ELIGIBILITY:

This opportunity focuses on building capacity for reporting in countries where the need is often the greatest and the pool of available resources is limited.  All activities must take place in countries classified as either low- or middle-income by the World Bank. These classifications can be reviewed here. 

We are especially interested in projects in biodiversity-rich regions of the world, such as the Amazon, Central Africa and Southeast Asia, or other biodiversity hotspots.   We would also like to hear from applicants based in countries in which we have not offered grants to previously. We encourage applications in particular from West Africa, Central America and Eastern Europe, and specifically from the following countries:  Dominican Republic, Honduras, Kyrgyzstan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

This opportunity is open to journalist networks, media organizations, civil society organizations or academic institutions. Although we will consider applications by NGOs or environmental groups looking to build the capacity of journalists to cover conservation issues, preference will be given to applications from or affiliated with professional journalists, media organizations, journalism schools and the like.   

Applicants must either note their affiliations with existing media organizations or provide detailed plans about how this project would facilitate the creation of a new network or organization.    

We will not consider applications rooted in advocacy or political campaigning.    

Existing or former EJN grantees are eligible to apply, although preference will be given to grantees we have not supported previously. We will take the performance of existing or previous grantees into consideration during the selection.    

For the purposes of this funding opportunity, we will only be accepting applications in English. Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to consider applications in other languages at this time. Applicants must either have a working understanding of English or have a translator available to assist with communication with Internews staff. However, applicants may produce stories and training materials in any language. 

Applicants are required to be transparent about the use of generative AI tools, if any, in the development of their proposals. EJN reserves the right to disqualify applicants from consideration if they have been found to have engaged in unethical or improper professional conduct, including, but not limited to, plagiarism and submitting AI-generated content as their own. 

BENEFIT:

They anticipate supporting 3-4 organizations with grants of 10,000-12,000 EUR each. In general, proposals with smaller budgets will be more competitive. Larger grant amounts will be considered for projects that use innovative approaches and may be more resource- and time-consuming.