KEY NUMBERS

925 v. 300

Journalism-focused philanthropy in the US has nearly quadrupled since 2009, when just under 300 funders made $69 million in grants to just over 300 recipient organisations. By 2017, more than 1,200 funders made over $255 million in journalism grants to 925 organisations. Media Impact Funders

200

Today, the US has more than 200 non profit newsrooms and growth is accelerating. Institute for Non-profit News-INN

$1m

More than 50% of the non-profit US media organisations generated revenues of $500,000 or more in fiscal year 2017 and well over a third generated $1 million or more. INN

€315,000

In 2018, ECPMF became the EU's intermediary to provide grants totalling €315,000 for crossborder investigative journalism (IJ4U) — a rare case in which teams of journalists could get their hands on EU money for actual reporting. European Journalism Centre

8

The European Centre for Journalism recently funded eight news organisations across six European countries. European Journalism Centre

€497b

There are more than 146,000 “public benefit” foundations in Europe. They have accumulated assets of at least €497b, and an estimated annual expenditure of €51b. A tiny fraction of European foundation funding goes to core support for journalism, especially in comparison to the US. Yet all of those foundations rely on the enabling environment a robust media provides in order to deliver their programmes. Adam Thomas, director of the European Journalism Centre

90%

The US non-profit media field is still highly reliant on charitable giving, with grants and donations accounting for 90% of total revenue. Efforts to diversify revenue streams, a key indicator of financial stability, are evident: More than half of media non-profits have three or more revenue streams, and one-third have four or more. INN

70%

Still, individual donors and particularly major donors are relatively undeveloped revenue sources for news non-profits, making up one-third of total revenue for the organisations in the INN Index. By comparison, individual donors provide more than 70% of revenue for all non-profits across the US, according to Giving USA. INN

40%

In the US, three national news organisations — ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Investigative Reporting — took in US$185.4m, or 40% of funds for media nonprofits. Bill Birnbauer, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University on The conversation.com

$423m

The 20 largest US non-profit media operations amassed the vast majority of the funds: US$423.1 million. Birnbauer

2%

By contrast, the 20 least-funded non-profit organisations eked by on just US$8.6m over these five years — less than 2% of all money raised. Birnbauer

34,000

Even individual donors follow the big players: For example, the small US non-profit FairWarning had 200 individual donors; by contrast, one of the largest non-profits, ProPublica, received almost US$7 million from 34,000 donors. Richard Tofel, ProPublica’s president, speaking to The Conversation

2,200

The 180 members of the Institute for Nonprofit News have a total staff of about 3,000 — including nearly 2,200 journalists — and combined annual revenue approaching $350 million. Institute for Nonprofit News INN