FUNDERS

Grants are tough, because they often require a lot of time and effort to complete applications, yet many applicants are vying for limited funds and if you aren't maximally aligned with the funder and what they're looking for, you're likely to waste your time. So, we have to be super strategic about how we approach determining which grant and foundation funding we want to go for.

Here is our tracking list.

FUNDER VOLUNTEER ROLE

Funder Volunteer - Kristina (board member)

Research
Vetting opportunities
Signing up for and reading newsletters with funding opportunities
Maintaining tracking spreadsheet for opportunities
Help form strategy
Meeting with potential funders, relationship building
Activating the board around this effort
Activating others in network around this effort

Immediate to do items (May 2022)

~~Brain dump from Cass~~
~~Cass send Kristina list from Airtable + other materials~~
Reach out for brain dump from Gerry
Sign up for newsletters
Work on Google spreadsheet
Add any thoughts on strategy/workflow to this site page (or let Cassie know if you need her to, but I think you have access)
Request next meetings with funders in the works such as the Columbus Foundation + American Journalism Project

STRATEGY

We recently decided we are going to be reducing the amount and being more targeted with the grants we apply for, especially editorial ones, for many reasons:

News fellowships: We generally don’t have a good shot at these because they’re really competitive and our reporters are inexperienced compared to the others applying. Jae isn’t really interested/capable of that big of a commitment unless its from a “dream org” of hers such as ProPublica.
News grants that fund reporters/projects: same issue - they’re real competitive and we have less experienced reporters and less awards and accolades and connections to win these.

Here’s what we will still track, seek and apply for:

News grants/fellowships that fund organizations/business side
- - we have a little better chance at these - especially ones aimed at helping small startups become more sustainable. For example, we won this huge LION grant/fellowship.
Non-news/local grants
- we have a better shot at winning grants that can fund projects from local/state funders than national and news funders. For example, we haven’t heard yet, but we think we have a good chance of winning the Ohio State Bar Foundation grant and that is a non-news grant, but it is a local funder and they are funding the topics we cover vs. news orgs. So, these types are less competitive than others.
Foundations
- We really have opportunity to make strides with foundations, particularly locally. For example, working on relationship/lobbying Columbus Foundation to add a media fund. Also, talking to the American Journalism Project.

HISTORY OF GRANTS

Matter has received 3 grants

$2,000 from Comfest in 2019
$3,000 from the U.S. Press Freedom Accountability Project in 2020
$89,000 from the LION + Facebook News Revenue Fellowship

Matter has been rejected from many grants:

Ohio State Bar Foundation Racial Justice Initiative
Business and Sustainability Grant
ProPublica Local Reporting Network
Philanthropitch
Neiman Fellowship
Howard G. Buffett Fund For Women Journalists
GNI Startup Labs
Create Columbus
Scripps Howard Foundation Journalism Fund
PBS Frontline Local Journalism Project
The Fund for Local Journalism
Open Society Foundation Grants - Media Fellowship
Ohio Humanities
Local That Works (Contest)
INN Springboard
Ida B Wells Fellowship
Fund for Investigative Journalism - Emergency Policing Grants

WORKFLOW

ON A ROLLING BASIS

The funder volunteer (currently Kristina) should sign up for newsletters they come across that may include funding/grant opportunities (see resources below).

MONTHLY AT THE EDITORIAL STRATEGY MEETINGS

The editor-in-chief and other editors/managers strategize on project story ideas for different types of funding opportunities (see below)

QUARTERLY IN JANUARY, APRIL, JULY, AND OCTOBER

The funder volunteer should review emails they've received in the past 4 months for opportunities and clean up the funding opportunities Airtable base.

Once that is finished, the grants manager should contact the director.

GRANTS FOR SPECIFIC PROJECTS

At the moment, we are not so very focused on editorial grants, but once we do again, we need to be working to have story and project ideas under our wings for when grant apps come up. Here are some categories/examples of grant topics:

Investigative

breaking new ground
- - i.e. Fund for Investigative Journalism

Government Accountability

exposing wrongdoing,
- i.e. ProPublica

An issue specific to Columbus/the region

to a greater degree than nationwide, in other cities
- i.e. ProPublica was this way

Solutions

Solutions to issues within our development/policing coverage areas
- i.e. Solutions Journalism Network

Data

i.e. Pulitzer Data grant

FOUNDATIONS

Gerry headed up this effort in 2021. He had 1 meeting each with the Columbus Foundation and the American Journalism Project.

The Columbus Foundation does not currently have a giving area / donor advised fund for "media/news", so we are really wanting to advocate for them to add that. In the past, I believe it was said it was a matter of us continuing to work with people there to make it happen.
The American Journalism Project is a national funder who accepts rolling letters of inquiry (we sent one in early 2020 before we had much to show). They recently launched a huge initiative to fund and establish a nonprofit newsroom in Cleveland, along with local funders (including the Cleveland Foundation -- so it's not unprecedented for foundations like the Columbus Foundation to invest in an org like ours)

Otherwise, I think there are other foundations out there that could fit us, we just need to research and look out.

Our former board member Chakir' Underdown had told us to check out the DRK Foundation. They accept apps on a rolling basis. I am not sure what our chances are because they're a national funder, but might be worth exploring. At the time, her mentor had

RESOURCES

Here's a Guidebook on getting grants to fund journalism.

Newsletters with funding opportunities:

The Institute for Nonprofit News is a crucial newsletter, because they almost always include funding opportunities for nonprofit news outlets. It's not a bad idea to go through the funding opportunities table and sign up for emails from all of the funders.

I do not know when this will stop being updated, because I believe it's organized by a student, but there is a journalism grants spreadsheet you can reference.

The Sheffield MeetMarket is one of the world’s largest documentary and factual markets and pitching forums, selected projects will have the opportunity to meet with top Decision Makers among 300+ international funders, broadcasters, distributors and exhibitors.

The MeetMarket offers a unique way to pitch your project through carefully matchmade meetings between pitchers and Decision Makers, for creative and financial discussions. The MeetMarket is open to all documentary makers, local and international, and we welcome submissions from established, emerging as well as first-time filmmakers. Projects can be in any form ranging from long form to series and formats.

Mastering the Art of Grant Writing by LION

Here are other resources we got from the Lenfest Institute (joseph@lenfestinstitute.org)

• This Google Doc has links to the slides and recordings from each of our five sessions together.

• There was a request for a class Slack Channel to stay in touch. I’ve sent you all an invitation to a channel that’s part of a larger News Philanthropy Network Slack. We have a private channel just for this class. Please let me know if you didn’t get it, and I can re-send it!

• Here also is the class roster with everyone’s email address.

• Please also feel free to reach out to Molly and Marissa, both cc’ed here, if you’d like to schedule the optional grant proposal practicum review.

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