This is the last in a series of excerpts from our new booklet “Journalism and Media Grant Making: Five Things You Need To Know, Five Ways To Get Started.” The booklet is available as a PDF.

Five Ways to Get Started: 5. Help create a public interest news organization

Public interest and investigative news is suffering with cutbacks in traditional media. There are fewer reporters available to cover state government or to conduct time-consuming investigations of potential wrongdoing. Community foundations are helping fill the void. The Community Foundation of New Jerseycreated NJ Spotlight, a website that covers state government, while The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County is helping the fledgling Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network stabilize and grow. “Investigative stories are the first to disappear when newsroom budgets tighten. This is because they are the most expensive type of story to produce. But they are also of the highest value to communities. We got involved in this project because one of the state’s best investigative reporters approached us with a great idea and we wanted to see it succeed.” – Josie Heath, President, The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County

These efforts can have a great deal of impact in the public policy arena.

NJ Spotlight, for example, launched in 2010. During its first week of operation, the site published a report revealing that a major power utility had failed for years to pay a state-mandated energy surcharge. In 2009 alone, Public Service Enterprise Group should have paid an estimated $47 million into the societal benefits charge fund, according to one estimate.

Another foundation-supported professional news site, California Watch, has created a distribution model that puts its investigative stories about state government in front of hundreds of thousands of readers and viewers across a variety of platforms and media outlets. Editor Mark Katches estimated that one 2010 story about large cuts in the number of school days in many districts reached 1.35 million people.

Remember, these new news organizations face the complex issue of maintaining traditional journalistic independence while simultaneously using their editorial, business and tech savvy to really engage a community. They employ professional journalism staffs and typically require annual budgets in the millions of dollars.

So these major projects won’t be for everyone. And that’s OK, too. Starting an entirely new news organization is not the only way to make a big impact. (Recently, for example, The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County targeted early education with a $184,000 awareness campaign that led to voter approval of $22.5 million in annual school funding, including a $5 million annual commitment to expanded preschool and kindergarten services.) Greater impact is out there to be had on the issues you care about, and journalism and media grants can help, if you are willing to jump in and learn as you go.

Previously:

Five things you need to know

1. This is everyone’s issue

2. You can build on what you’re already doing

3. You can start without a lot of money

4. Journalism requires independence

5. Digital media must be targeted to produce impact

Five Ways to Get Started

1. Map your community’s news ecosystem

2. Run a contest to find new voices

3. Grow your own digital literacy

4. Partner with a local news organization

The booklet is sponsored by the Knight Foundation and the William Penn Foundation. In addition to the PDF, a print version will be released at the Council on Foundations conference in April.

Has your foundation invested in news and information efforts? Do you have questions about media grant making? Please tell us about them in the comments.