Journalismfund - Office in Brussels

Journalismfund Europe vzw is a Brussels-based independent non‐profit intermediary incorporated by citizens in 1998, dedicated to advancing independent cross-border investigative journalism across Europe in order to strenghten democracy.

Journalismfund Europe is an intermediary and firewall between donors and journalists. This intermediary role is essential to enable donors to finance investigative journalism without affecting the credibility and independence of the journalists or media.

It ultimately serves the public interest, furthers accountability as well as transparency, and contributes to critical thinking and well-informed debate. Journalismfund Europe is one of the three pioneer organisations in the world that have been established with the specific purpose to make grants available to journalists. The other two (who inspired Journalismfund Europe) are the Dutch Fund for In-depth Journalism (°1990) and the American Fund for Investigative Journalism (°1969). Journalismfund Europe works closely with them in sharing knowledge, modus operandi, etc..

Journalismfund Europe’s flexible grants programmes enable journalists to produce relevant public interest stories with a European mind-set from international, national, and regional perspectives.

Journalismfund Europe always upholds its grantees’ editorial independence and strives for high journalistic quality and rigour. Where necessary, Journalismfund Europe mentors and provides support to investigative teams that have strong ideas but lack experience and infrastructure for collaborating across borders.

Journalismfund Europe’s value chain is built around risk management. Through each stage of the application process and the investigative journalism projects there are careful measures to safeguard the security of the journalists, of the project and of Journalismfund Europe, and to ensure a maximal efficiency of the allocated resources: digital security, confidentiality, contracting, follow-up, reporting, financial control, publication, dissemination, etc.

Journalismfund Europe serves the European community of journalists interested in developing best practice in journalism. Its overall objective is to promote and improve the profession in response to the challenges and opportunities stemming from internationalisation, digitalisation, and changing revenue models.
Journalismfund Europe focuses on dissemination and impact of supported stories. It has a yearlong cooperation with European networks and the investigative journalism community, i.a. through its International Advisory Board. Journalismfund Europe guarantees a far-reaching and highly targeted dissemination of the grant call.

We work in English, French, Spanish, Polish, Italian, Hungarian, Dutch and Russian.

(Photo: ©Journalismfund Europe)