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.

Martin Kotynek, Founding Director of the Media Forward Fund, stresses the need for sustainable business models in journalism to strengthen democracy, shares insights to their funding model focusing on user-centric independent media in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and highlights the growing role of pooled funds.

Why is it important for the Media Forward Fund to support journalism?

 We want to contribute to more quality journalism with strong business models. Right now, there is a big transformation crisis happening in the media, and we want to support the development of new business models that make journalism more sustainable in the long term. Through that, we want to strengthen democracies in our societies, which are also right now in a crisis.

Which outlets are eligible for funding, what are your criteria?

We have 24 selection criteria in five pillars. Number one is “transformation”: We fund media organisations that serve the common good and can both sustainably strengthen media’s role in society and create transformative benefits for the media sector. Other news organisations can learn from the experience of our grantees, to help the whole industry.

The second pillar is “user focus.” News products, which sound like a fantastic idea to the journalists who make it, but don’t really serve the needs of users, often fail. We want to make sure that there is a real user need, and that the information is trustworthy to the audience – also a necessity for commercial success.

We have “diversity” as our third pillar because there are underserved communities which have been widely neglected by journalism so far. We especially want to support media organisations that report for these communities. At best, these target groups are represented in the staff of the organisations.

Then we have “independence” as our fourth pillar. We do not see philanthropy as a business model for journalism. Media organisations need to be commercially independent from a single source of revenue to guarantee editorial independence. They will also be independent of us, we will never interfere in reporting.

And there is the fifth pillar, journalistic quality. We fund media organisations that base their work on recognised journalistic standards. At the heart of quality journalism are principles such as truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, transparency, and independence. This is why we look at the organisation’s commitment to the principles of the press codex in its country of registration, the existence of established editorial standards, and institutionalised mechanisms to monitor compliance with those standards.

And there are geographical criteria, you have to have your headquarters in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, and the majority of your revenues have to come from these three countries as well.

What do you think about the advantages of similar pooled funds?

 Pooled funds for journalism are becoming a global movement. There are MDIF’s Pluralis, IFPIM, and Civitates, with Press Forward in the US being the largest. More “cousins” of Press Forward are in the making right now; after Media Forward Fund began in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, there are now similar initiatives in the UK, Canada, Brazil, and Australia. 

These philanthropic collaborations have many advantages. If several donors with a shared vision combine their funding, they have greater leverage to make change. Secondly, a pooled fund minimises the reputational risk for a funder. If you fund one single media organisation and it makes an error in reporting, or there is a mission drift, it might backfire to you. In a pooled fund it’s the fund’s responsibility; there’s a buffer. This is one of the reasons why we have a firewall between the funders and our independent jurors, who make all the funding decisions.

How do you provide support? Do you provide core or thematic funding? Do you also support outlets with training?

Smaller non-profit news organisations with up to 30 full time equivalent employees can get core funding. Everyone else – both for-profits and non-profits – can get project funding if there is at least a proof-of-concept and if the product or market fit can be shown. We want to see revenues first. We fund in the growth phase, because we have realised that there are several options for funding in the initial idea phase, but then there is a kind of “valley of death.” We want to bridge the idea phase and the phase when the media organisation is ready for an impact investment. Between these two phases, there is almost no money in the media market.

We support our grantees to grow their business model to show that it is sustainable. We bring in impact investors like Karma Capital Group, which is also a donor to Media Forward Fund. They get to know the grantees from the beginning, they see how they develop, how the teams work, and then it is much easier to make investment decisions for both sides. Journalists need to know that a potential investor doesn’t want to interfere in their reporting.

Our grantees also have access to our capacity building programme. They can get coaching, which is very individual, and they can take part in “deep dives” where we bring media organisations from all three countries together to share their experiences, work on their specific problems as a group, and learn from each other.

What is the most important lesson you have learned since the launch of the Fund?

 We learned that there is a lack of skill in media management, especially on the business side. We got 136 applications from the three countries in our first call, and we saw that there is really a need for upskilling in public value news organisations, especially on business issues. We want to contribute to that.

We are only half a year old, but up to this point, we thought that our capacity building and upskilling programme would be available only for our grantees.  But after we went through the applications, we realised that we have to play a role in upskilling potential grantees, too. So, we are going to extend our invitation to take part in our upskilling programme and in our “deep dives” to everyone who is potentially fundable.

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

We started with 4.5 million Euros, and half a year later we are at nine, but fundraising for journalism is quite complicated. Up until a few years ago, media was very profitable in general, and at least in our region, there was no need to make a philanthropic contribution to media organisations. But now, as the old print models are really under pressure, the transformation crisis in the media has accelerated. So we learned that first we need to explain what is going on in the media market right now, and how this affects our democracy, in order to bring additional donors into the fund. We have 18 partners so far; many of them haven’t funded journalism before.

What was the biggest success story?

To quote Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, President and CEO of Knight Foundation, which is a funder of Media Forward Fund: “Foundations need to act at the speed of news.” We have been trying to do this from the very beginning. A year ago, there were five foundations which initially came together, now we are 18. It took us only half a year from the initial idea to the launch of the Fund and of our first call, and only one year to welcome our first grantees. Philanthropy can act “at the speed of news,” if foundations collaborate with a shared vision.

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

“Whatever your first funding topic is: Journalism should be your second” – that’s one of my favourite quotes from John Palfrey, President of John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which is an initiator of Media Forward Fund. Whatever you want to change in the world, you need journalism to explain it to the public, to criticise it if things go wrong, and to make sure there’s a common understanding of the facts, so that we can make informed decisions as a society.

Marit Fagnastøl, Head of Communications at Sparebankstiftelsen DNB explains how in an era of rampant misinformation, Norway’s Amediastiftelsen showcases how foundation-owned media can safeguard independent journalism. By fostering editorial freedom, supporting local newspapers, and addressing challenges like engaging younger audiences, it offers a model for strengthening democracy through philanthropy.

In early 2024, Sparebankstiftelsen DNB (the Savings Bank Foundation DNB) allocated NOK 388.5 million to the Amedia Foundation to develop it as an independent, non-profit foundation that will support projects of significance for journalism, democracy and freedom of expression.

This significant grant builds on a decision made in 2016, when Sparebankstiftelsen DNB purchased Amedia, Norway’s largest local newspaper publisher, and established the Amediastiftelsen (the Amedia Foundation) as the owner of the group.

This somewhat unusual move by a non-profit foundation brings attention to the role of foundations in supporting editor-led media.

Why support local newspapers? 

When Sparebankstiftelsen DNB purchased Amedia in 2016, the goal was to secure long-term, stable ownership for local newspapers that are vital to communities across Norway. Local newspapers play a critical role in keeping residents informed, supporting local culture, and fostering public debate.

For Sparebankstiftelsen DNB, these goals aligned well with their mission of strengthening local communities, especially initiatives supporting children and young people. 

Local newspapers do more than report the news – they help shape the identity and cohesion of communities. By covering a broad range of local issues, they provide residents with a shared understanding of what’s happening in their area. This helps prevent siloed thinking and builds connections across different groups within a community. 

As André Støylen, former CEO of Sparebankstiftelsen DNB, noted at the time of the Amedia purchase: “Local newspapers are essential to their communities, to democracy, culture, and organisational life. The goal of this acquisition is to help newspapers continue to develop for the benefit of their local environments.” 

The decision to establish a foundation as the owner of Amedia, would enable the media group to operate with a long-term perspective, ensuring independence and editorial freedom.

It was, nevertheless, an unexpected move and a surprise that a non-profit foundation would acquire a media company.

Independent media in the age of misinformation 

Editor-led journalism plays an essential role in countering misinformation. Research by The Norwegian Media Authority (Medietilsynet) in late 2023 found that 69% of respondents had encountered news stories online they suspected were false within the past six months. The majority of this content was found on social media. 

In contrast, 51% of Norwegians view editor-led media to be credible and reliable sources of information, compared to only 8% for social media platforms. These findings highlight the importance of supporting journalism that adheres to clear editorial standards and accountability mechanisms. 

In a time when misinformation can spread rapidly, editor-led media offer an essential counterbalance. By providing verified information, they help maintain public trust and enable citizens to make informed decisions as well as being an arena for the exchange of opinions.

Defining Amediastiftelsen’s priorities 

With the recent funding from Sparebankstiftelsen DNB, the board of the Amedia Foundation has during the year defined its priorities. These include: 

• Projects that promote the use of editorial media and reach new groups of media users. A key focus is to reach younger generations, who often use other sources for their news consumption.
• Support industry-wide initiatives and measures that promote knowledge-sharing and collaboration between editorial offices.
• Enhance competence in editorial offices and develop tools and knowledge that will strengthen journalism across the sector.

The first grant made by the foundation is an example of the latter and it went to the Center for Investigative Journalism (SUJO) to develop a “Democracy Database.” This searchable archive of political documents from municipalities and county councils will be accessible to journalists and the public, enabling greater transparency and accountability. 

Challenges in reaching younger audiences 

A significant challenge for the media industry is engaging young readers. While 78% of Norwegians read at least one newspaper daily, according to a recent Kantar survey, younger people are less likely to access traditional news sources. 

Amediastiftelsen aims to address this by supporting projects that explore methods to reach young audiences. For instance, creating content by and for young people or make editorial content more accessible to young audiences.

This work is especially important given findings from a 2024 survey by the Norwegian Media Authority, which showed that 66% of 13 to 18-year-olds had come across news stories they suspected were false or inaccurate in the past six months. Teaching media literacy and making reliable news accessible to this group are critical steps in building trust and awareness. 

The significance of foundation-owned media

The Amediastiftelsen model offers insights into how foundations can play a role in strengthening the media sector. By investing in journalism, they contribute to a more informed and resilient society. 

Editor-led media remain a cornerstone of democratic societies, and their future should matter to all who value informed and engaged communities. 

As the foundation continues its work, it will undoubtedly provide valuable lessons for others interested in the intersection of philanthropy and journalism.

Facts about Amediastiftelsen

• Sparebankstiftelsen DNB purchased the media group Amedia in 2016 and established Amediastiftelsen (the Amedia Foundation) to own the group
• The foundation supports media organisations, industry organisations and educational/research institutions, within and outside Norway
• Approximately NOK 30 million will be allocated in 2025
• André Støylen, the former CEO of Sparebankstiftelsen DNB, is now the general manager of the Amediastiftelsen

Václav Muchna, Co-Founder and CEO of Y Soft, and Board Member of the Czech Endowment Fund for Independent Journalism, highlights the importance of supporting democracy through independent journalism, shares insights into the Fund’s operation, and emphasises the need for transparency among donors while cautioning against grant dependency.

What was the main reason behind creating the Endowment Fund for Independent Journalism?

Václav: It was started by a group of philanthropists who shared a view that our country, the Czech Republic, requires strong democracy for our businesses to thrive. And we have seen in surrounding countries, especially in the post-Soviet bloc, that democracy is under attack by various groups of people, and we just thought we have to take care of our democracy. That democracy is not a given, we have to nurture it. We have launched a number of initiatives to support democracy in our country, and one of them was around protecting independent journalism as a watchdog, which we consider to be a critical ingredient for any democracy.

Another reason was what we called the “oligarchisation” of media. That was more than 10 years ago, when Western owners of Czech media started to pull back from their investments as new challenges arose: the rise of social networks and the way we consume information. Because the market is small, it was easier for them to pull back; and then very rich businesspeople who made their fortunes through privatisation, i.e. business typically connected with the state, captured these media so that they could impact and alter public meaning in areas important to them. Our democracy was challenged, missing independent and balanced information sources.

One of the co-founders had this statement: that without independent media, we do not know who we depend on. And thus, the fund has been created.

Is it open for new players to join?

Yes, absolutely. It is open. I have been with the fund for over 10 years or so. I am not a co-founder, but I’ve been here from a very early time. I serve on the Board of Directors currently, I am also one of the major donors, and I’m representing the donors on the board. It has always been open, and we have had a lot of new members recently. But we have also had a transition. In the past we did not require consent to transparently publish larger donors. This has changed. And of course there is an approval process, as we want to protect the fund from getting money from questionable sources. We only want to accept what we would consider really clean money. So it is not for absolutely everyone, but it is open.

How do you provide support to journalists and news organisations? Who is eligible for support?

We have five key areas of focus. The first one is, how do we limit the impact of media that are not trustworthy? Connected to that is, how do we improve education around how to consume media and news? That is one area. The next one we are focusing on is to keep investigative journalism on “life support,” because we see the trend that it is very expensive, and without external money it is almost not able to survive. We are also focusing on how we can help journalists to improve the quality of journalism in general. The fourth area is the regional media. We consider it one of the newest additions. Last, but not least, how to provide sustainable funding for independent media.

We work differently in these five different areas. So, for example, in the first one, how do we decrease or lower the impact of not so trustworthy media? We have products that map our media market, and we qualify media based on objective parameters, for example, whether they show who the owner is, do they mark their articles properly, do they mark advertorial articles properly, do they link sources, and so on. Based on that, we rate them, we publish that rating, and some other organisations take our rating, and for example, limit access for advertisements in the lowest graded media.

In investigative journalism, it is about subsidies or grants. They apply twice a year. In the quality of journalism field, we run a number of things, for example a journalist forum where we try to link journalists together so that they can exchange experiences. We also have some grants for solutions journalism, analytical and data journalism, and geopolitical threats. So we have three sub-areas here. We also have grants for young journalists who are starting up, or for women, because they have a much more difficult situation. We see that not many women return to journalism after maternity leave and we hope to address this.

In the sustainability field, we co-funded an organisation that collectively represents a number of small media, and they are selling their advertisement space. If they go ahead and sell individually, there is a challenge: for a significant player like a big company, the small media do not have enough impressions, so you would need to combine the campaign with other sources. Companies are not going to do that. So that is why there is this initiative, Courage Media. It is an agency that is also relatively new, and it sells advertising space for smaller media, because this would be considered sustainable, right? We do not want to develop dependency. I, for example, have very ambivalent feelings on grants, because on one hand you support them, on the other, you make them completely dependent on one organisation, and that is not very sustainable.

But we are looking into grants that are for sustainable development. These are not for content, like the previous grants I talked about. For example, an outlet wants to research its readership, or wants to improve its billing engine, something like that. Maybe it is self-sufficient but does not have resources to bring itself to the next level. That is where we would support them. We consider it sustainable. I always say, either you give them fish, or you teach them fishing.

So, do you support projects, and don’t provide core funding?

Correct. We are looking into investigative journalism, and there, we are looking into providing some core funding as well. But that would be an exception.

What is the most important lesson you have learned since creating the Fund?

From my standpoint, as a businessperson, not a media expert, it was about how we balance different actors and learn that journalism is not “one journalism.” There are publishers and there are journalists, and they are a completely different set of stakeholders with completely different agendas. Then you have media owners, you have their clients, and then you can even have some activist groups, you have governments and regulatory frameworks. So you have different stakeholders with different agendas and interests, and we have to understand the complexity of it.

In some areas we are supporting the journalists, in others the publishers. If you build your editorial system, that’s publisher support, if you give a grant to a specific journalistic project, that is supporting a journalist. How do you balance that? What are the needs across the industry? This would be the number one lesson for me.

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

The biggest challenge is that the Czech media market is super fragmented. We have a lot of small media outlets, and they have, from my point of view, a lot of emotions from the past, which prevents them from cooperating. And it is a small country, so the media market is small anyway. If you take a small market and you fragment that economically, it is just a disaster. You see that from a business standpoint, but that is not the way the journalists would feel about it, and they have their reasons. But this results in lower sustainability and impact, because if you are a small media house with a readership of ten thousand or twenty thousand, then your impact is very limited. Funding any grants for investigative projects or solutions journalism is also very questionable, because the effectiveness of your investment is very limited. We are incentivising them to reunite and build some bigger impact outlets, but it is a real challenge.

What do you consider your biggest success story?

Once again this will be my personal perspective, but it is building civic society. It is not related directly to journalism, but we have successes there. The Endowment Fund and some other activities help us build a community of donors, which today consists of more than thirty people. We are also looking into how we can go beyond these rich persons, and how we can actually build a community of people who really care about democracy and who are willing to fund it.

The reason why I consider this the biggest success story is because, if I look at surrounding countries in Eastern Europe, I can’t see a single country with such a strong civic society, and vehicles such as the Endowment Fund actually help build that community. Whenever you have any pressure on democracy, and we face them incrementally more and more, active civic society will be ever more important.

Then you obviously have all the support we’ve built into it. We helped to create some media, and we helped to sustain some other media, that’s all great. But number one would be building an active civic society, building a group of people who understand that they need to take care of democracy, and it will cost money and time.

You mentioned that you helped create media, do you also invest in organisations?

No, we don’t invest directly. If there is an opportunity, we would broker investors, we would give grants, but we don’t invest ourselves. We think that investing in certain media would have a dramatic impact on our independence. One of our missions is that we support media pluralism. We would lose that if we invest.

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

First of all, it is really good that you are even thinking about that. That’s important. Journalism is an important part of democracy. The second thing is: think through a strategy, because starting to give money away just for interesting projects is not going to make your segment resilient. Do it systematically and in a way that, if you look back in a year or two, you can articulate your impact, things that would not be there without you.

We have a lot of different stakeholders. Of course, from me, coming from business, you would expect an impact focused behaviour. For me, it is always a question whether what we are doing will strengthen or weaken democracy. I would also advise you to challenge your thought process, and think about how different your country would be, how democracy would suffer, if you were not there.

The last thing is how you do this sustainably. What would happen to organisations that you support if you cannot operate anymore? If you make organisations completely dependent on you, then you end up concentrating power. This is super dangerous in terms of independent journalism. You must be avoiding the concentration of power, you need to support plurality.

Tetiana Gordiienko of the Media Development Foundation offers insights into the challenging task facing Ukrainian media as they navigate donor dependence, operational challenges, and the urgent need for more sustainable funding models amid the ongoing impact of war.

“I have almost stopped writing stories… We spend up to 30% of our time on [operational workload related to] grant projects. This seems to me like a lot and we can turn into a media outlet for donors and not for our audiences. This scares me a lot. I see such examples […] and I am very, very, very afraid to become the same“

“The emphasis I want to make is that donors need to sit down, look around, find ways for themselves to choose projects they trust and give them a chance to relieve a little administrative burden and give them the opportunity to secure long-term funding. […] To live and work here, you need a little more trust, because if we lose it now, we lose it gradually, then there will simply be no one to make good journalism.”

The preceding quotations are not intended as a frightening narrative for journalists as part of a Halloween prank. They are drawn from a recent research study, “The Donor Dilemma: Rethinking Support Models for Ukrainian Media’s Future” conducted by the Media Development Foundation (MDF), a Kyiv-based non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Following two years of full-scale war with Russia, Ukrainian media outlets are facing significant challenges. On the one hand, they have established close cooperation with numerous international donor organisations, which have become the main source of funding for most Ukrainian newsrooms, especially at the local level. On the other hand, such close and prolonged interaction could not fail to have had an impact.

The respondents who took part in the MDF study concluded that their media organisations develop their financial plans while taking into account the financial year of donors, or postpone major strategic decisions until they receive funding or confirmation of project agreements. They also pointed to the additional operational burden associated with project-based financing and the necessity to align their goals with the strategic goals of the projects funded by donor organisations.

This research is based on in-depth interviews with representatives of nine media outlets and consists of a thematic analysis of the collected data. Furthermore, it forms part of a number of other MDF research projects. To illustrate, MDF ran a study of the state of local media in Ukraine that comprised a survey of 37 media outlets, 12 in-depth interviews, and three expert interviews. The study revealed challenges related to funding, strategic planning, and human resources in media organisations. “The Donor Dilemma…” employs a nuanced qualitative approach to investigate these issues in a smaller sample of respondents.

As the donor and media systems become increasingly complex and intertwined, the situation is further complicated by the reduction of funding for quality journalism. The respondents observed a notable decline in the number of grant opportunities for media. Concurrently, the advertising market in Ukraine, which has been affected by the ongoing war, is only showing minimal signs of recovery. As a result of the widening funding gap, there is a risk that media organisations may be forced to downsize their teams and reduce their capacity. The least resilient players may ultimately be forced out of the media market.

“It seems to me that core support is the best model in general that can be now [for media]. I know that many Russian media outlets in exile receive core support with not so much effort, while Ukrainian editors, unfortunately, have to constantly invent some projects. Plus, these permanent projects, it seems to me, still slightly distort the reality of the needs that exist within our audience” – An editor-in-chief of a local media outlet in Ukraine.

This excerpt from the MDF report focuses on the challenge of donor relations, but there are other needs as well, including psychological support for teams under immense pressure, a crisis of human resources, and the development of a strategic planning culture.

The Ukrainian media market is approaching a point where it must undergo another round of transformation. Media organisations have already demonstrated remarkable resilience in maintaining their teams and operating effectively, despite the challenges and risks posed by the ongoing conflict.

Particularly in the Ukrainian context, the media plays a significant role at both national and local levels in supporting democratic processes, post-war recovery, and community development. While some needs, such as funding or retaining qualified personnel, are relatively visible, the research conducted by the MDF also revealed a need for solutions to maintain the progress that the media have made with an incredible effort over the last two years. One of the most urgent requests from the independent Ukrainian media is to renegotiate the funding models with the donors to allow them to work in a more sustainable and predictable way.

We encourage European partners to consider new, sustainable approaches to donor funding that will help build a resilient, independent media landscape in Ukraine, and also to join MDF in the effort to develop the Core Media Fund, an initiative designed to raise funds for sustainable ways of financing independent journalism and media advocacy in the country.