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Introduction
The Walkley Foundation is proud to announce the Walkley Solutions Journalism Fund. The Fund will allocate grants of between $AU5000 to $AU30,000 from a total pool of AU$175,000 to support eligible media organisations and independent journalists to create public interest journalism stories or projects with a solutions journalism focus.
Entries open at 9am on Tuesday 1 October 2024 and close at 11.59pm on Tuesday 12 November 2024 (Sydney time).
What is ‘solutions-focused’ journalism?
Solutions journalism involves stories about how people are trying to solve widely shared problems, using the same editorial rigour and independence as traditional hard news reporting. It has been used to improve coverage of social and environmental challenges such as climate change, race relations, public health, electoral participation, and much more.
Solutions stories typically include four elements:
- Instead of leading with the problem, using the “if it bleeds, it leads” approach, solutions stories lead with a response to a problem and how it works.
- To avoid becoming advocacy, public relations or hero worship, solutions stories must provide evidence, in the form of official figures and data where available, about how effective the response to the problem is, and
- Include the limitations to the response. For example a new plastic recycling technology might be easier to put into action in a big city compared to a regional town.
- The story should provide insights – in other words, include enough information about a response to a problem, for people in your audience to know how it works and whether it would be worth trying where they live.
Research has found that news organisations that include solutions stories in their overall offering enjoy higher levels of audience engagement and trust, both of which can support efforts to increase revenue.
Resources to help you apply for Grant funding
Make sure you carefully review the Fund’s Eligibility Criteria, Selection Criteria and Terms and Conditions before starting your application.
To enhance your chances please download and review Implementing solutions journalism: A guide to putting solutions approaches into practice for reporters and editors.
It is a condensed version of training delivered by the Walkley Foundation in partnership with the Solutions Journalism Network in 2023-2024. You can review the full training program here.
You can also attend our FAQ webinar on Tuesday 8 October 12 noon-1pm (Sydney time). The webinar will show you how to complete the application form and fill in the budget. You can register here. A recording of the webinar will be shared to this webpage after it has taken place.
About the Walkley Solutions Journalism Fund
The funding program aims to support solutions-focused public interest journalism in the Australian media.
Applications are open to eligible news organisations based in Australia, and to individual journalists who are either Australian citizens or permanent residents.
Funding is available for stories or new projects that have not already underway and have no other source of external funding.
Applicants can apply for a single amount of up to $30,000 with a minimum grant of $5,000.
Applications can be for individual stories or larger projects to introduce or launch a solutions journalism project such as a podcast, web vertical, content for a specific demographic, or an investigative journalism project that requires travel.
The project must be completed and acquitted within 12 months of funding being granted.
The Walkley Solutions Journalism Fund is supported by the Walkley Foundation Public Fund and the Meta Australian News Fund.
The Walkley Foundation manages the judging process independently.
Organisations and individuals who have received funding from the Meta Australian News Fund, administered by the Walkley Foundation, are eligible to apply.
However, organisations that have previously or currently received funding through a content licensing agreement with Meta for Facebook News or Video will not be eligible to apply for this program.
Applications open at 9am on Tuesday 1 October 2024 (Sydney time) and close at 11.59pm on Tuesday 12 November 2024 (Sydney time).Make sure you carefully review the Fund’s Eligibility Criteria, Selection Criteria and Terms and Conditions before starting your application.