For funders and grantees avidly tracking journalism’s evolution, the annual release of the Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media analysis sets the stage for strategy discussions and decisions in the months to follow. Last year’s much-quoted stat was 1% — the estimated percentage of “total news dollars” contributed by philanthropy, venture capital, and […]

By Vince Stehle |Originally posted on the Center for Effective Philanthropy blog Foundations are in the business of making the world a better place. Preserving the environment, reducing violence, and improving education are a few examples among the many philanthropic objectives that foundations may pursue. But are we applying ourselves as effectively as we might?

By Jon Funabiki On Monday morning (3/2), I joined hundreds of family members, friends, journalists and funders in mourning the death of Dori J. Maynard, the president of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education and an unflinching critic of the news media’s treatment of African Americans and other minority groups. She passed away on Feb. […]

Originally posted in the Chronicle of Philanthropy The streets of Ferguson, Mo., New York City, and many other cities across the nation have been overflowing with protests for the past month in reaction to grand-jury decisions not to indict police officers responsible for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

By Diane Wachtell, Executive Director of The New Press Books and films offer their creators entrée into a range of media — and access to new audiences — that are not available to those without such platforms.

On November 20, 2014, as the world waited for the Grand Jury decision in Ferguson, Missouri, Media Impact Funders and The Atlantic Philanthropies hosted a conversation on race, justice and media with philanthropic leaders and media makers. The event was designed to explore how media is changing public opinion and policy on multiple criminal justice […]

Media Impact Funders recently went to Camden, Maine for PopTech 18 — Rebellion. We convened a small group of funders and made our way to that very rainy and quaint coastal village for an exploration of media innovation, especially as it relates to the conference theme of rebellion and its place in social change. Before […]

“Soon the television cameras will get packed up,” reflected Alex Altman for Time the day after Michael Brown’s funeral, “leaving a town that has become the latest shorthand for America’s racial divide to figure out how to translate the energy, intensity and anger of the past two weeks into concrete change.”