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

Over the past five years of researching media impact, it’s become clear to me that even those of us who spend our time researching the complexities of impact assessment sometimes rely on unwritten assumptions: that change is linear, and can be easily measured; that social media is an effective organizing tool; that conventional meetings and gatherings invariably lead to greater impact; and that the impact of isolated projects can be viewed outside of the larger systems of which they are a part.  Read More

Last week, in collaboration with Philanthropy New York and the Environmental Grantmakers Association, we held a special screening and discussion of the award-winning film Sea of Shadows, a new film by National Geographic that serves as a blueprint for how a conservation effort can come together in spite of widespread institutional corruption and dangerous cartels. In the Gulf of California, totoaba fish are being illegally overfished by Mexican cartels and Chinese traffickers because of a belief among some in China that their bladders possess healing powers. But the deadly methods of harvesting totoaba, also a critically endangered fish, are threatening to wipe out the vaquita—the world's smallest whale. In fact, it's estimated that fewer than 15 vaquitas remain. Sea of Shadows follows undercover investigators, environmentalists, journalists and the Mexican Navy in their efforts to rescue the vaquita from total extinction. Read More

As part of a new strategic direction informed by a yearlong review of our organization, we've been tasked with outlining learning priorities for the year and beyond. We have identified the following priorities: Making the case for media funding Assessing the impact of media funding Understanding the importance of evidence-based science communications activities Presenting/identifying funding models & best practices for supporting local journalism Read More

From time to time, events at the highest levels of legal and political decision-making in Washington shed light on the importance of nonprofit media and the critical role of philanthropy in the support of journalism. Last week, the United States Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Curtis Flowers for the brutal murder of four people inside a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi in 1996. Even before the high court’s decision, the Flowers case has been notorious for the fact that he has been tried six times for the same crime — twice ending in a mistrial with hung juries and three times having been thrown out over one form of prosecutorial misconduct after another. That dubious distinction caught the attention of reporters at American Public Media’s podcast series, In the Dark, who devoted Herculean effort to excavate the facts of the case for its award-winning second season. Among the many exculpatory revelations contained in the gripping series, dogged reporting uncovered the prosecutor’s history of rarely seating black jurors, which contributed to the strong impression that Flowers was prosecuted unfairly. This pattern of racial discrimination was cited in briefs before the Supreme Court, which vacated the conviction based… Read More

Podcasting is on the rise. Over 700,000 podcasts are available in iTunes with an estimated 90 million monthly listeners globally. No single entity controls podcasts, which means they are an accessible, decentralized, and democratized way to create content. Today, on-demand audio has dramatically transformed the way important stories and unheard voices reach us. Read More

Here at Media Impact Funders, we’ve been researching best practices in measuring media impact since 2013. In addition to curating impact-related tools, producing original analyses on impact trends, and publishing a monthly impact newsletter, we also convene funders to discuss impact, and conduct research on how funders are thinking about and assessing impact in the field. In early 2019, a full-scale website redesign allowed us to showcase these resources in a more streamlined, organized way. Read More

Last month, we convened our annual Media Impact Forum at the American Philosophical Society—the home of America’s oldest learned society—in Philadelphia, where we paid special attention to the role of radio and audio in creating and sustaining crucial connections with communities. See the full program here. Read More

This year’s Media Impact Forum placed special emphasis on radio in the context of community-making media and creative expression. As a complement to that event, we invited funders to join us last week for a conversation on high-impact radio and audio journalism. Read More

With the sharp rise of social media and the rapid collapse of so many daily newspapers in recent years, it would be easy to assume that radio is another traditional media format in decline. As more and more young listeners turn to music streaming services like Spotify and Pandora, predictions of broadcast radio’s imminent demise have become widespread. Read More

This week, media funders from across the country will gather at our annual Media Impact Forum to explore connections between radio and community, and how audio producers can spur civic conversations among audiences. We’re excited to showcase how one of media’s oldest forms of communications is reaching new audiences in creative ways—and garnering more funder support than ever before. Read More

We’re living in a new golden age of audio, by almost any measure. Every week, broadcast radio reaches 93 percent of American adults (228.5 million weekly listeners) and 30 million people watch, listen to, or download a podcast, up 157 percent since 2014. In public media, the top 20 largest public radio news stations together reach a weekly average of 11 million listeners, up from 10 million the prior year. In case you think that radio is mainly for older adults, in the midst of digital upheaval and proliferating ways to find and listen to audio, Nielsen reports that 97 percent of Millenials and 98 percent of Gen Xers listen to the radio every month. Read More

Late last year, we announced our participation in a strategic planning process to better serve the developing landscape for both our current and future members. This process, which included interviews with key stakeholders, surveys from our members and from our larger network, a scan of the landscape and more, took place from August 2018 through January 2019 under the guidance of Boost Social Sector Consulting. Read More