Civitates is a European pooled fund, with 21 member funders from across Europe. It has three sub-funds, focused on a strong and resilient civil society, a healthy digital public sphere and independent public interest journalism. In the latter sub-fund, it offered a cohort of 10 public interest journalism organisations three years of core funding, alongside other non-financial support.

Here’s how Civitates defines independent public interest journalism:

What exactly do you mean by independent, public interest journalism?

We mean journalism that informs the public about what matters to everyone in society, made by actors who are independent of vested (political, corporate or other private) interests, and that is committed to the pursuit of truth, seeking to provide the public with reliable and accurate, balanced and representative information, in accordance with the standards of the profession.