Fund for Investigative Journalism Seed Grants (United States)

Grants are for preliminary reporting for specific projects. The grants cover early reporting that can lead to full investigative projects. This includes, for example, open-records requests and initial reporting trips to identify and interview sources.

Funding Information

• Grants are $1,000 to $2,500. The entire grant is paid up-front.
• Journalists who receive seed funding can apply for full grants (up to $10,000) once they conduct the preliminary reporting and secure a commitment from a media outlet to publish or broadcast the story.

Eligibility Criteria

• Freelance journalists and those who are not in full-time staff roles at a media outlet are eligible to apply for seed funding.
• Seed funding must be used to obtain documents or information that could lead to a full investigative story. The journalist’s time can be one cost covered by the grant, but it may not be the only cost.
• Other criteria for seed funding mirrors the Fund’s criteria for full grants: stories must be investigative in nature (meaning they uncover wrongdoing that was previously hidden or unknown), and journalists must be U.S.-based or working on a story with a very strong U.S. angle.

Application Requirements

• Resume and two work samples.
• You can include a letter of recommendation from an editor, mentor or professor if you choose, but this is completely optional.
• A short overview of your project and a short, detailed description of the preliminary reporting you need funding to carry out (such as open-records requests or travel).
• Estimates of costs that you need funding to cover, with a rationale for how the estimates were calculated.
• A brief explanation of other reporting that has been done on this subject and how your project would advance the story.
• All information contained in an application is held strictly confidential by the Fund’s board and staff, is shared with no one outside of the organization, and is used solely for the purpose of making a grant decision.
• They do not accept resubmissions of proposals that they’ve declined previously, unless they specifically invite you to resubmit.
• They do not accept multiple proposals from the same applicant in one grant cycle, except in rare cases.

For more information, visit Fund for Investigative Journalism.