Depending on when (and if) you studied journalism, there’s likely a lot you’re learning on the job as our industry changes/adjusts/flails/corrects, etc.
One of those necessary skills is grant writing.
Now hold on — this is true even if you’re in a for-profit newsroom. And it’s true even if you haven’t yet needed to use it.
A 2023 report on journalism and philanthropy from Media Impact Funders found a 59% increase in grant-making in the last five years.
If that feels like something in the “not my job” category, consider the pieces, which include finding a grant, writing a grant proposal, monitoring, evaluating and reporting on that grant.
At some point, if not today, you might need to get grant-fluent. I spoke with my colleague Alanna Dvorak about a new and free self-guided course she worked on called “Grant Writing for Journalists.”
The course was created with the Center for Sustainable Media and funding from Meta. And it’s for everyone — international, fact-checkers, local…
“It was really important for us to keep it broad so that it applies to all kinds of grants from all kinds of funders,” Dvorak said. “It’s very much for all journalists and frankly, even if you’re not a journalist, things like monitoring and evaluation are good for anyone.”
The self-guided course has modules that allow you to pick where you want to start learning. They include grant-writing strategy and the narrative elements you need for a proposal, monitoring and evaluation and budgeting with different templates.
“There’s not a wrong way to approach it,” Dvorak said.
The whole thing takes between six and eight hours to complete. And if you do so by Aug. 31, you’ll be entered into a contest with the chance to win $100. (You don’t even have to apply for a grant for that!)
Check out the course here.
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