Journalism Grants
Learn about grants for journalism and media by exploring the curated list of top journalism and media funders below. Members can also research funding opportunities by using the search tool for Grant Finder.
Key Funders
- Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma
- Democracy Fund
- Ford Foundation
- Free Press Unlimited
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- The Knight Foundation
- Reva and David Logan Foundation
- MacArthur Foundation
- Craig Newmark Philanthropies
- Open Society Foundations
- Rory Peck Trust
- Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
- Tegna Foundation
Journalism Grantmaking Trends
A free and fair press is fundamental to democracy. Yet, UNESCO reports a measurable decline in press freedom around the world since 2012. Globally, dozens of journalists are killed and hundreds detained every year, Reporters without Borders (RSF) tracks. In 2025, the global state of press freedom was classified as a “difficult situation” for the first time in the history of RSF’s World Press Freedom Index. The situation in the United States, where freedom of the press is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, is deteriorating fast.
As of 2025, the United States ranks 57th out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index – a drop in ranking from 55th the year before. “After a century of gradual expansion of press rights in the United States, the country is experiencing its first significant and prolonged decline in press freedom in modern history, and Donald Trump’s return to the presidency is greatly exacerbating the situation,” RSF writes. Media ownership is increasingly concentrated among billionaires who are influencing content; the president is making direct attacks on press freedom; local news is in crisis; public media has been defunded by the federal government; and disinformation is rampant.
The U.S. has lost more than one-third of its print newspapers, and more than 45,000 news editing and reporting jobs, in the past two decades, according to the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University. More than 200 U.S. counties have become “news deserts” without any local news source, and more than 1,500 have only one news source, the initiative reports. The federal defunding of public media will exacerbate the situation, especially in rural communities.
What caused this? The ad-driven business model that sustained American newspapers for decades shifted with the rise of digital media. Consolidation and cost cutting in a news business dominated by billionaire owners led to the shuttering of local outlets and ongoing layoffs. Meanwhile, the rise of social media and political polarization have produced a mutually reinforcing cycle of misinformation, disinformation, and distrust in media. Add to all that the introduction of generative AI, and it becomes clear why a 2024 poll by Free Press found that “79% of Americans are concerned that the information they see online is fake, false or a deliberate attempt to confuse people.” Then, beginning in 2025, the second Trump administration accelerated and expanded the problems by defunding public media; spreading misinformation, disinformation, and AI slop; and directly attacking press freedom.
In response to all this, philanthropy for journalism has increased significantly over the past two decades. From 2018 to 2022, 25 of the top U.S.-based media funders gave more than $1B in journalism grants; the percentage of funders making journalism grants larger than $1M increased every year in that span, according to Media Impact Funders. In the aftermath of federal funding cuts in 2025, private foundations, community foundations, and individual donors have all stepped up to support public media. And some of the larger journalism nonprofits, such as the local-news-focused American Journalism Project, are active regrantors.
What was once a focus area of relatively few grantmakers has become a philanthropic priority not just for longtime journalism funders, but also for funders concerned with democracy and the importance of disseminating reliable information about everything from health and education to climate change.
Where are journalism and media grants going?
Journalism grants invest in nonprofit news outlets, public media outlets, and programs that educate and train journalists. Funding priorities include strengthening local news and investigative reporting, combating disinformation, and protecting democracy. Journalism and media grants are also made to help close the digital divide, to raise awareness on specific issues, and to protect journalists’ safety. Advocacy to regulate digital media and generative AI is another focus of grants for journalism and media. A growing area of journalism and media funding is narrative change.
Today, philanthropy even supports for-profit media outlets as they experiment with new business models and public-private partnerships in order to help them survive. As IP’s State of American Philanthropy brief on Giving for Journalism and Public Media investigates, one emerging trend for journalism funders addresses the conversion of for-profit news outlets into nonprofits.A handful of foundations broadly support nonprofit journalism, while others focus on specific areas, such as the Kaiser Family Foundation’s support for health news and information. Community foundations are an increasingly important source of support for local news outlets.
Gaps in journalism funding
Even with a substantial increase in philanthropy for journalism in recent years, need continues to outweigh philanthropic support. Protecting fair, investigative reporting requires both public and private funding, as well as new business models, which are all essential to an informed population and functioning democratic society.Beyond the overall funding gap, there are gaps in funding for particular areas of journalism and media. People of color–led news organizations, rural news, and journalism organizations based outside North America are especially underfunded by philanthropy. Further gaps remain in philanthropic funding for issue-based journalism, such as coverage of climate change, which undermines the dissemination of knowledge that helps people make informed decisions.
Additional resources for journalism philanthropy
Institute for Nonprofit News’ Network Philanthropy Center and the Lenfest Institute’s News Philanthropy Network
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