Philanthropic organisations support journalism and media for an array of reasons, with protecting democracy and countering misinformation as key drivers.
Adapting questions used by Media Impact Funders with a group of US and European funders in 2024, our survey yielded very similar responses. Foundations support journalism and media in Europe for a range of reasons. In our sample, the most frequently cited motivation is “to protect journalism as a pillar of democracy”, which matches our finding that most funders in this sample also have democracy as one of their main focus areas.
One respondent mentioned “Our vision is that every citizen has access to the journalism that adheres to their needs and provides an essential contribution to their understanding of democracy and forming an opinion within it.”
This is followed by the motivation to counteract misinformation and to promote civic engagement. Less frequent is the motivation to raise awareness around a specific issue. This aligns with the findings of the Media Impact Funders study mentioned above, where the top 3 choices in our study are also more often cited than raising topical awareness.
In the written responses, funders emphasised journalism’s role as keeping power in check: “We fund journalism to improve governance standards, accountability, and the enforcement of policy and legislation.”
For the majority in our sample, journalism and media funding is one of their major focus areas, with 5 foundations citing it as their primary focus. A quarter of the funders in our sample see it as part of their advocacy strategy to advance other major focus areas.
Motivations for funding journalism
