Stay up-to-date on the latest news, trends and perspectives in media and philanthropy.

Journalists and funders are often talking past each other. It shows up most clearly when fundraising falls short. The three of us came together at ONA in March to lead a session for news leaders on fundraising and philanthropy and answer some of the questions we hear over and over again: How do we get grant support? What are funders actually looking for? Why does this process feel so opaque? The answer, we think, is this: It’s not just that journalists and funders are speaking different languages; they’re often working from different mental models. And it’s that difference in approach that accounts for a lot of the frustration from newsrooms. It’s easy to assume that philanthropy is just one more revenue stream—another way to pay for the work you’re already doing. But philanthropic dollars tend to support the very kinds of journalism that the market alone won’t sustain and that earned revenue won’t justify. That context matters because it changes how you show up in these conversations. Here are seven tips we’ve found helpful in closing the gap. Don’t start with a pitch A lot of news organizations approach philanthropy like a transaction: You have an idea, you pitch it,… Read More

In advance of this year’s Media Impact Forum, our staff has compiled a list of reports, articles and recorded programs to help prepare attendees for the event. These are some of the articles and tools that our programming team had in mind when putting together the conference, and also cover earlier conversations that we will build on at the Forum. We will be adding to this list in the lead-up to May 28. Not attending the Forum? The materials here speak to the dominant themes and ideas that will be presented on stage, but will also be key parts of the conversations and events funders can expect from MIF in the coming months. If you have any questions about the links included here, would like more information or have an item you think we should add to the list, please reach out to shannon@mediafunders.org. Media Infrastructure & Sustainability Rebuilding Local Journalism at Scale: A Field-Level Analysis of Infrastructure Needs. Published earlier this year by MIF, this report provides an analysis of the structural constraints shaping the future of local journalism Meeting the Revenue Challenge – Philanthropy’s Role in Local News. Published by the Wyncote Foundation, this… Read More

As part of Media Impact Funders’ programming on the Future of Public Media (one of our core pillars), we recently hosted an urgent conversation on the role of PBS Kids and public interest children’s media in the aftermath of massive cuts to federal funding and a field increasingly shaped by commercial incentives. The briefing spotlighted the historic role PBS Kids and its production partners have played in delivering research-based educational content for young audiences and ways that funders can help sustain this unique work. Below, you’ll find key takeaways from the program, a brief list of options for funders looking to deepen their engagement, and opportunities to join working sessions next month and in the summer. Please email Shannon Thomas at shannon@mediafunders.org if you would like to get involved in this work. MIF is committed to supporting this critical issue with members and interested funders. We are grateful to our partners: Grantmakers for Education, the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative and Grantmakers for Thriving Youth. And thanks again to the program speakers: Gregg Behr, Executive Director, The Grable Foundation, Sara DeWitt, Senior VP & General Manager, PBS Kids & Education, Jenn Hoos Rothberg, Executive Director,… Read More

MIF has received a three-year, $300,000 general operating grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The grant supports MIF’s shift toward more coordinated approaches in a rapidly shifting media landscape, with public media, journalism, documentary and narrative ecosystems increasingly overlapping. MacArthur’s investment will help advance MIF’s priorities to strengthen funder alignment, advance shared learning and support more strategic, collaborative investments in media infrastructure and impact. That means creating space for funders to move not just faster, but smarter, by linking resources, insights and strategies in ways that reflect the complexity of today’s information environment. At a time when the challenges facing public-interest media are both urgent and interconnected, this funding helps position MIF and its network to meet the moment with greater context, coordination and collaboration. We are grateful to the MacArthur Foundation for their partnership and support. Learn more about MIF’s approach.

The MIF team is back from the International Journalism Festival, where we had the privilege of joining funders, journalists and researchers from around the world discussing local news, journalist safety and more. We organized two panels and hosted our annual funder brunch, and this year, our work focused on how funders are thinking about journalism safety and impact right now and where there are opportunities for collaboration. Our Executive Director, Abby Rapoport, moderated a conversation on how funders are approaching safety and sustainability. Safety is no longer just a concern for reporters in conflict zones. While there’s been growing investment in journalism infrastructure, there’s a critical gap in support systems to protect journalists themselves. The discussion explored how funders are navigating risk and responsibility and what it will take to sustain journalism in an increasingly volatile global environment. Nina Sachdev, our Deputy Director of External Affairs, led a session on what journalism can learn from documentary funders. Panelists discussed the factors that shape funding decisions and the ethics of how stories are produced. The conversation offered practical insight into how these approaches might translate into newsroom practice. We also convened our annual funder breakfast, bringing together… Read More

Editor’s note: At Media Impact Funders, we’re seeing a growing conversation about how philanthropy can strengthen the systems that support public-interest media. At the same time, important questions are emerging about how those systems are experienced on the ground. In this piece, Tracie Powell, founder of the Pivot Fund, offers a perspective rooted in direct work with newsrooms, highlighting the relationship between infrastructure and capacity. Her insights contribute to a broader dialogue across the field about how to align funding strategies with the realities of the organizations they aim to support. Over the past several years, philanthropy has increasingly rallied around the idea that local journalism needs infrastructure—shared services, training programs, accelerators, and technical assistance. This is a critical shift, and long overdue. A new report, Rebuilding Local Journalism at Scale: What nearly 560 applications reveal about scale, sustainability and system-level investments by Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, has helped galvanize this momentum. Drawing on nearly 560 proposals submitted to Press Forward’s infrastructure funding process, the report finds that many of the most persistent challenges facing local journalism are not isolated newsroom problems, but system-level constraints tied to fragmented infrastructure and limited shared capacity. It also makes a compelling… Read More

Earlier this month, we published “Rebuilding Local Journalism at Scale,” a new report by Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro analyzing nearly 560 proposals submitted to Press Forward’s infrastructure open call. The response was immediate—and intense. One interview Elizabeth did with Dick Tofel became his most-read post, generating more than 70 comments. We saw record attendance on our network call exploring the findings. Across the field, funders, publishers and journalists began weighing in—on LinkedIn, at Nieman Lab and elsewhere. All of it points to something important: This report is less a conclusion and more a starting point for a much larger conversation about what comes next. And it’s a reminder of something we don’t say out loud often enough: There is real demand in this field for more candid, outcome-oriented conversations—not for their own sake, but to actually move the work forward. For all the attention on media right now, there still aren’t enough spaces where funders can wrestle with these questions together. That’s part of what we’re trying to build at Media Impact Funders. In some ways, it’s always been the work. But this moment is asking more of all of us—and we’re trying to… Read More

Today, Media Impact Funders is releasing Rebuilding Local Journalism at Scale, a new report by Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro that offers one of the most comprehensive practitioner-defined analyses of local journalism infrastructure to date. The report synthesizes nearly 560 applications submitted to Press Forward’s infrastructure open call, and the applications provide a rare, aggregated signal from across the field. Rather than focusing on individual organizations, the analysis examines the system-level constraints limiting scale, coordination, and long-term sustainability. (In a related piece, Press Forward Executive Director Dale Anglin describes how the open call created a rare field-wide snapshot of the structural barriers facing local journalism.) The findings suggest that many of the challenges facing local journalism are structural rather than organizational. They raise important questions for funders about infrastructure, coordination and the role of philanthropy in supporting civic information systems. Read the Report

Editor’s Note: Today, Media Impact Funders published “Rebuilding Local Journalism at Scale: A Field-Level Analysis of Infrastructure Needs,” a new report by Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro examining structural constraints facing local journalism. The analysis draws on nearly 560 applications submitted to Press Forward’s nationwide infrastructure open call. In the reflection below, Press Forward Executive Director Dale Anglin describes how the open call was designed and why the resulting dataset offers a rare field-wide snapshot of the barriers facing local news. In 2024, Press Forward issued a nationwide Open Call focused on local news infrastructure. We asked a simple but urgent question: What would make it easier to launch and sustain local newsrooms in communities across the country? Working with our staff and management team and drawing on input from newsroom leaders and journalism support organizations, we designed an initiative aimed squarely at the systems that underpin local news. We asked applicants to address four persistent pain points affecting nearly every newsroom: revenue generation, internal operations, human resources and audience growth. The response was extraordinary. We received 559 letters of interest from organizations across the country. Ultimately, 22 organizations were selected to share $22 million in funding.  The analysis… Read More

Albi is reimagining what narrative infrastructure can look like in one of the most polarized cultural contexts in the world. Through its Film and Television Fund, institute and lab, the organization supports films by and about Israelis and Palestinians that resist binaries and make room for complexity, dissent and human proximity. In this Member Spotlight Q&A, Founder and President Libby Lenkinski reflects on how Albi defines success beyond awards or reach, why audience “encounter” matters more than scale, and what it takes to fund storytelling responsibly in conflict environments. She also explains how the organization’s Protection Hub safeguards filmmakers who are under threat and how the Palestinian Creatives Pipeline is building long-term structural access for emerging storytellers. Media Impact Funders: Albi works on documentaries in one of the most polarized spaces imaginable, where many people arrive with strongly held beliefs. Your goal is to “establish paradigm-shifting narratives.” What are the ways you think about achieving that goal and what are your markers for success? Libby Lenkinski: Albi works from a simple premise. In deeply polarized environments, facts alone rarely change minds. Stories reshape what people believe is imaginable. Documentary cinema is uniquely powerful because it operates simultaneously as… Read More