When journalism fundraising falls short, it’s often because you’re answering the wrong questions

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, and, if the idea is good enough, you get a grant.

Unfortunately, that’s just not how it works. Funding decisions at foundations tend to come out of something slower and less linear: first aligning around a problem, and then building trust with people doing the work. The grant is often the result of that process, not the starting point.

Early conversations shouldn’t be about your proposal. They should start with a problem that your work tackles, the role that journalism can play and then, significantly, how that work lines up with what the funder is trying to do.

And this isn’t a one-sided relationship.

Funders are looking for strong partners just as much as newsrooms are looking for funding. They’re trying to figure out who to trust to do meaningful work in the areas they care about.

While that doesn’t eliminate the power imbalance, it does mean you’re not walking into the conversation empty-handed. It also means that if you successfully build that relationship, you could be looking at more than a one-off grant.

Consider funders’ goals

Most foundations are not sitting around thinking about how to fund journalism. (We know, right?)

They’re thinking about things like reducing maternal mortality for Black mothers, expanding access to clean energy in communities, improving college completion rates, increasing economic mobility, or strengthening democratic participation.

So when a newsroom leads with: “We need funding for journalism,” it doesn’t quite land, because that’s not the problem the funder is trying to solve. The questions they’re asking are closer to: What’s the problem here? Who is affected? How can we work together to create change?

Which means part of the job is translation (on both sides), finding common ground and figuring out how you can work together.

Stop talking output. Start talking outcomes.

Journalists are trained to describe output — what got published, what launched, what the newsroom built.

But funders want to know what moved. They’re focused on outcomes. This is where the disconnect tends to show up most clearly.

You do lots of work that makes sense to funders. You influence policy through investigative reporting, create service journalism that helps people make decisions, press political candidates on topics that matter, and bring audiences into a broader conversation about the problems a community faces. Those aren’t just outputs. That’s impact.

And there are outcomes you can point to: a 40% increase in reader engagement on a health equity series; 2,000 people clicking through to a benefits enrollment page after a service journalism piece; 500 new subscribers acquired during a coverage series on a local ballot measure.

That’s the connective tissue funders look for.

One way to make that translation more concrete is to step back from the story or project and frame your work in terms of a few simple questions:

• What’s the problem your community faces?
• Who is most affected?
• How does your journalism help?
• And why does that matter to a funder?

(We developed a worksheet around these questions for our ONA session to help newsrooms prepare for funder conversations.)

This is more effective than pitching an idea. You’re building a case for support.

Think about how funders make decisions

Inside foundations, program officers are also building a case.

When they go to their boards or executive teams and say, “We should fund this,” they’re rarely arguing in favor of journalism in the abstract. They’re making the case that a weak media ecosystem undermines everything else the foundation is trying to do. In other words, they’re not funding journalism for its own sake; they’re funding media as a tool to advance the programs and issues they care about.

In that sense, journalism isn’t a separate issue area. It’s part of the infrastructure that allows other work to succeed — a force multiplier that helps funders create positive change. If you talk about your work this way, it will help them make the case and build support for you at their organizations.

Know yourself

Once you understand this system, the question becomes how to operate within it.

You need to be clear about your mission: who you are and where your organization is going. If you can’t articulate that, a funder won’t be able to do it for you.

You also need to understand their mission. Funders are not interchangeable, and alignment doesn’t happen by accident. It starts with knowing what a foundation cares about and how it thinks about its work.

News organizations often think in short-term cycles. Funders look at longer arcs that create lasting impact, and they rarely seek to support a one-off or something short-lived. They’re trying to understand how a piece of work fits into a larger trajectory. What are you trying to build? What do you want to be to your community?

But be aware that not every opportunity is the right one. Forcing alignment where it doesn’t exist can pull you off course in ways that are hard to undo. A newsroom should never bend its mission to fit a funder.

The wrong grant costs more than no grant.

Build trust by being honest

At the end of the day, funders don’t just fund ideas. They fund people and institutions they trust.

That trust is built over time, and it depends on honest and transparent communication; being honest about what’s working, what isn’t, and what you’re still figuring out. We encourage you to talk to funders like people (because they are), instead of defaulting to jargon or trying to make it seem like you have all the answers (because nobody does).

More importantly, remember: Trust requires that both sides be clear about expectations and boundaries.

While journalism can contribute to change, don’t ever promise that your work can achieve a specific outcome. What you can do is talk about the big-picture impact you hope to have. Being clear about that protects both the work and the relationship.

Editorial independence isn’t a barrier to funding; it’s part of what makes the work credible. Most funders understand that, but it’s essential to make that explicit and talk about how both sides will protect it.

Think beyond philanthropy

Philanthropy can’t sustain journalism on its own, and it isn’t designed to. But it can support experimentation, growth and the kinds of work that are hardest to sustain through the market alone.

It can help news organizations stabilize and transform in this time of massive upheaval. But it should only be one piece of the pie in a solid, long-term business model.

If you take one thing from this, it’s that your pitch probably isn’t the core issue. The bigger issue is understanding how this system actually works and adjusting how you show up within it.

Once that clicks, the process starts to feel less opaque and a lot easier to navigate.

Want a practical starting point? We’ve put together a short worksheet to help you prepare for conversations with funders—from clarifying alignment to framing your work in terms that resonate. Download here.