Director's Notes: Update on 2011 Letters of Inquiry

The Journalism Program has finished its initial discussion on the submitted letters of inquiry.

We received more than 150 LOIs by the May 2 deadline.

After the first round of reviews, we have about 60 proposals still in the mix for 2012 grant consideration.

The next step is to determine how each of these potentially fits into our 2011-2013 portfolios. All applicants will be notified about the status of their proposals by May 31.

We are now assessing internally, based on out logic model, to what degree each cluster of proposals helps further our strategic goals. This year, for the first time, we’ll be asking groups to share with the Foundation a logic model for their projected work as part of their full proposal.

Questions going forward for us to address include:

• What changes are we seeking in journalism content, audience and rights?
• How are we influencing that change?
• Are there coalitions, collaborations and partnerships that will us achieve our goals?
• How can we best leverage our resources?
• How can we build successful models and reach scalability of our initiatives?
• What is the balance of quality content, engaged audiences and strong press freedoms that generates maximum impact on news literacy and civic engagement?

We will keep you periodically posted on our progress.