Nishant Lalwani from the International Fund for Public Interest Media on where media funding is going

We're putting together some of the best sessions from Splice Beta 2022. This episode features Nishant Lalwani, the CEO of the International Fund for Public Interest Media, which exists to enable media to work for democracy. Nishant spoke to why the fund was necessary now, and discussed the gaps between the funding that journalism needs — and what has so far been available.

Connect with Nishant on LinkedIn

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The transcript

You're listening to a recorded session from Splice Beta 2022. in Chiang Mai We've edited this, but only slightly.

[00:00:12] Alan: Hey, this is Alan from Splice. You're listening to session with Nishant Lalwani, the CEO of the International Fund for Public Interest Media, on what he wants to see in a great grant application.

[00:00:28] Nishant: I'm CEO of the International Fund for Public Interest Media. Some people struggle with my name, Nishant Lalwani. You can call me Nish. Everyone struggles with the International Fund for Public Interest Media . I just wanna address the elephant in the room, which is our, our name. You call it IFPIM for short. When we were starting to work on the concept for the International Fund of Public Interest Media about four or five years ago.

We had this idea that we needed a global fund for journalism and supported by government, corporate, and philanthropy in order to radically increase the amount of money to come in to support independent media organisations like the ones in the stream. And we thought, you know, we'll it's not a good name, but let's just say what it does on the tin, and then later we'll figure out a better.

You know, we are so far from getting any money and you know, actually getting us off the ground. And then in December of last year, signed for democracy. President Biden and President Macron and Prime Minister Arne minister Audrey Tan of Taiwan, the PR Korean prime Minister, all publicly used our name when announcing support and so now we're stuck with it.

So that's why we're called the International Fund for Public Interest Media, but it is a name that we've grown to be proud of because we think that it represents fi the high level financial and political momentum that we've been able to get for the cause of independent media. We think that it represents a community with momentum of those who want to address the problems we're facing in the space.

And we also hope that it is a genuinely global approach to tackling the issues in our sector, not just a global north approach, but a genuinely global approach to tackling the issues in our sector. And I'll talk a bit more about what we're trying to do if pi, it is a new multilateral and independent fund to support trustworthy journalism.

To enable those who want to support journalism to reduce both the political costs and transaction costs of doing so. I don't think that Taiwan have done very much international media funding, for example. They are a contributor to our fund. We want to become an organization that helps surface and share what works and ultimately help with the support of many others in this space.

Of course, to support journalism from a new paradigm. Within the next 10 years. That's a very ambitious goal. There are many people that will be working on this for a long time. We're not suggesting that we have the answers, but we, we are hoping that working together, that we can act quickly and at scale to, to make this happen.

So one of the ways in which we want to do this is to radically increase the amount of money available for independent media in Latin America, Africa Asia, and Eastern Europe. We're working in those regions. And our goal, which actually we share with other media development organisations like ims, inter News and DEU and others, is to try and increase the amount of foreign aid going to media to be 1% of all foreign aid.

Right now, it's no 0.3% which is about $500 million a year, US dollars. When you think about how important a democracy is to many of the countries who have large amounts of money, And deployed on foreign aid and how little gets spent on media nor 0.3% is extraordinarily low. You know, many large governments and politicians and corporates are concerned about misinformation.

They're concerned about the eroding for the state. They're concerned about the impact that it's having on all of our democracies and societies, and yet one, so 1% doesn't feel like an unattainable goal. That would be an extra billion dollars every year going into this space. And while we understand that money is not the only thing, it's not sufficient to solve this problem, we do think it's necessary to solve this problem.

In terms of objectives for today, I'm gonna be super quick tell you a bit about if mainly because we are really new and most people haven't heard of us yet. I'm then gonna talk a little bit as the title of the session indicates on what we think is important when it comes to funding. But then I'd actually like to leave most of the time open for a discussion.

To understand your feedback on what we're trying to achieve, whether what we're missing, whether we can make our grant processes and criteria more relevant to you, and addressing real needs in your context. My main objective is not to tell you what a good grant application looks, looks like, but actually to hear from you what it should look like.

Our board chairs, the chairs of our, our management board are Maria Ressa, who I don't think needs an introduction in this room. And also Mark Thompson, who's the former CEO of the New York Times E of Usal Digital Transformation, and also the former director general of the BBC. For many years, they have said that without access to trustworthy, independent news, populations are left in the dark.

Governments for corrupt and democratic institutions soon become a sham. I know you don't need to hear this, but I'm telling you this because. This is the rationale I think, which has most resonated with some of the governments that we've been talking to about funding and with some of the other philanthropies and organisations, they are most concerned about the impact on democracy.

I think that's what's changed from maybe five or 10 years ago when it comes to the, the funding environment for media. We are also fundraising, as I mentioned, from from corporate to philanthropy, and I'll talk a little bit about who those funders are, but we think it needs a real cross-sector solution here in order for us to make a meaningful dent on this problem.

And we managed to get some political support over the years. John Kufuor, who's the former president Ghana, wrote the foreword to our initial feasibility study. He's been a huge advocate. The UN Secretary General last year called on all UN member states to contribute to what he called the vital endeavor.

I've talked a bit about president Biden. We were sort a marquee initiative he called it at at the Summit of Democracy last year. The next summit was planned for 2023, and that's actually where we hope to launch IFPIM begin our grant making. We'll be at the Paris Peace Forum with Emmanuel Macron next week, at the end of next week in Paris.

And they've they've also promised support a few of our other funders. I'm sure you'll recognize these as a mix of old, new funders in media, but. Aside from USA New Zealand est, Australian Taiwanese, Swiss Swedish government, we also have Illuminate the MacArthur Foundation, Google, Microsoft and also the full foundation who announced a commitment of $5 million last year.

In, in all of these instances, we have asked for new allocations for funding. We want to try and be additive in this space. USA made it very clear that this is in addition, their existing funding in media. The Ford found. I tend not to do any international journalism funding. The only focus in the us and so then giving us money is essentially new funding for journalism outside the US and we hope the same is true for many of the organisations on that list.

In terms of where we are in our development, we're still very early. We've been working on this idea for a number of years. I first spoke about if PIM in 2019 at the Global Media Freedom Conference with Sonny Swe, who's here in Chiang Mai this week. I'm Maria as well, Maria Ressa among others. We did a panel back then testing the idea of the fund that was pre COVID many, many years ago.

But during the pandemic we had a lot of consultation. We had an advisory group with people from all over the world who were providing us advice on how to change things, how best to do things, massive thanks to Alan. Actually, Alan Soon, who was on our advisory group at that time. , we raised a small amount of money there, one and a half million.

And that we went to existing media funders like Luminate and MacArthur because they understood the need. But then all the money we've raised, sent through, tried to ensure is money from those who don't support Genderism internationally or, or allocating new money to do so. And our goal is to launch if PIM in quarter one of next year be by March or maybe April at the latest.

And we hope to raise $60 million by that point. And that's not a lot of money in the big scheme of things. But it does allow us a couple of years of runway to be able to showcase what we think a genuinely independent multilateral approach to funding media looks like in the, in the con, in the context I mentioned.

If that works, then we hope to help get to that much larger amount. The 1% of ada, not all of that needs to come by IFPIM. We hope it goes by many different organisations, but that would be the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars that we think are actually required to make a dent on this problem.

In terms of what we'll be doing we'll be doing direct grant making to media organisations. We'll be looking to do shared ventures with developed media development organisations. We're not trying to replace or disrupt existing organisations. We're trying to add to them. That's why we're sponsoring Splice this week because we think Alan and Rishad and what they're doing is fantastic, as is the rest of the team.

And we want to be able to support organisations like this one who are, who are actively working. Our media development to, to, to expand that, we wanna be able to provide the kind of support that media organisations need around sustainability, organizational development, and so on. And we want policy and research partnerships to take place so that we can for example, we've been talking to the government of Sierra Leone, among others, about national funds for journalism, what they might look like, how they might be governed, how they might be funded.

And so we want to go beyond the support of media organisations directly, but actually look at systemic solutions that can help. They can help really move this, this space forward. I won't talk about all of our values, but the top one in the middle there is especially important to us, which is that we are interested in ensuring that the decisions we make as a fund about who to support and how to support them are truly led by the the needs in the local context.

Alan, this morning was talking about how you listen. You really need to listen to your audience and really deeply understand their need. And we believe that's absolutely true and we, you know, our audience is at largely media, independent media organisations, and we want to truly invest in understanding the needs that are out there.

And that starts, I think, with hiring people with lived experience from the regions in which we're working. So we're hiring at the moment for a regional director of the South and Southeast Asia. If you know any good candidates, please let me know. They will be responsible for deploying IF'S budget.

Choosing which countries are best to operate in, and we're looking across the region, so it doesn't matter where people are located. So come and find me if you know a good candidate or even if you're interested. We also wanna ensure that we are supporting organisations in a way that doesn't constrain or limit their growth.

So we are providing core funding in so far as we can in every grant that we do. We'll be looking to provide as unrestricted funding as. We did a small open call. Proposals were ready, which launched on will Press Freedom Day on May 3rd this year. And we did that because we are new and we are also a startup like many of the organisations in this room.

And we need to learn about how to grant, make, and work with partners effectively.

Until two months ago, I led the independent media grant making globally at Illuminate, which is a philanthropy funded by the Omidyar Group. So I've been doing this for a few years. We've, we, we have people from BBC Media Action on the team. We have people from interviews on the team. So we have some expertise from different organisations who've done this for a while.

But we do want to try and be the best organization we can be. And part of that is learning by doing so, we had a small amount of money we already received this year, just a few million dollars. and we did an open corporate proposal in these 17 countries, these countries are not indicative of where we'll be working, working in the future.

I should say that we chose these countries because we wanted to learn. And of course, the challenges you face in Nepal are completely different from those being faced in either Malaysia or Afghanistan. And so by working in, in quite different countries in this first open call, We feel that we can start to learn about whether our criteria genuinely applies across different countries.

What else we need to learn in order to, to launch successfully next year? Because we'll only start grant making really when, when we launch in March or April. Once we've raised, you know, our initial capital, I know some of the organisations in the room apply for this funding. We have to get back to you very quickly if we haven't already.

We are a very small team at the moment with just a few permanent staff. We are trying to, trying to get the funds out as quickly as possible and promise the data with most of these organisations in the next couple of months. So what makes a great grant application? There's lots of assumptions one can make here, but we decided to start by actually trying to gather as much data on this as possible.

And as I mentioned earlier, I'd like to use this session as well to try and gather data on what you all think is the right way to approach the problem. If you were in my shoes, it's obvious that we're facing a crisis when it comes to financial support. The media. And I know you all have felt this much more acutely than I have, but if you look at the data and this is the data that's resonated again as we've been been fundraising.

This is from the Journalism, the Pandemic Project done by ICF J. 80% of media organisations. Out of the 1400 they surveyed from 125 different countries. 80% were in critical need of emergency support for operational cost. 40% of those organisations have lost more than half of their revenue, which I find astonishing that they, that many of them are still are keeping afloat.

And if you look at global newspaper revenues in 20, 20, 30 billion US dollars were lost to global newspaper revenues. When, when we started working on this, trying to raise a billion dollars, you're crazy. And I said, well, a billion dollars isn't enough because 30 billion were lost. Only in one year. The newspaper revenues, and you all know what's been happening over the last 20 years, and losses have been actually far, far greater than that.

So clearly we need to address the financial needs in the market. We also did a survey with the Global Forum for Media Development and try to understand what the needs were there, but that, that survey I can send to you. You know, there's, there's a lot of interesting data there. Too much to go through to today, but it was 173 respondents in GF MD countries.

Emergency call report was a, was a key need. Two year funding at a minimum was also a request. A lot of part, organisations were actually requesting partnership with it around learning or support. We're not really in a position to do that yet, but we hope to be because this need has been identified. We also asked about how we should choose organisations to support.

80% of respondents said that editorial independence, professional standards are actually an important way of doing that. And so we're pilot. A partnership with the Agendas and Trust initiative, which is an initiative of reports of our borders to try and figure out certify organisations when it comes to these standards as well.

So this is what the data we gathered in terms of the surveys that we've done, the data that others have done, like ICF J, we also have have noticed that a couple of problems other than the huge financial problems, there's a couple of other problems that are common across Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe.

The first. Is exclusion in newsrooms, in sources, subjects and staff. And globally, only 25% of sources and subjects are women i'll acknowledged by the way, that when we talk about exclusion, we're not only talking about women, but I'm just using some of the data here to show one angle of that, which is which is gender diversity.

Women are clearly underrepresented in newsrooms across all of those, not just across those countries, but in the US and Europe as well, of course. ICF J'S work and Julie Posetti's work showed that journalists were increasingly at risk during the pandemic, and that they felt the impact of the pandemic more heavily as well, both financially and in terms of safety.

So just coming from a session on gender, I know that I'm not alone in thinking that this should be a priority for our fund, and it will be in terms of how we think about evaluating applicants for funding. And so we'll be looking to ensure that those we, we do grants to have diverse newsrooms for. And have newsrooms that are representative of the audiences that they're hoping to serve.

The second thing that's clearly in common is the lack of trust and engagement that young people have with news across the countries I mentioned across the continents I mentioned. So in many of the countries in which we're looking to work, the number of young people numbers more than half of the population.

It's a huge problem, not just for media, but for democracy. if young people are not engaging in informed public debate in the way that, that we hope they will. And so innovation in both thought and process that can develop new approach, new products and new approaches, new ways of storytelling. And I know this community's thinking about that a lot.

I've been learning a lot already this morning. So these are two of the problems around tackling that exclusion, incentivizing inclusion, and also reshaping the news for youth. These are two of the problems that we'll be prioritizing at fpm. They're not the only things, but I wanted to give you a flavor of how our strategy is developing.

I think in, in terms of my prior experience in doing media grant making, illuminate and other places, the things that I, I keep coming back to in terms of what make a great grant application. Firstly, defining your audience. If you're gonna do, as Alan Soon says, and you're gonna really pay attention to their needs, you need to know who they are first and define.

Tightly and really understand who they are, where they're coming from and how you're serving them. Secondly, explain in the grant application how you're meeting the real felt needs of those audience. Not necessarily your needs as a journalist, which is to be heard on the issues you care about, but on the felt needs of your audience.

And thirdly, I think we'll all acknowledge that innovation is needed in this space. We are in a place where we need to redefine the way journalism is done. Where public interest media exists, where media more broadly exists. And so I'm not saying that every application should have a magical silver bullet solution for sustainability.

I probably won't believe you if you have one, because many people of the last two decades have tried that . Of course, we want, everyone wants to be thinking about how they're less reliant on, on funders like us and other philanthropy organisations as well. We do need to be thinking about what, how we move forward.

But that innovation could be about not just about business models. It could be about how you diversify your audiences. It could be about how you engage young people, how you set up the conversation so that they, they feel excited to engage. But just talking to Laura from Mutante, and, they're doing an amazing job of that in Colombia, for example, truly innovative work on, on social convers.

So how do you, how do you move the needle, whatever needle it is that you want to move and you think is most important to move how you do that?

Okay, so I can think for 20 minutes. I think that leave about about 25. I'm very happy to take questions and if you want me to clarify anything else about IFPIM, I can do that. But I would also really love your feedback on what you think we are missing. When it comes to the way we're thinking about our strategy, we have a number of months before we, we launch and start grant making an earnest.

And so we have time to adapt, we have time to change what I've presented, so I would love your input on that. How can we make applications better for you? For example, we started with an open call for proposals in parts so we could gauge what the pipeline looks like and how people would respond, whether they were aware.

We actually got very few from. The Asian countries I listed there, it was by far and away the least represented of all the regions in our open core. Got a huge number from Ukraine and Georgia, by the way. A lot from Latin America. Very, very few from Asia. So what do we do wrong? How can we, how can we be better at that?

Do you prefer open core format that many organisations. do you prefer trying to get through to an individual at the organization and which is they have pros and cons? I would love to hear good experiences that you've had with other funders. And what advice do you have, do you have, as we prepare for launch at next year?

How should we be thinking about the problems we're trying to address?

Hi,

[00:21:09] Audience question: my name is Tria. I'm technically a media consultant right now. I just love my last job at tech companies. So my question this based on what I notice on eight five application, which. I looked at previously was that I realized that a lot of people don't know how to write grant applications.

Mm-hmm. . So I think it'll be good to teach people how to write proper and good solid applications. That's one. Secondly is the language barrier in AI especially. Yeah. We get a lot of people who are interested in applying for brands from like countries that are not native English speakers. Indonesia say Thailand.

And so then what I notice is that they don't know how to write group application because most of these. . So I guess they are, they're subject applications in English. They don't have anyone to review applications in foreign language. So I think that's another barrier. Yeah.

[00:21:57] Nishant: Yeah. Thank you very much.

That's good feedback. I think this session is being recorded, so I just take notes, but I am listening and we, I'll listen back to this so I don't lose these insights. Yeah, I completely agree with you. Our open call, we translated into seven languages. It did slow things down when we had to review them because everything had to be translated back.

Not all, all of our languages are covered by staff. But I think it's incredibly important if we get to, to get to beyond usual suspects that we can, we can do that. Thank you.

[00:22:30] Audience question: Hello, I'm Jenny from Mexico, so we, we actually filled in the application. We didn't get through the second round, but we'll try again. . Thank you. I think what I think the application is very clear. I think it's best if it's a map, a public call. Okay. Because letters and the invitation, I mean the other methods of finding, you know, doors that don't exist.

Alright. Maybe, I know it must be really difficult, but I wonder there's any way to have some feedback. I know there must be sort of general formats think you cannot respond to everybody like a tailored response, but I wonder if there's any way. You can give feedback as to what, what aspects of the application may be failed or could be improved.

[00:23:12] Nishant: Yeah. Thank you. We have heard that from others and I certainly had that feedback illuminate as well. When we launched the open call, we had five staff full time reading several hundred applications, so I, it was difficult, but, but I think it's the right thing to aspire to and I'll try and find a way of doing that in a way that's a way that's useful.

[00:23:30] Audience question: Hi Nishant. This is Shek. I work with Google the news initiative. So we do a lot of work around funding mechanisms as well. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how are you thinking about success in terms of departments that you get selected or publishers that get selected. What are the metrics for success?

And a second part question part. Something that we are grappling with as well. A lot of the feedback from publishers who do fund is the last mile execution of. The funding itself, which is just how are you thinking and supporting them through implementation of its tech in nature or just strategy is how do you make sure that every dollar is spent and actually benefiting the organization.

[00:24:08] Nishant: Yeah. Thank you. So in terms of success, I think it depends on the type of media organization. So if we are thinking about three different types of possible grantees, right? The first are news. And so, and then the second I'll go through them, the second. Intermediaries who are trying to support ecosystem, I would say like splices.

And then the third are maybe national, regional initiatives, potentially policy initiatives like the National Fund for Genderism I mentioned earlier. Right. So success looks pretty different for those three. Right? Starting with media organisations, I think what I was saying earlier about, about innovation and about truly serving the needs of your audience, finding it tightly and serving those.

I think is really, really the key. And again, it could be innovation financially or when it comes to the way you think about staffing or engaging your audience. In all the innovation around membership models, for example, I think covers that kind of innovation when it comes to those developing the ecosystem, you know, they often have specific sort of needs in whether it's about funding or it's about bringing communities together like this.

So we would judge that on a case by case. So I am a, I am a firm believer in unrestricted core funding. To organisations because I think that the leaders of those organisations are often better placed to determine what they need the money for than we are. Now there's a whole process to determine whether what they're doing is we think is worthy of the limited funds that we have.

But if we do, I don't believe that we should be micromanaging. You know how that's. I think if we can, we should be providing an avenue for shared resources. We've had a lot of requests for shared publishing platforms and other tech resources that potentially different media organisations have been developing individually, and that's obviously not the best economy of scale to do that.

So if we are hearing voices, the same voice, the same needs from different voices, then we, we would consider building interventions or funding others to build interventions. But otherwise, I think we, we want to be able to defer to load those leading the organisations to do, to do what they think is needed.

[00:26:11] Audience question: Thanks. Yeah. I'm Lars from international media support. I last so a question regarding fp Yeah. If that's okay. Yeah. I'm wondering if, when, when you speak about inclusion, have, if been given consideration to local media, I think we, this crowd is a very sophisticated crowd of media. They have a lot of knowledge also on think on access and fronts.

I think more can be done, but the real need is really local level media, thousands of them. It's also very difficult to develop a spread for supporting local media financially because of the numerous outlets there are. But any have, if you consider this aspect of of financial leader support. . And how are you defining local?

Is it anything that's not national or regional? Well, I would say not capital based mostly. Mm-hmm. based in provincial district level in many cases ethnically defines yeah, yeah. And serving a rural audience. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think it's a very, very good question. And it's one that I think depends.

[00:27:17] Nishant: What approach we take when it comes to our, our funding strategy, right? Do you fund organisations that really, really, really need the money? Or do you fund organisations that are likely to survive with your money and with others, or they're doing work that's easily let's say elevated to international stories?

So their impact is more easily seen, and I think it should be a mix. I hope we're finalizing our first round of grantees. Now. There'll be about. About 10. And I hope we are planning a, a, a local media organization in Latin America. I don't wanna be too specific because we need to talk to them first.

But it's been part of our thinking today. I think the major barrier there is the amount of money that we're able to raise. If we're able to raise enough money, then I think we can do a lot more when it comes to local media. I have to be honest, you know, with the war and the recession, fundraising has not been easy.

It was easier last year than it is this year, and I'm not, those are very understandable reasons. But we hope that we can, we can, we can make enough significant gain from the fundraising fund that we can support more local media.

[00:28:19] Audience question: Hello? My name is, and I come from Pakistan. I'm a journalist. My question is about that.

What is public interest media? What is the criteria if, if you have made it? Because, you know, you see that, you know, it is sort of a buzzword. A lot of leaders are talking about public interest media. So, and we know that legacy media, which is a corporate media, often sidelined with governments by. So the public English media stands for people, right?

So is there a way, I mean, what is the criteria? But, you know, and how to make them sustainable if, if, if they are your clients in, in a way. Yeah. Thank you.

[00:29:09] Nishant: I think you're absolutely right that public interest media is about what is the media that serves the needs of the publics in the different countries we're talking about.

Or locales. We, we, we wrote a feasibility study which we published online. It's long, it's about 40,000 words, but it does have a full definition of what we consider to be public interest media. And, and look it central to that definition is informing Publix with the information, accurate information they, they need to make decisions in their lives.

Whether those decisions about alpha education or how to vote. Or what's happening in, in their, in their context. So I would refer you to that. We have a full definition there when it comes to how to make organisations sustainable. We don't have the answer to that yet. I don't, I dunno, that anyone does in the media development space.

But what we're hoping is that through this journey we can, we can work together and continue to find innovation, but also systemic solutions. I think one thing that's important to note is that, Yes, in the.com boom, platforms arose and started taking a great deal of advertising revenue from journalism, from other from other platform, from other sectors as well.

But this crisis in journalism has not been directly caused by journalists. Journalists did not take radical actions to undermine their own sector. The world changed. And so anyone who looks for solutions to journalism from purely from within the journalism sector is not looking widely enough because we're not, we were the ones who started this problem and ha we can't solve it by ourselves either.

And so it's really, really important for us to keep innovating and keep looking for more inclusive and engaged ways of, of, of growing. But there'll need to be changes. There'll only be policy and regulatory changes outside the sector as well, or peripheral to the sector if we are going to genuinely reach a new paradigm.

Yes. Got one mate, go.

[00:31:12] Audience question: Hello, from Red Cross India. My question is you know, funding normally goes inside of, in order to get some consideration for funding. Next year, we have to apply this year. . But when the crisis comes, it hits you right hard, like in the moment. And I've seen that if we, if you can secure funding at a certain level, then you could potentially overcome the crisis, whereas I've seen media going into extension because of untimely kind of funding.

So do you have any kind of solution for that?

[00:31:44] Nishant: Well, I mean, I think the first, the first solution is to increase the amount of funding. I think the reason why. It takes organisations a while and why certain organisations don't get money is because there are very, very few organisations providing media funding support you know, globally especially outside the US and Europe.

And so I think increasing the amount of funds, I hope can also increase, reduce the trade-offs which have to be made in terms of those organisations. In terms of the speed of funding, we're looking at different solutions there. . We have, we, we are, we're likely to, to have a rapid response fund within FIP that's designed we haven't designed the criteria yet, but the, the objective of that fund is to seek to respond to emergency situations where fund a large amount of funding are needed quickly.

I think actually Ukraine and the recent situation is maybe one example of that, but I understand that there's also organisations in countries where there are such macroeconomic factors and it's more about. The economics at a local level. So that's one of the ways we should, we're trying to address that.

[00:32:42] Audience question: Hi Alex from uh, meta hi. You, you kind of set up some of the, kind of the key areas around grant applications innovation building audiences, et cetera, et cetera. Do you also think about the mentorship, the training, the programs that are needed for organisations? To make the most outta that funding and to feel kind of sustainable journey for

[00:33:07] Nishant: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really vital part of the ecosystem. And it's something that we, you know, we are looking at who's delivering that and who and what, what do we need to do that's actually additive. I know my colleagues from IMS here do a lot of really important work. BBC Media Action interviews and others do a lot around media training, media support, and I meta, I do it as well as,

So we need to think about where is, is it, is it a capacity issue? Is it an expertise issue? It's certainly something that we want to build in over time, but we're trying to see if there's a specific area in which we think we can provide more more support. So for example in many of the more conversations we've been having around our core funding, but we've explained why diversity in newsrooms is so important.

A lot of people have asked us, how do we define diversity? and what does it mean to you and what target should be set, that kind of thing. Now I don't actually, I don't really believe in diversity targets per se, but I do think that the conversation around, okay, which audience are you trying to represent?

How does your newsroom reflect that? And that kind of conversation with grantees, that's ly actually quite productive. And so maybe that's an area I'm not being, I hope I'm not being presumptuous, but maybe that's an area where we could do something that is less focused on. Than, than in some other areas.

So yeah, I would, I would love advice from the group also on what the most acute needs are and, you know, where, where we should spend our resources when it comes to technical assistance or even support or whatever you'd like to put.

[00:34:30] Audience question: Hi Julio from Emmanuel, Italy. And yeah, if we're talking about what's missing in 10 years that we've been existing as an independent investing, the outlet.

Southern Europe is never on the list of anything. And, and if you look at the reporters, San Frontier have freedom of information index. Italy and Greece are far below many countries in Eastern Europe and in Africa as well. And the media funding landscape is hysterical. Concentration of power promising with politics is making it extremely hard for us, and yet it's extremely difficult to interest any funders.

in in our corner of the world, which is not really a far away corner yet. It's a blind angle in terms of funding very often. So you know, I, I understand that this might not be the most interested audience in this in this part of the world, but it's, it's true that Southern Europe never exists in this, and yet the media landscape, the, the market, the funding is completely different than from larger Europe.

It's really different continent from. . So yeah, how can we join in

[00:35:39] Nishant: I wish I had an answer to that. I got the same question in Perusia in April, UNSU, surprisingly. And, and I think you're right. I think I think it, it's very, very difficult and, you know illuminate made the decision to leave our funding in Europe and the US recently, and the most, the strongest feedback we got was from.

Southern Europe and Western Europe? Both because there is a scarcity of media funding. Some of the funders that we are targeting are EU members, and it's, it's, it's not really possible that for them to fund from the aid budgets funded in the eu. So there's tech technically it's also difficult as well as, as well as strategic groups.

So but yeah, if I, if I come across or if I can, if I can be of service and convincing other funders, then I'll, I'll, I'll do my best. Yeah. So for the intermediaries that one of the sectors that you guys can support the, the work that we do to help media organisations are usually the same kinds of things that we do to help civil society as well.

So when they're funding an intermediary, what you also consider the support and impact that we're having on civil society, which then also can can go hand in hand with media, especially in issues of supporting democracy and things like that. Or is it just gonna be just like the impact you have on people.

Yeah, I mean, I think we have to think about that carefully. The, we already have quite quite a broad mandate, certainly geograph. Geographically, our mandate is very broad. And with our commitment of supporting media organisations and intermediaries and looking at national, regional levels, systemic solutions, that that's a lot of ask.

And we don't, we don't currently know how much resourcing we'll have to do that. So I think primarily we'll be looking for impact on media. But I, I, I really, I agree with your premise, which is that some of, many of the needs facing media organisations such as expanding their business development organizational development teams raising money, and, you know, professionalizing, hr, those are not specific only to media.

And so I hope we, we can work with that aren't only related to do that.

[00:37:40] Audience question: I'm Lucy, I'm from the Bureau of Investigative Journal, London and we are just following on from your point, have or are losing Illuminate funding. So couple of I suppose points or areas of interest is one is how you as a CEO of a really fund decide geographically what your strategy is because I'm new to the funding world of Xvc and it feels like the funding is moving away, certainly from the uk or maybe would we just need to think differently.

And secondly, I suppose what your advice would be to those organisations who. , I think that's showed or demonstrated good strategic growth excellence in the field, expertise and also, you know, investing journalism has then been more valuable, especially in the UK if you look for what's happening to UK politics and across Europe as well.

So it's sort of, it's trying to navigate a world where actually it's vital and it globally.

[00:38:40] Nishant: Yeah. I mean, I, I couldn't agree with you more when it comes to the, the problem statement. I think we've lost about 215 news titles in the UK in the last 14 years which is astonishing. And you know, the funding, the small government funds like Nesta Fund in the uk, that what journalism are tiny.

I think it's just a couple of million dollars. And so, a huge fan of the Bureau and the, the really important work that you, that you do. But all I can say is that some of the factors that are affecting Genderism revenue, they're much, are much more severe in countries where, which are, which don't have national government support and also have much lower CPM rates in advertising, you know.

And so if you look at the journalism and the Pandemic project work, the most acute revenue losses and need. Were felt in lower and middle income countries. And so, you know, for Italy with the UK I'm not denying that the needs are, are huge and, and having a massive impact on those countries. But unfortunately with our mandate, we've had to focus down on where we feel the revenue losses have been most acute.

Hi. Hi

[00:39:46] Audience question: I'm Bassim from Sowt Podcasting. . I work with the business development team and we apply for a lot of grants. We received a lot of grants. I can perhaps offer a feedback in recommendation regards being the process. Yes. So first of all, I don't think you should either decide to do like an open call or a directly approach.

You. . It depends on where you want to work. I think mood works, which is fine. Regarding the, the, the process, I think an element of interacting with the team can compliment all the paperwork and applications. We filled out a lot of applications. However, it's important to meet the donors face to face, you know, schedule a zoom call, meet the team, not or the director or the business development manager.

Because the actual team that's doing work on the ground are the ones that are able to tell the story much better. We have had very long standing working relationship with beautiful donors and most of them are the flexible ones, the ones that really care about maintaining a relationship rather than just large sums of money on organisations and they want to see a return on investment.

And that's it. It goes beyond that for us and for the donors. So we have a very long term relationship with many boomers around the room and, you know, we love them. They like the work that we do. It's very flexible in nature. Sometimes they have an open call for core support. Sometimes they just, you know, we reach out to them, tell them we need money.

So this has been really great.

[00:41:14] Nishant: Yeah. Thank you. That's good advice. And I really like that suggestion. . I, I noticed we are at time. So I want to thank you all for, for being here. I'm sorry to say many of you had to stand. I appreciate you, you being here and listening and offering your advice. Also a request from me, which is that we are fundraising hard at the moment.

I know this is not the right route to fundraise from. But but certainly if you think that if it is needed then do voice your support for us because we want to ensure that. The donors we're fundraising from. Understand why what we're doing is important, why it's needed. So we'd appreciate your voicing support if you believe in the work we're trying to do.

I've heard lots of really interesting things today about what you'd like us to focus on and the importance of providing sort support beyond money, the importance of flexible funding and thinking carefully through where we work. So I'll take those notes back to the team. Thank you so much.

You've been listening to a session recording from Splice Beta 2022. Let us know what you think. You'll find us at splicemedia.com. This is a Splice podcast produced by Norman Chella at Podchaser, we'd like to thank our sponsors, Google International Fund for Public Interest Media International Media Support, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Luminate, Media Development Investment Fund, Meta, and Telum Media.