BRUSSELS - Journalismfund.eu has received €114.000 from the Open Society Institute. This will allow two new rounds of grants during the autumn and winter, and it will allow Journalismfund.eu to take crucial steps forward to establish itself as a strong organisation.
Very soon Journalismfund.eu will announce the dates for the upcoming rounds of research grants for journalists.
The money from the Media Programme by the Open Society Institute is granted as a 2nd level seed funding. A large part of the sum is reserved to build Journalismfund.eu into a strong and lasting organisation. Further fundraising and building up the organisational structure thus will be among the most important tasks. When granting the support the OSI board “applauded the design” of Journalismfund.eu and “believes it will have impact.” The Open Society Institute is a part of the Soros Foundations philanthropies.
As to the next steps for Journalismfund.eu it is the aim of the parent organisation, the Belgian Pascal Decroos Fund, to let this Europe orientated support structure develop into an independent organisation with a focus on European journalism and democratic scrutiny as soon as it is on economically sound ground.
The project Wobbing in Europe – another project by the Pascal Decroos Fund - has been included in the funding by OSI. A part of the OSI grant will be used to further Wobbing.eu in being the meeting place for practicioners, who wish to use freedom of information legislation in Europe. The task now is to get even better at filling its particular niche and to build a good cooperation with other wob-actors in Europe.
If you want to be informed about the upcoming rounds of application for journalistic research grants, do sign up for the newsletter on the Journalismfund.eu website.
The support from the Open Society Institute follows up seed funding granted by the Norwegian freedom of expression fund Fritt Ord. The € 50.000 from Fritt Ord were granted as of October 1st 2008 via the Network of European Foundations.
The Fritt Ord seed funding is used for the first round of pilot projects, where five teams of journalists currently are researching their stories, to establish the practical functioning of Journalismfund.eu with a jury and an advisory board firmly rooted in the investigative journalism community. Other parts of the grant are used for further fundraising.