The Guardian Sets Up a Nonprofit to Support Its Journalism
The Guardian Sets Up a Nonprofit to Support Its
Journalism
By AMIE TSANGAUG. 28, 2017
LONDON — The Guardian, three years removed from a
Pulitzer Prize that helped spur the British newspaper’s international
expansion, is fully embracing a new moneymaking strategy in the face of
industry-wide revenue problems: philanthropy.
The company has established a nonprofit venture in the
United States, theguardian.org, to focus on tapping philanthropic organizations
— or even corporate foundations and think tanks — for financial help to report
on issues including human rights and climate change.
Rachel White, the president of theguardian.org, said the
nonprofit’s charitable status would make it easier for more organizations and
private individuals, who might otherwise feel conflicted about contributing to
a for-profit newsroom, to donate.
The unit, which received its tax-exempt status in Oct.
2016, has been setting up partnerships since December. Since then,
theguardian.org has secured more than $1 million in funding from the Skoll
Foundation, which was set up by Jeff Skoll, the first president of eBay;
Humanity United, part of the Omidyar Group founded by the eBay founder Pierre Omidyar;
and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the organization set up by the hotel
entrepreneur.
Ms. White pointed to the Skoll and Hilton foundations, in
particular, as philanthropic organizations that “wanted to support quality
discourse.”
Fund-raising efforts, at a time when the news business is
in upheaval and has faced public attacks, have been helped by foundations’
increasing worries about the future of the news industry, Ms. White said.
“There’s an awakening to this concern that some of the
issues that they hold dear are not getting coverage or there’s not enough
information in the public sphere,” she said.
The Guardian’s new nonprofit approach is in line with the
pitch it makes to readers: rather than establish a paywall on its website, the
company includes a message at the bottom of its stories asking for visitors to
subscribe or make a financial contribution.
The Guardian has already used contributions from
nonprofits, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford
Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, to help fund its reporting.
Philanthropic partnerships make up a relatively small portion — about 3.8
million pounds, or $4.9 million — of the company’s approximately $276 million
in revenues for the 12-month period that ended April 2. But over the past 12
months, it has received commitments of $6 million in multiyear funding.
The Guardian, which built on the success of its Pulitzer
Prize-winning coverage of leaks from Edward Snowden by expanding in the United
States in 2014, has had to cut costs in order to stem its losses, which were
£44.7 million in the fiscal year ending April 2017, compared with £68.7 million
the year before.
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