Non­prof­it jour­nal­ism – Impact log­ics, qual­i­ty cri­te­ria and tips for sponsors

Report and fund­ing guide com­bined in one: Lumi­nate, Schöpflin Stiftung, Rudolf Aug­stein Stiftung and PHI­NEO on impact mech­a­nisms and strate­gic fund­ing in the field of non­prof­it journalism.

At present, we are expe­ri­enc­ing a realign­ment of jour­nal­ism: obso­lete and dis­ap­pear­ing fund­ing mod­els, the depen­dence on tech plat­forms as well as a cri­sis of trust and author­i­ty indi­cate that there is cur­rent­ly a lack of viable con­cepts for sus­tain­able jour­nal­ism.

One of many approach­es to ensure qual­i­ty jour­nal­ism for the future could con­sist in the tar­get­ed and stronger pro­mo­tion of rel­e­vant offers in terms of free­dom of infor­ma­tion and opin­ion as well as in projects of non­prof­it journalism.

For this rea­son, the Schöpflin Stiftung, the Rudolf Aug­stein Stiftung and PHI­NEO are cur­rent­ly work­ing on a guide­book and field study that will …

• give an overview of the play­ers in the field of non­prof­it jour­nal­ism and the free­dom of infor­ma­tion and opinion,
• clar­i­fy sys­temic cor­re­la­tions and potentials,
• present func­tion­ing busi­ness mod­els and suc­cess­ful impact log­ics,
• iden­ti­fy chal­lenges, fund­ing gaps and lim­it­ing fac­tors and
• pro­vide deci­sion-mak­ers in fund­ing insti­tu­tions and pol­i­tics with con­crete rec­om­men­da­tions for action.

The pub­li­ca­tion focus­es on Ger­man play­ers, but also takes into account out­stand­ing Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al exam­ples. It will be pub­lished in Sep­tem­ber 2020.

Pre-orders for a free print ver­sion can be placed now. Please send a short e‑mail to redaktion@​phineo.​org.

About the fund­ing partners

The Schöpflin Stiftung is com­mit­ted to crit­i­cal aware­ness rais­ing, a vibrant democ­ra­cy and a diverse soci­ety. With­in this frame­work, it pro­motes jour­nal­ism for the com­mon good as a nec­es­sary com­ple­ment to pub­lic and pri­vate pub­lish­ing jour­nal­ism, with the aim of cre­at­ing a demo­c­ra­t­ic, well-informed society.

The Rudolf Aug­stein Stiftung feels a close con­nec­tion to the founder of the news mag­a­zine DER SPIEGEL and his com­mit­ment to crit­i­cal and inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism. Jour­nal­ists should be able to fol­low his mot­to ​“Telling what is” (“Sagen, was ist”)” even under the cir­cum­stances of media change. The foun­da­tion there­fore sup­ports ini­tia­tives that dri­ve inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism, explore new meth­ods and busi­ness mod­els and con­tribute to net­work­ing and diver­si­ty in the jour­nal­is­tic field.

Lumi­nate is a phil­an­thropic orga­ni­za­tion and part of the Omid­yar Group of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.