MacArthur funds a Press Forward 'cousin' abroad

In the MacArthur Foundation’s hefty end-of-year announcement of $20 million in grants to revitalize local news, there was lots to absorb. The lead funder of Press Forward committed money to more than a dozen organizations, including LION (receiving $4 million), Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communications ($400,000), El Tecolote ($350,000), the The Oklahoma Eagle ($350,000), and Resolve Philly ($350,000), among others.

One of those grants is going outside the United States. There’s a $330,000 award to something called the “Media Forward Fund,” which is described as “a new Press Forward-inspired pooled fund for independent journalism in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.”

Sean Harder, senior communications officer at the MacArthur Foundation, confirmed to me last month that it’s the first time “funding has gone outside the U.S.” as part of MacArthur’s contributions to local news in support of Press Forward.

He explained that Media Forward Fund representatives approached MacArthur “for advice on establishing their own local news fund in Europe.”

“As we continue to experiment and learn in these early years, we agreed to provide some one-time seed funding to get their effort started with their own regional donors/philanthropies,” Harder said. “While the U.S. will remain our focus for the local news work, we wanted to extend that limited support to what you could consider a ‘cousin’ of Press Forward abroad.”

Per MacArthur, with this $20 million round of grants, its contributions to local news via Press Forward now total more than $90 million in committed funding. In 2023, MacArthur pledged to invest at least $150 million in local news over five years as the lead funder of Press Forward.