Open Call on Infrastructure (United States)

This open call focuses on strengthening the infrastructure of the local news industry, one of Press Forward’s four strategic pillars. Through this initiative, Press Forward is seeking to fund solutions to the common challenges that outlets face in sustainably creating and disseminating local news. They are looking for bold ideas that can impact the sector at large.

Areas

• The local newsrooms address four priority areas:
  • Audience
    • Applications should focus on methodologies, technology and tools that enable news organizations to attract new audiences, diversify their audience base and/or deepen relationships with existing ones. This can include experimental audience-facing approaches or technical infrastructure.
  • Operations
    • Applications should focus on ideas or solutions that directly impact critical business functions that are not related to editorial production. This includes accounting, human resources, governance, legal support, financial planning and other activities that enable news organizations to operate resiliently.
  • People
    • Applications should include programs or solutions that bolster the talent pipeline and encourage a diversity of perspectives in the newsroom. This can include professional development, training programs, organizational design, improved workplace culture and/or communities of practice.
  • Revenue
    • Applications should focus on methodologies or tools that help news organizations generate revenue and/or diversify their revenue streams. This can include shared positions, shared ad sales, sources of earned income, impact investing, B2B partnerships, licensing, corporate support or reader revenue.

Funding Information

• They expect to award a total of up to $20 million among 20-30 applicants distributed across the four funding priorities.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligible applicants include:
  • U.S.-based journalism support organizations and intermediaries with a proven track record of deep service to local news organizations
  • News organizations that are working or plan to work collaboratively with other news organizations as part of their grant. Individual newsrooms may apply as lead applicants for a collaborative project with multiple partners that aim to solve a common challenge for the broader field. Collaborations can be at a local, regional or statewide level. For-profit newsrooms or for-profit service providers can be a part of the group, however the lead applicant must be a non-profit organization.
  • Newsroom collaborations, local/regional collaborations and/or practitioner/university partnerships.
• To be considered eligible, all proposals must:
  • Experiment with new solutions to solve common challenges
  • Impact or inform the field nationwide
  • Pilot ideas locally that can be replicated in other regions
  • Have a proven track record but require deeper investment to realize a greater impact

Ineligibility Criteria

• The following types of organizations are not eligible to apply as the lead applicant:
  • For-profit organizations
  • Organizations with a current active grant from Press Forward’s Pooled Fund
• They will not fund proposals that:
  • Are not focused on the future of local news.
  • Offer solution(s) only to a single newsroom or are otherwise limited in scope or impact.
  • Do not have resources contributed toward this idea outside of this possible grant.

Evaluation Criteria

• Applications will be evaluated according to the following:
  • Common Challenge
    • How important is it to the local news field that this problem be addressed?
    • How extensive is the demand for solving this challenge?
  • Solution Proposed
    • How well informed is the solution that is being proposed?
    • What evidence or data do you have to support that this solution will be effective?
    • How realistic and thoughtful is the planned approach to tackling this problem?
  • Expertise and Leadership
    • Does this applicant have a history of successfully operationalizing big, bold ideas either internally or for the local news field?
    • Is this the right organization/collaborative to tackle this challenge?
    • How confident are you in the track record and vision of the executive leader(s) of this project?
  • Impact
    • If this project is successful how impactful would this be on the local news field?
    • Is the solution replicable and/or scalable?

Application Requirements

• Project plan + timeline
  • Include all activities that would take place during the life of the grant broken out by six month periods.
• Project budget
  • Show the complete cost of this project
  • Include how will you cover additional costs outside of the grant amount
  • Indicate contributions (financial and/or in-kind) from lead and co-applicants
• Operating Budget for the lead applicant
• Partnership agreement for each co-applicant

For more information, visit Press Forward.