Are­na sup­ports col­lab­o­ra­tive and inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism across geo­graph­i­cal and pro­fes­sion­al bor­ders in Europe. Are­na focus­es on three core activ­i­ties: first, Data­har­vest – the Euro­pean Inves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ism Con­fer­ence, which brings togeth­er 500 inves­tiga­tive and data jour­nal­ists in Bel­gium annu­al­ly; sec­ond, the cre­ation and host­ing of open-access the­mat­ic net­works that facil­i­tate the col­lab­o­ra­tion of jour­nal­ists from across Europe on top­ics of com­mon inter­est and oth­er shared needs; and third, the pro­vi­sion of train­ing, teach­ing and advi­so­ry ser­vices in the field of col­lab­o­ra­tive, inves­tiga­tive, data and entre­pre­neur­ial jour­nal­ism. Con­sid­er­ing soci­etal issues have an Inter­na­tion­al and transna­tion­al dimen­sion more than ever, Are­na’s focus on devel­op­ing the infra­struc­ture for Euro­pean jour­nal­ists to work togeth­er is an essen­tial con­tri­bu­tion to the exchange of infor­ma­tion, crit­i­cal think­ing and mutu­al under­stand­ing need­ed to pro­tect democ­ra­cy in Europe.

journalismarena.eu

Civ­i­tates is a col­lab­o­ra­tive phil­an­thropic ini­tia­tive for democ­ra­cy and sol­i­dar­i­ty in Europe, focused on build­ing a strong and resilient civ­il soci­ety, shap­ing a healthy dig­i­tal pub­lic sphere, and strength­en­ing inde­pen­dent pub­lic inter­est jour­nal­ism. Through its pooled fund for “Inde­pen­dent Pub­lic Inter­est Jour­nal­ism”, Civ­i­tates sup­ports inde­pen­dent pub­lic inter­est jour­nal­ism orga­ni­za­tions that defend democ­ra­cy in Europe by revi­tal­iz­ing pub­lic dis­course, ensur­ing that all voic­es are heard, and expos­ing abus­es of pow­er and polar­iz­ing fac­tors. It pro­vides struc­tur­al, core finan­cial sup­port as well as capac­i­ty build­ing and net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for orga­ni­za­tions oper­at­ing in chal­leng­ing con­texts, while work­ing to raise aware­ness in the donor com­mu­ni­ty and bring much need­ed new fund­ing to the field.

civitates-eu.org

To raise pub­lic aware­ness about human rights, Docs up Funds defends and sup­ports the cre­ation of engaged doc­u­men­taries about eco­nom­ic, geopo­lit­i­cal, cul­tur­al, eth­i­cal and/or soci­etal issues around the world. With a focus on projects from the Glob­al South, it pro­vides finan­cial and tech­ni­cal sup­port to doc­u­men­tary authors and pro­duc­ers at key moments of the devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion of their films: pitch­ing and prepa­ra­tion, shoot­ing and edit­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion. Docs Up Fund aspires to become a qual­i­ty label, rec­og­nized by pro­fes­sion­als and peers.

docsupfunds.com

The Glob­al Inves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ism Net­work serves as the inter­na­tion­al hub for the world’s inves­tiga­tive reporters, with spe­cial atten­tion to those from repres­sive regimes and mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties. At the heart of GIJN is an inter­na­tion­al asso­ci­a­tion of non­prof­it jour­nal­ism orga­ni­za­tions. From its found­ing in 2003, GIJN has grown to include 244 mem­ber groups in 90 coun­tries. Today, with a staff based in 24 coun­tries, GIJN works in a dozen lan­guages to link togeth­er the world’s most enter­pris­ing jour­nal­ists, giv­ing them the tools, tech­nol­o­gy, and train­ing to go after abus­es of pow­er and lack of account­abil­i­ty.

gijn.org

IJ4EU is the pre­mier fund­ing and sup­port scheme for cross-bor­der inves­tiga­tive report­ing in Europe, acknowl­edg­ing the increas­ing­ly transna­tion­al nature of pub­lic-inter­est sto­ries. Led by the Inter­na­tion­al Press Insti­tute (IPI), it pro­vides direct fund­ing for cross-bor­der inves­ti­ga­tions and col­lab­o­ra­tive projects by watch­dog jour­nal­ists through two grant schemes, one aimed at teams with a news­room ele­ment, the oth­er serv­ing exclu­sive­ly the needs of free­lancers. IJ4EU also offers train­ing and net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, as well as edi­to­r­i­al, legal and prac­ti­cal sup­port, enabling news­rooms and free­lancers across the EU to col­lab­o­rate on ambi­tious inves­ti­ga­tions, tack­ling some of today’s most press­ing issues (the envi­ron­ment, dis­in­for­ma­tion, orga­nized crime, cor­rup­tion, human rights abus­es, and the sur­veil­lance indus­try, etc.). Through the launch of its Impact Award, which is open to cross-bor­der projects, whether fund­ed by IJ4EU or not, it fur­ther rais­es the pro­file of qual­i­ty inves­ti­ga­tions and the val­ue of watch­dog jour­nal­ism.

investigativejournalismforeu.net

Estab­lished in 1998, Jour­nal­ism­fund Europe is one of the pio­neer orga­ni­za­tions in the world that have been cre­at­ed with the spe­cif­ic pur­pose to make grants avail­able to jour­nal­ists in order to serve the pub­lic inter­est and pro­mote democ­ra­cy. Through its fund struc­ture, it sup­ports and facil­i­tates inves­tiga­tive, cross-bor­der, and inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism across Europe by con­nect­ing donors and jour­nal­ists with­out jeop­ar­diz­ing the latter’s cred­i­bil­i­ty and inde­pen­dence. Avail­able in 9 Euro­pean lan­guages, its flex­i­ble grants pro­grams enable jour­nal­ists to pro­duce rel­e­vant pub­lic inter­est sto­ries with a Euro­pean mind-set from inter­na­tion­al, nation­al, and region­al per­spec­tives. The Isocrates Foun­da­tion sup­ports the Euro­pean cross-bor­der grant pro­gram. Through all its work, Jour­nal­ism­fund Europe ulti­mate­ly fos­ters account­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy, and con­tributes to crit­i­cal think­ing and well-informed debate — pre­req­ui­sites for cit­i­zens to shape a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety.

journalismfund.eu

To over­come the chron­ic lack of resources for inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism and report­ing which threat­ens the prop­er func­tion­ing of Swiss democ­ra­cy, Jour­na­FONDS sup­ports inves­tiga­tive and report­ing projects on top­ics of pub­lic inter­est in all lin­guis­tic and cul­tur­al regions of the coun­try. In addi­tion to pro­vid­ing finan­cial sup­port, it aims to strength­en the inves­tiga­tive and report­ing skills of pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­ists, whether free­lancers or edi­to­r­i­al staff, and fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion and healthy com­pe­ti­tion among jour­nal­ists and news­rooms by enabling media pro­fes­sion­als from small­er news­rooms to con­duct sophis­ti­cat­ed inves­ti­ga­tions and report­ing. Sup­port­ing young jour­nal­ists is also impor­tant to Jour­na­FONDS, which always ensures that young tal­ents are giv­en a chance when allo­cat­ing funds.

journafonds.ch

Cre­at­ed by Fon­da­tion Hiron­delle, a Swiss non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion found­ed in 1995 after the Rwan­dan geno­cide to pro­vide reli­able, use­ful infor­ma­tion to pop­u­la­tions fac­ing seri­ous crises, Jus­tice Info is an inde­pen­dent media web­site in French and Eng­lish that cov­ers jus­tice ini­tia­tives in war and vio­lence affect­ed coun­tries. Focus­ing on tran­si­tion­al Jus­tice, a term still not wide­ly under­stood by the pub­lic, Jus­tice Info cov­ers tri­als for war crimes, crimes against human­i­ty and geno­cide; truth com­mis­sions; repa­ra­tions pro­grams; remem­brance; rec­on­cil­i­a­tion ini­tia­tives; and uni­ver­sal juris­dic­tion; etc. Jus­tice Info is an open, acces­si­ble and inno­v­a­tive media: 100% dig­i­tal, it oper­ates with free access and no share­hold­ers or adver­tis­ing, hav­ing become the lead­ing ref­er­ence plat­form for com­mu­ni­ties seek­ing action­able infor­ma­tion, bold reflec­tions and con­struc­tive pub­lic debate on inter­na­tion­al jus­tice.

justiceinfo.net

Media Defence pro­vides legal pro­tec­tion to jour­nal­ists, blog­gers, and inde­pen­dent media around the world, under threats for report­ing on issues of pub­lic inter­est. Through its emer­gency defence fund, it helps cov­er legal fees and pro­vides legal exper­tise to the lawyer(s) defend­ing a case. Media Defence also engages in strate­gic lit­i­ga­tion before domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al courts to chal­lenge repres­sive laws and expand the space for media free­dom and free­dom of expres­sion. In coun­tries where the threat of legal action is high and con­stant, it fur­ther builds local legal capac­i­ty to defend jour­nal­ists through legal train­ing and by fund­ing local legal cen­ters to defend jour­nal­ists. To date, Media Defence has sup­port­ed 1,000+ cas­es, help­ing hun­dreds of jour­nal­ists in over 110 coun­tries. Its work has con­tributed to pre­vent­ing over 300 years of deten­tion for media work­ers and avoid­ing $600m in dam­ages. It has also sup­port­ed over 30 part­ners and trained over 200 lawyers, empow­er­ing them to defend the media in their region. Media Defence is the only orga­ni­za­tion in the world sole­ly focused on pro­vid­ing this crit­i­cal help to jour­nal­ists, so that they can con­tin­ue to report on issues of pub­lic inter­est.

mediadefence.org

Civ­i­tates is a col­lab­o­ra­tive phil­an­thropic ini­tia­tive for democ­ra­cy and sol­i­dar­i­ty in Europe, focused on build­ing a strong and resilient civ­il soci­ety, shap­ing a healthy dig­i­tal pub­lic sphere, and strength­en­ing inde­pen­dent pub­lic inter­est jour­nal­ism. Through its “Healthy Dig­i­tal Pub­lic Sphere” pooled fund, Civ­i­tates sup­ports the advo­ca­cy and pol­i­cy work of civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions push­ing to improve the reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment of the dig­i­tal sphere in order to safe­guard pub­lic and demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues and apply ade­quate checks and bal­ances. In addi­tion to flex­i­ble grants, Civ­i­tates pro­vides its part­ners with capac­i­ty-build­ing and net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn, reflect and con­nect, there­by strength­en­ing civ­il soci­ety’s capac­i­ty and con­stituen­cy to engage in the debate and address cur­rent, emerg­ing, and future chal­lenges in the dig­i­tal ecosys­tem.

civitates.org

The Dig­i­tal Free­dom Fund (DFF) sup­ports the dig­i­tal rights com­mu­ni­ty in Europe to advance and pro­tect human rights in dig­i­tal spaces and reduce the neg­a­tive impact of tech­nol­o­gy in the world. To cre­ate sys­temic change, DFF cat­alyzes lit­i­ga­tion efforts, pro­vides lit­i­ga­tion grants, and con­nects part­ners with expert pro bono sup­port. To date, DFF has fund­ed the legal, advo­ca­cy, research, and oth­er costs asso­ci­at­ed with more than 70 pre-lit­i­ga­tion research and lit­i­ga­tion projects, cov­er­ing issues rang­ing from pro­tect­ing gig econ­o­my work­ers to pro­mot­ing free speech online to chal­leng­ing mass sur­veil­lance and algo­rith­mic pro­fil­ing. By facil­i­tat­ing skills and knowl­edge devel­op­ment as well as net­work­ing events, DFF fur­ther empow­ers dig­i­tal rights lit­i­ga­tors and activists to win more strate­gic cas­es and ulti­mate­ly con­tribute to a soci­ety that ensures account­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and respect for human rights stan­dards in the use and design of tech­nol­o­gy and dig­i­tal spaces.

digitalfreedomfund.org

Build­ing on its exper­tise and suc­cess­es in the areas of nat­ur­al resources and cor­po­rate account­abil­i­ty, Glob­al Wit­ness has recent­ly launched a new cam­paign tar­get­ing Big Tech com­pa­nies and social media plat­forms, whose busi­ness mod­el — with­out suf­fi­cient stan­dards of trans­paren­cy and over­sight — encour­ages the pro­lif­er­a­tion of divi­sion, hate, and dis­in­for­ma­tion online, which in turn fuels pop­ulism and vio­lence and pre­cludes pub­lic debate. Through a com­bi­na­tion of inves­ti­ga­tions, strate­gic lit­i­ga­tions, and aware­ness and advo­ca­cy efforts, the “Dig­i­tal Threats to Democ­ra­cy” cam­paign aims to ensure that the new Euro­pean leg­is­la­tion on Big Tech — the Dig­i­tal Ser­vice Act and the Dig­i­tal Mar­ket Act, which deal with con­tent mod­er­a­tion and the reg­u­la­tion of anti-com­pet­i­tive prac­tices — is prop­er­ly imple­ment­ed, while look­ing for oppor­tu­ni­ties to pro­mote and improve this mod­el glob­al­ly.

globalwitness.org

The Euro­pean AI & Soci­ety Fund is a col­lab­o­ra­tive phil­an­thropic ini­tia­tive of nation­al and inter­na­tion­al foun­da­tions, whose mis­sion is to ensure that arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) and auto­mat­ed deci­sion-mak­ing (ADM) sys­tems serve the inter­ests of indi­vid­u­als and soci­ety in Europe, and that the poli­cies and fund­ing that reg­u­late them uphold equi­ty, jus­tice, and diver­si­ty, as well as democ­ra­cy and human rights. To reach its goal, the Fund com­mits its resources to strength­en­ing the civ­il society’s abil­i­ty to take on the cru­cial role of being a vis­i­ble and effec­tive voice in pub­lic and pol­i­cy debates on the future of AI and tech­nol­o­gy in Europe. It pro­vides finan­cial sup­port, capac­i­ty build­ing ad net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to Euro­pean pub­lic inter­est and civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions already work­ing on pol­i­cy and tech­nol­o­gy, as well as to new actors, who want to build their capac­i­ty in this domain, espe­cial­ly those rep­re­sent­ing mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties, who are often dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ed by AI and ADM risks and harms.

europeanaifund.org

By cre­at­ing this prize to reward peas­ant agroe­col­o­gy ini­tia­tives around the world, AVSF is pay­ing trib­ute to Benoît Maria, an AVSF employ­ee and fer­vent defend­er of the rights of indige­nous pop­u­la­tions, assas­si­nat­ed in Guatemala in August 2020. As an agri­cul­tur­al engi­neer, Benoît has con­tributed to the pro­mo­tion of a diver­si­fied and agroe­co­log­i­cal peas­ant agri­cul­ture, based on tra­di­tion­al Indi­an knowl­edge. Benoît worked so that peas­ants could sell their pro­duc­tion on local mar­kets and has co-cre­at­ed the Ixil Uni­ver­si­ty, to reval­ue and trans­mit ances­tral knowl­edge to young peo­ple. Final­ly, for more than twen­ty years, he sup­port­ed the Qeqch’i and Ixil indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and tra­di­tion­al author­i­ties in their peace­ful strug­gle to have their rights rec­og­nized and to pre­serve their lands in the face of threats of land grab­bing. In full agree­ment with Benoît’s fam­i­ly, friends and team­mates in Guatemala and France, AVSF has launched the Benoit Maria Prize to make known the strug­gles and actions that he embod­ied so well.

avsf.org

Nadine Bur­det, orig­i­nal­ly from Haiti, stud­ied med­i­cine in Switzer­land and prac­ticed child psy­chi­a­try there until 1991. In 1985, she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the gen­er­al enthu­si­asm raised by the fall of the Duva­lier regime, while becom­ing aware of the urgent med­ical needs in her native coun­try. Nadine then took a sab­bat­i­cal year to super­vise var­i­ous social and med­ical projects under the aegis of the asso­ci­a­tion “Aide Haïti”, which she had found­ed in 1987. Con­front­ed with the abus­es of chil­dren employed as domes­tic ser­vants, called “restaveks” in Haiti, she opened in 1997 the “Foy­er l’Escale” in Port-au-Prince, a home and a med­ical-pedacog­i­cal cen­ter, built on land she donat­ed. She ded­i­cat­ed her­self to the care of these abused and poly­trau­ma­tized chil­dren until her death in 2018, with the ulti­mate objec­tive of rein­te­grat­ing them into their fam­i­lies, when pos­si­ble. Thanks to the tire­less sup­port of her hus­band Albert, the Foy­er l’Escale con­tin­ues to accom­mo­date up to 50 chil­dren and to offer a school for 6 to 16 year olds.

Vivere is an asso­ci­a­tion cre­at­ed by sea­soned human­i­tar­i­an and devel­op­ment pro­fes­sion­als. In addi­tion to the wealth of expe­ri­ence and skills they bring to the most des­per­ate con­texts on the plan­et to which Vivere is ded­i­cat­ed, its strengths come from its pure­ly vol­un­tary basis and its long-term approach in sup­port of its local part­ners. Thanks to a rig­or­ous man­age­ment pol­i­cy and the excep­tion­al com­mit­ment of its mem­bers, Vivere’s oper­at­ing costs are less than 2%. Active in the Kivus in DRC since 2006, Vivere sup­ports the fight against impuni­ty by facil­i­tat­ing mobile courts, allow­ing the mil­i­tary prosecutor’s office to sit “in the bush”, to inves­ti­gate and judge sol­diers or mili­tia sus­pect­ed of blood crimes, sex­u­al vio­lence, tor­ture, and oth­er seri­ous offences against cit­i­zens, thus prov­ing to the pop­u­la­tion of these for­got­ten ter­ri­to­ries that jus­tice is, at last, on the way.

vivere.ch