This blog is written by Branko Brkic, founder of Project Kontinuum, and cross-posted from Alliance Magazine.
“I see a sector that is ready for a set of truly big ideas, and with an energy and urgency to make those ideas welcome.”
At the Innovations in International Philanthropy Symposium in Cambridge, MA this past September, over 200 leaders gathered to confirm a damningly urgent call to action: philanthropy needs to be reimagined in these worrying times.
Courage, creativity and collaboration to build a resilient future were the operating words and they matched the mood. There was also a dark shadow hanging over the proceedings, provided courtesy of the attempt to cancel Jimmy Kimmel Live just the evening before the conference. We didn’t know at the time that he would be reinstated a few days later.
The symposium urged funders to shift power, defend democracy, and invest in equity-driven systems change. Yet, how can any of these ambitions be realized if the information ecosystem that underpins them is crumbling? My point is that not only democracies, but entire civilizations perish in darkness; it is no hyperbole in our current context. We are living in a state of perpetual flux, global uncertainty, and in an age of insecurity where the future is often too dark to see.
In such a moment of peril, the news media’s duty, its daily delivery of truth, and indeed its very existence, become more consequential than ever before.
My own participation on the panel “Defending Democracy in an Age of Authoritarianism” provided an important platform to articulate a perspective I believe is often overlooked, but that should be foundational to all philanthropic endeavors. Alongside truly inspiring figures like Leopoldo López (World Liberty Congress) and Félix Maradiaga (World Liberty Congress Academy), moderated expertly by Annie Boyajian of Freedom House, we stressed the imperative of sustaining courageous actors and independent news organizations against the tide of global authoritarianism. My contribution centered on a specific, urgent foundational truth: democracy, and indeed civilization itself, cannot defend itself without a robust and trustworthy news media.
My impression from those two important days, and from my years observing the global landscape, is that while philanthropy is actively seeking ‘transformative agency and impact’, it often misses another fundamental one: recognizing news media not merely as a sector, but as an indispensable infrastructure of our information-based society. Just as water, energy, and roads are critical, the continuous delivery of trustworthy information is a vital necessity, the very foundation upon which any functional society – democratic or otherwise – is built. The wheels of our civilization will fail to keep turning once the supply dries.
I believe the philanthropic community needs to embed a comprehensive media angle in every plan it makes and every action it takes. The news media is not just a business segment to be funded like any other; it is a critical layer of our civilization. Consider the discussions in the symposium’s “Rebuilding the Future of Media” workshop, which called for flexible, multi-year funding and support for journalists. This is a step in the right direction, but it must be understood within a much larger framework.
The challenges facing news media today are existential, driven by an outdated business model, the pervasive influence of Big Tech, massive internal failings within the industry and a genuinely powerful, global, disinformation campaign waged over the last 15 or so years. Investing in human journalism – in dogged reporters and savvy investigative journalists – is investing in the core mechanism that separates verifiable truth from the onslaught of disinformation. An algorithm, however advanced, cannot replace this human element.
That means philanthropic investments and donations should shift from a project-based (most forms of training, research, monitoring and conferencing) to the core action of news gathering. We can only monitor attacks on the media if media exists in the first place.
The conference correctly challenged philanthropy to break free from predictability and myopic scope, urging us to lean into “uncomfortable truths” and “embrace unconventional actors.” Applied to my world, this means stepping forward to fortify the news media’s compact with the communities it serves. It means an infrastructure-level commitment.
Ultimately, philanthropy’s transformative agency – its ability to help build a more just and resilient future – will remain constrained until it fully grasps the central role of news media in preserving our shared reality.
By recognizing news media as the bedrock of an information-based society, and by making sustained, strategic investments in its integrity and independence, the philanthropic community can champion the truly big idea needed for our common humanity to thrive. This is not just about saving jobs; it’s about saving what we have all built over thousands of years. It is our very own civilization that’s worth fighting for.
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Branko Brkic is the founder of Project Kontinuum.
