TMU Journalism professor authors guide to philanthropic support for Canadian media
A guide aimed at helping Canadian media outlets with the resources they need to create meaningful connections with philanthropic donors was released by the Inspirit Foundation. Journalism professor April Lingren is one of the three co-authors of the guide.
Lindgren’s years of experiencing funding challenges in local newsrooms motivated her to look at best practices for philanthropic funding for journalists.
“I wanted to do something that pointed to a way forward, offered a way forward for news organizations,” she said.
The (PDF file) Funding Journalism: A Guide to Philanthropic Support for Canadian Media (external link) is the final installment in a series created to help bridge the gap between philanthropy and journalism in Canada.
“We really hope that these two guides will make the philanthropic option a little more manageable – it’ll demystify the philanthropic option,” said Lindgren.
The guidebook includes important information for journalism organizations on how to determine whether their publication is a good fit for philanthropic support, how to find the right donors and how to measure the impact of their work.
Rather than just highlight the financial challenges Canadian media faces, the guide emphasizes the need for better funding models, while providing actionable steps for newsrooms to achieve success.
It closes with a multi-step checklist – a culmination of the booklet’s content – to make it easier for the relevant stakeholders to follow and implement with a degree of effectiveness.
“We’ve been getting really great feedback from both funders and journalists for both of the guides that we’ve produced,” Lindgren said.
Though the guide maintains optimism towards “journalism philanthropy” – what it calls the philanthropic support for journalism – it still recognizes there is a long way to go before the Canadian journalism industry can thrive financially. The Canadian journalism landscape is facing a “financial crisis (external link) ” that newsrooms are struggling to adequately deal with.
“There’s no single silver bullet that’s going to solve the revenue problems of news organizations,” Lindgren said.
Instead, as the guide says: “The erosion of advertising revenue, combined with the public’s reluctance to pay for news, means multiple revenue sources are now a necessity.”
Lindgren also co-authored the (PDF file) second guide (external link) in the series, aimed at those interested in funding journalism. The recent guide was published in collaboration with the Canadian Association of Journalists and the Local News Research Project, for which Lindgren is the principal investigator.
“We really hope that these two guides will make at least the philanthropic option a little more manageable – it’ll demystify the philanthropic option,” Lindgren said.
