"Happy anniversary, GIJN. It’s 20 years since a band of nonprofits gathered in Copenhagen – at the second Global Investigative Journalism Conference – to found a network that would bind together the world’s most enterprising, most determined reporters. At that 2003 meeting, 35 groups came to ... gether, signing an organizing statement to “support the training and sharing of information among journalists in investigative and computer-assisted reporting.” Our conferences grew, as did our global community. But our gatherings bounced from country to country, with no dedicated funding or staff, and no institutional memory. What we needed was an organization that could plan events, raise funds, provide resources, and spread investigative and data journalism around the world. In 2012 – 10 years after Copenhagen – we launched GIJN as a fledgling nonprofit. We had a couple volunteers and just $35,000 in startup funds. Since then, our growth has surprised even us. GIJN’s expansion coincided with the global spread of kleptocracy, even as digital age tools from data analysis to satellite imagery made it easier to investigate across borders – and harder to keep secrets. The international backlash against democracy and civil society – with independent media in its crosshairs – only increased the demand for our work. By the end of 2022, GIJN had a staff of 38, an annual budget of $2.3 million, and daily operations in a dozen languages. Membership in GIJN had jumped five-fold – to 244 groups in 90 countries. The world now recognizes that a watchdog press is as fundamental to development as are good schools and sound economic policy." (Page 2) more

"[...] The biggest source of media development money has been USAID, followed by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF), and the US State Department. What the US government will do with this under President Donald Trump and a Republican budget-cutting Congress is uncertain, and this politic ... al shift is likely to reduce USG media development funding after the current fiscal year ends in September, 2017. This could slow down the heated growth of nonprofit organizations in the media development sector. USG and private donors interviewed for this report were reluctant to predict how long their donor interest in investigative journalism would last. But they said the popularity of investigative journalism projects is still on the upswing, and will continue well beyond 2017, attracting more private as well as public support for the sector. One challenge for funders is the measurement of impact for their grants. A growing body of scholarship, including Hamilton’s, advances models showing that every dollar of money spent on investigative journalism returns multiple dollars in public goods. The growth of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) in the past five years illustrates a trend towards international collaboration, resource sharing and advocacy. Media, communication and tech platforms in general are both part of the problem and part of the solution to such issues as cross-border corruption and xenophobia." (Overview, pages 4-6) more