Fund for Investigative Journalism: Seed Funding (US)

Funding Information

• Grants are $1,000 to $2,500.
• Journalists who receive seed funding can apply for full grants (up to $10,000) once they conduct the preliminary reporting and secure a commitment from a media outlet to publish or broadcast the story.

Costs Covered

• The grants cover early reporting that can lead to full investigative projects. This includes, for example, open-records requests, initial reporting trips to identify and interview sources and the reporter’s time.

Eligibility Criteria

• Freelance journalists and those who are not in full-time staff roles at a media outlet are eligible to apply for seed funding.
• Seed funding must be used to obtain documents or information that could lead to a full investigative story. The journalist’s time can be one cost covered by the grant, but it should not be the only cost.
• Other criteria for seed funding mirrors the Fund’s criteria for full grants: stories must be investigative in nature (meaning they uncover wrongdoing that was previously hidden or unknown), and journalists must be U.S.-based or working on a story with a very strong U.S. angle.

Application Requirements

• Resume and two work samples.
• You can include a letter of recommendation from an editor, mentor or professor if you choose, but this is optional.
• A one-paragraph summary of your project. This should be able to stand alone as a very brief description of the preliminary reporting you plan to do and the investigation you think it could shape.
• A longer narrative of what the potential story is, why you think there’s a bigger story and what preliminary reporting you plan to conduct.
• Estimates of the preliminary reporting expenses that you need funding to carry out, with a rationale for how the estimates were calculated. This should be a detailed breakdown of costs (for example, specific locations of trips and costs of airfare, mileage, lodging etc., and/or a breakdown of your expected time to report the project and your hourly rate).
• A brief explanation of other reporting that has been done on this subject and how your project would advance the story.

For more information, visit Fund for Investigative Journalism.