Four foundations launch pooled fund to support independent Canadian journalism

Author Sharlene Gandhi

The Inspirit Foundation launched its inaugural Journalism Futures Fund, a pooled fund that will support small and medium-sized media organizations in Canada. 

Between two and seven successful applicants will receive three-year grants worth between $50,000 and $200,000 annually for organizational, project-based or capacity funding. 

The Fund will prioritize giving to applicants that have been one and ten team members, and an annual budget of less than $1 million. It will also focus on directing funding towards communities that are “underrepresented, misrepresented or overlooked in media.”

Led by the Inspirit Foundation, and currently in its pilot phase until 2029, the Journalism Futures Fund was co-created along with The Euphrosine Foundation, the McConnell Foundation, and the Sonor Foundation. 

The Inspirit Foundation will administer the fund – worth a total of $3.15 million – along with an advisory committee of professionals in the journalism and philanthropic spaces. 

This fund marks the latest in a string of investments and commitments made by the Inspirit Foundation to the Canadian journalism space: the foundation has also published guides for Canadian media looking to explore philanthropic grants, and for grantmakers that are interested in funding newsrooms. 

Canada’s media landscape has been faced with pressures from multiple angles: closures of local print media, cuts to CBC’s national service, and an ongoing blockage of news media on Meta’s social media platforms.

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  • Sharlene Gandhi is the Future of Good editorial fellow on digital transformation.

    Sharlene has been reporting on responsible business, environmental sustainability and technology in the UK and Canada since 2018. She has worked with various organizations during this time, including the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University, AIGA Eye on Design, Social Enterprise UK and Nature is a Human Right. Sharlene moved to Toronto in early 2023 to join the Future of Good team, where she has been reporting at the intersections of technology, data and social purpose work. Her reporting has spanned several subject areas, including AI policy, cybersecurity, ethical data collection, and technology partnerships between the private, public and third sectors.

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