McGraw Fellowship for Business Journalism

The McGraw Fellowship provides editorial and financial support to journalists who need the time and resources to produce a significant investigative or enterprise story that provides fresh insight into an important business, financial or economic topic. They accept applications for in-depth text, audio and short-form video pieces. Unfortunately, they cannot support long-form documentaries at this time. The McGraw Fellowship is not a residency Fellowship. Even outside of the current pandemic, all McGraw Fellows work from their own offices.

The McGraw Center provides editorial supervision during the Fellowship. They work with the Fellows to develop their projects during the reporting phase and frequently edit the completed stories. They also assist with placing the articles in established print, audio or digital outlets. The stories run on the McGraw Center website as well.

Freelance journalists may use some of the funding as a stipend for living expenses during the Fellowship. They look for applicants with a proven ability to report and execute a complex project in their proposed medium; ideally, candidates will also have a strong background or reporting expertise on the subject of their project.

Funding Information

• The Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Center for Business Journalism provides experienced journalists with grants up to $15,000 and the editorial support needed to produce deeply reported enterprise and investigative stories that delve into critical economic, financial or business issues across a wide array of subjects.

Eligibility Criteria

• The McGraw Fellowship for Business Journalism is open to anyone with at least five years professional experience in journalism. They support work by freelance journalists, as well as by reporters and editors currently working at a news organization or a journalism non-profit. In the latter case, reporters and editors can apply directly in the name of their organization.
• They consider proposals from both freelance and staff journalists in all forms of media — text, audio, photo, and short-form video — and encourage those that combine formats to create a multimedia package. They look for projects that focus on important local or regional topics, as well as those that tackle compelling national or international stories or report on under-covered communities or issues. Journalists of color and those from diverse backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply.
• If you have already received support from another grant or foundation for the story you are proposing (or have applied for other funding), they will still consider your application.
• They’ll consider proposals of interest to U.S. readers from both foreign and American journalists based abroad, as long as the work is published in English in a U.S.-based media outlet.
• Students cannot apply.

For more information, visit McGraw Center for Business Journalism.