Press Forward’s second Open Call on Infrastructure will support shared solutions to the common challenges newsrooms face.
Donor Name: Press Forward
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 01/15/2025
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: 3 Years
Details:
Through this initiative, Press Forward is seeking to fund solutions to the common challenges that outlets face in sustainably creating and disseminating local news.
- Audience
- Applications should focus on methodologies, technology and tools that enable news organizations to attract new audiences, diversify their audience base and/or deepen relationships with existing ones. This can include experimental audience-facing approaches or technical infrastructure.
- Operations
- Applications should focus on ideas or solutions that directly impact critical business functions that are not related to editorial production. This includes accounting, human resources, governance, legal support, financial planning and other activities that enable news organizations to operate resiliently.
- People
- Revenue
- Applications should focus on methodologies or tools that help news organizations generate revenue and/or diversify their revenue streams. This can include shared positions, shared ad sales, sources of earned income, impact investing, B2B partnerships, licensing, corporate support or reader revenue.
Funding Information
Through this second open call, Press Forward is awarding $20 million in grant funding. They expect most grants will range from $500,000 to $1.5 million over three years, though awards may fall outside of this range.
Eligibility Requirements
Eligible applicants include:
- Journalism support organizations and intermediaries with a proven track record of deep service to local news organizations
- News organizations that are working or plan to work collaboratively with other news organizations as part of their grant. Individual newsrooms may apply as lead applicants for a collaborative project with multiple partners that aim to solve a common challenge for the broader field. Collaborations can be at a local, regional or statewide level. For-profit newsrooms or for-profit service providers can be a part of the group; however, the lead applicant must be a non-profit organization.
- Newsroom collaborations, local/regional collaborations and/or a practitioner/university partnership.
To be considered eligible, all proposals must:
- Experiment with new solutions to solve common challenges
- Impact or inform the field nationwide
- Pilot ideas locally that can be replicated in other regions, and/or
- Have a proven track record but require deeper investment to realize a greater impact
For more information, visit Press Forward.
