, but are thinking about doing so?

 I would say three things.

Firstly, independent media is important to amplify the voice of civil society. Whatever issue you are funding, whether it be education, health, or science, it is critical that your partners’ voices are heard. Independent media can play an important role in amplifying those voices, which, for whatever reason, may be excluded or marginalised from the mainstream press.

Secondly, there may be some barriers to entry. But these are no more significant than in other areas of work. Like in all areas, it is essential to do one’s homework and to understand the local context. Or work with a trusted partner who does.

Lastly, core support is essential to ensure independent media pursues its work fearlessly and without undue restriction.

The results can be very rewarding. 

Veronika Munk, Director of Innovation and New Markets at Denník N, shares insights into the outlet’s recent, highly successful campaign.

In just two weeks, we gained 24,000 new subscribers, bringing our total to more than 90,000. Even writing that number feels overwhelming. These people chose quality journalism in a world that is turning upside down – where audiences are tuning out of news, major platforms dominate and distort media markets, and anti-democratic governments are advancing, often treating independent media with hostility, even paralysing it in some regions.

Denník N is one of the market leading Slovak independent news outlets, reaching 1-1,5 million readers every month, operating with a 130 strong staff, being the largest newsroom in Slovakia. We focus primarily on in-depth, investigative, explanatory journalism in text, audio, and video, and fast short news service. We also publish a print daily, monthly educational magazines, and books.

“We are 10 years old, looking to the future, and searching for another 10,000 people who care about it.”

That was our message for our 10th birthday – and it worked.

Our 10-years anniversary campaign

We launched this campaign to celebrate Denník N’s 10th anniversary with the goal of bringing in 10,000 new subscribers. To mark the occasion, we let them bypass the fixed subscription fee and instead choose their own contribution for a 10-week trial period – however much they felt was fair for reading, watching, and listening to Denník N.

But our value proposition was more than just, “Come, get it cheaper.”

We invited our 70,000 existing subscribers to help strengthen the country and its fragile democratic system. Our request? Convince at least one friend to try Denník N for 10 weeks, and in return, we pledged to fulfil 10 key promises – each designed to make Slovakia, and European democracy at large, a better place.

Our 10 promises to Slovakia

If we reached 10,000 new subscribers, we committed to:

1. Unlocking all content published in Denník N’s first 10 years.
2. Giving a free subscription to all future first-time voters.
3. Producing significantly more free, short videos on social media.
4. Sending free print editions to all senior homes and senior clubs.
5. Conducting 100 interviews with people who haven’t given up on Slovakia.
6. Publishing special print editions dedicated to at least five Slovak regions.
7. Offering our video content for free to TV broadcasters.
8. Organising lectures on the dangers of social media for 10,000 students.
9. Launching a training programme for young journalists.
10. Dedicating 10 million ad impressions to organisations that improve Slovakia.

What we learned: 5 key takeaways for the industry

1. People will invest in a better future if you ask them directly.

Audiences care about their own future and believe in free media – but they need to be invited to take part in its operation. When framed as a collective effort, people respond.

2. Your existing audience is your valuable recruiter.

We successfully mobilised our current subscribers (and even newsroom members) to recruit new subscribers – a method proven effective by Zetland (Denmark) and Direkt36 (Hungary). We took it further with gamification: on our site, every participant could track in real-time how many subscribers had joined thanks to their recommendation. Our most successful subscriber-influencer brought us 372 new subscribers – for free.

3. People will pay for a good cause and high-quality service – especially when combined.

We told readers they could pay any amount for their 10-week subscription. Only 22% chose the free option, proving that people are willing to contribute if they believe in the mission and see value in the product.

4. The right promises make all the difference.

We spent months crafting the right commitments – pledging initiatives that served a clear public interest (such as supporting first-time voters or fact-based journalism), and also that added value to our core mission of delivering high-quality content.

5. Social media can work – when used strategically.

Slovak influencers helped amplify our campaign on Instagram and Facebook. We also used ManyChat, a chatbot and marketing automation platform, to create direct, personalised connections with users who showed interest in subscribing.

The next challenge: Retention

I could say that after thorough strategic planning, we expected exactly 24,000 new subscribers, but that wouldn’t be true. We had a plan, yes, but the plan was to reach 10,000 entirely new subscribers in ten weeks – and if we didn’t, we would shut down the campaign after six weeks. In the end, we hit the 10,000 mark in just four days, and after two weeks, we had 24,366 new subscribers. Only 22% of them chose to pay nothing for the 10-week subscription.

The trial period ends in April, and churn is inevitable – industry benchmarks suggest we might lose around 70% of our new subscribers.

Our main task now is convincing them to stay. And our most powerful tool? Quality journalism – the ultimate marketing asset. Moreover, thanks to their registrations, we are able to remain in contact with tens of thousands of new readers, giving us a direct line to continue proving our value. If we manage to retain one third of them in the long term, it will still be the most successful thing we have ever done, and successful by reader revenue business standards in Central-Eastern Europe.

I believe this campaign wasn’t just about subscriber growth – it was a statement. It proved that people still value quality journalism, that they’re willing to pay for it, and that strong reader communities can be mobilised to protect independent media.

The challenge for all of us in the industry is clear: we must continue proving that journalism is worth supporting by making it indispensable, by making it participatory, and by making it a cause people want to invest in.