Microgrants for Small Newsrooms - Grant Details

• This grant programme will be open to small- and medium-sized, local, and independent media outlets (companies registered as legal entities) in EU member states and participating countries in the Creative Europe Programme (Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine, Armenia, and Tunisia), with a particular emphasis on countries with a medium- or high-risk rating according to the Media Pluralism Monitor.
• The media outlets must be legal entities officially incorporated at least one year before the application deadline of the grant call.
• Media outlets should already have made journalistic content available to a general public at least one year before the application deadline of the grant call.
• The project should be clearly defined in time (the project implementation phase should be of 2 months, with the grant period starting approximately a month and a half after the application deadline).
• The grant request does not intend to finance the regular operations, but to support well-defined innovative projects that go beyond regular operation. This is an opportunity to develop prototypes of new products or services.
• The legal entities should have a turnover of less than 1.5M EUR and shouldn’t be part of a group or consortium with a consolidated turnover that exceeds an amount of 3M EUR.

The maximum amount per newsroom is €5,000.

Eligible costs for funding are,

Personnel, operating costs and depreciation on investments that meet the following cumulative conditions:

• directly attributable to the project
• arise during the project period and after the signing of the grant agreement with Journalismfund Europe
• necessary for carrying out the project
• effectively incurred by the grant beneficiary, identified and verifiable, in particular recorded in the grantee's accounts in accordance with the accounting standards applicable in the country where the beneficiary is established and with the grantee's usual cost accounting practices
• not funded by other donors or support programmes
• they must be reasonable, justified and must comply with the principle of sound financial management
• they must comply with the applicable national law on taxes, labour and social security

The following costs are not eligible:

• personnel and operating costs not directly attributable to the project
• investment goods (such as IT equipment, mobile phones, etc.)
• internal rental costs (rental to oneself - as owner - of premises or other infrastructure)
• overhead costs and office costs
• meal costs, food and beverages, per diems
• in-kind contributions by third parties
• interests, debt service charges, currency exchange losses
• recoverable VAT

Applications must include a budget calculation according to the budget template, listing the expected personnel and operating costs.

Please read the instructions tab in the budget template carefully.

Activities should focus on a specific area of business development that has the potential to expand audiences and make the particular media outlet more sustainable in the long run.

Grants, for example, could allow newsrooms to commission in-depth audience research for the first time, create a new editorial offering for a new set of users, redesign a website to display trust-building information about the editorial process, or experiment with new methods for covering particularly polarising topics. That list is not exhaustive, and we welcome many other areas of development. The emphasis should be on building a prototype of something new that can be improved, not necessarily a fully finished product.

• Each grantee will be assigned a mentor for the duration of the contract.
• Mentors are selected based on the need for competencies in a specific skill.
• Grantees are required to accept a mentor and communicate regularly with the mentor.
• The mentor is paid by Transitions. The applicants do not need to include the mentor in their budget proposal.

• Two rounds of open calls inviting applications from media outlets from all eligible countries are scheduled, one in 2024 and the other in 2025. The first round of applications will be open on October 16, 2024 with a deadline on December 17.
• After the application deadline, Journalismfund Europe checks that formalities are in order and may call for more information from applicants. This usually takes one week.
• After this the applications go to the jury for assessment.
• Applicants are usually informed about the decision around 40 days after the application deadline.

The jury of the grant programmes will evaluate each project proposal separately according to the pre-set assessment criteria:

• Feasibility of the project, timeline and budget.
• Adaption of design-learning strategy in project testing and development;
• Potential to increase audience through methods new for that media outlet;
• Potential to add a consistent, new revenue stream;
• Potential for learning opportunities, i.e. testing a prototype before investing money and time into a large-scale venture;
• Team structure and skills of the applicants.
• Management buy-in.

Finally, the jury will also take into consideration the variety within the global selection of granted projects. This means diversity in terms of:

• regional diversity
• diversity of methods and approaches
• target audience (especially if catering to marginalised groups usually ignored by the mainstream media

• The applications are assessed by an independent jury of experts in media business development and entrepreneurship across Europe. The jury members are chosen by Journalismfund Europe based upon a long list of names suggested by all parties involved.
• The jury decides independently, based on the grant rules and on the assessment criteria.
• Journalismfund Europe, Transitions, and the jury members are bound to strict confidentiality – before, during and after evaluation of the applications.
• The jury members remain anonymous until all the projects are finalised, to safeguard the independence of the jury process.

• The grantees and all other persons involved in the project have to endorse the principles of the Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists as well as the national codes of ethics that are in force.
• Every grantee signs an agreement with Journalismfund Europe that states the mutual arrangements and conditions.
• Grants are paid in two instalments: the first (2/3) upon signature of the agreement, the second (1/3) after finalisation of the implementation and submitting reporting.
• Grants are paid in euro. They are only paid out on the bank accounts of the news outlets.