MIF Network Call – March

Join us for a conversation with Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro on her new infrastructure analysis commissioned by Arnold Ventures. The report, to be published by Media Impact Funders on Monday, March 9, synthesizes nearly 560 applications submitted to Press Forward’s pooled-fund infrastructure open call, and offers one of the most comprehensive practitioner-defined datasets on the structural needs of local journalism.

Rather than focusing on individual organizations, the analysis examines the system-level constraints limiting scale, sustainability and coordination across the field.
It asks what the aggregated signals from the field suggest about where infrastructure is breaking down, and what kinds of investments may be required to stabilize and strengthen the ecosystem.

On this call, we’ll explore what this analysis means for funders:

• What patterns emerge across nearly 560 proposals?
• What do those signals suggest about scale, sustainability and coordination?
• And how might funding strategies need to evolve in response?