Journalism Funders Forum

The JFF believes that support to independent, public interest journalism is essential to protect democracy within Europe. This has never been so important as it is today seeing the precarious funding for public service media or the exposure to organised mis- and disinformation campaigns and political polarisation. In the JFF’s view, philanthropic organisations have an important role to play in supporting and developing journalism and the news media sector across Europe. However, European foundations that actively support journalism remain few and there is a clear need to bring more resources into the field. To address these issues and co-shape the European media funding sector, the European Journalism Centre (EJC) has been running the Journalism Funders Forum (JFF) since 2017.

Mission

The Journalism Funders Forum is an open community of European foundations and journalists working together to ensure more effective and impactful funding of journalism in Europe.
The Forum is also the go-to place for European foundations that are new to the media funding field and want to know more about the industry’s inner workings. The three goals of the Forum are:
1. Connect stakeholders from philanthropy and journalism in Europe.
2. Ensure more effective and impactful funding of journalism in Europe.
3. Increase the amount of philanthropic organisations funding journalism in Europe.
The JFF does this through events, workshops, webinars, research, reports and newsletters. In order to promote direct and open discussion, Journalism Funders Forum is held under the Chatham House rule and has a strict no solicitation policy.
JFF also builds on the EJC’s long-standing relations with leading news organisations across Europe and worldwide, which it has nurtured through training, exchange, and grants programmes over the last 28 years.

Geographic Focus

Europe

Programme Areas

Mentorship: Placing foundation programme managers entering the media funding space in meaningful and impactful mentoring relationships with seasoned peers.
Events gathering representatives from the worlds of philanthropy, media, academia, industry and politics.
Producing resources, eg. the Journalism Funders Confidential newsletter informing and engaging a wider target group.
Conducting research, eg. a survey on foundations’ approaches and attitudes to media funding in Europe) to help us understand the sector and track change.
Advocacy/working groups programme to drive progress on key topics.