'Good use of philanthropic money'
To Berkeley for the #logansymposium2015, an investigative journalism conference funded by the Reva & David Logan Foundation, which has been a major historic backer of the Center for Investigative Reporting and Lowell Bergman’s Investigative Reporting Program at the university.
One of the most impactful comments for me came from one of the more discreet participants, Elspeth Revere from the influential MacArthur Foundation [fully, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation], a backer of Public Integrity. In a closing panel on the future of investigative reporting, she gave three measures for how she looks at the value of MacArthur grants to investigative reporting outfits, adding “we’re not very measurement oriented”.
She said she looks first at “reach” but based on the recipient’s own metrics, not new metrics imposed by her group. Secondly she looks at “prestigious prizes” to reflect industry and professional recognition of quality. Thirdly, and she recognized most long term: policy change.
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Reassuringly, Elspeth, in regard to support for investigative journalism, said “no one questions your right to be in this”, adding she felt investigative journalism was “one of the very good uses of philanthropic money”.
Measurement of impact and a focus on dissemination of investigative reporting to the widest possible audience are huge issues for donors and nonprofit investigative outlets right now, driven in large part by pressure on donors for greater evidence of their own effectiveness.
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Also at the #logansymposium2015, the digital analytics platform Chartbeat and CIROnline.org engagement fellow Lindsay Green-Barber [like our own Emily Dufton a PHD fellow from the ACLS] gave powerful presentations on tracking the immediate and longer term impact of our work. CIR, for example, found that once a particular project hit the Hispanic community, its impact spread rapidly and in ways which it had not previously detected.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
