Transparency & Governance Reporting Grants

Transparency & Governance Reporting Grants is a grant from the Pulitzer Center that funds investigative journalism on corruption, abuse of power, transparency failures, and systemic governance issues. The program supports reporters investigating shadowy finance schemes, opaque supply chains, cross-border money flows, and the laws and policies that enable corruption or erode democracy.

The center particularly values cross-border and collaborative reporting, data-driven projects, and innovative interdisciplinary approaches. Eligible applicants include freelance and staff journalists and nonprofit journalistic organizations worldwide. Awards vary, starting at $5,000 or more depending on project scope and depth.

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We value cross-border and collaborative reporting, data-driven projects, and innovative, interdisciplinary approaches. This grant is open to freelance and staff journalists worldwide. Pulitzer Center grantees report on shadowy finance schemes, mismanagement, abuse of power, and other systemic exploits and failures that destabilize countries, erode democracies and governance, and empty national coffers.

They investigate the root causes of corruption, including the laws and policies that provide cover to otherwise immoral activities. We are actively seeking to support deep reporting projects that follow the money across borders; shed light on opaque and harmful supply chains; and investigate the systems, organizations, and people that enable corruption.

You can apply for a Transparency and Governance grant or propose your project via one of our yearlong investigative fellowships on Rainforests , Oceans , and AI . We value cross-border and collaborative reporting, data-driven projects, and innovative, interdisciplinary approaches. In recent years, the Pulitzer Center has invested in several in-depth, high-impact reporting projects related to transparency and governance.

Here are a few examples for inspiration: " Amazon Underworld: Crime and Corruption in the Shadows of the World’s Largest Rainforest Various authors " | Various authors " The Bissau Corridor " | Micael Pereira " How Uyghur Forced Labor Makes Seafood That Ends Up in School Lunches " | Ian Urbina " The President, the Soccer Hooligans and an Underworld ‘House of Horrors " | Robert Worth " Police Seize on COVID-19 Tech To Expand Global Surveillance" | Garance Burke " Backroom Deals, Mystery Companies and a ‘Killer Lake’: Inside DRC’s Gas and Oil Auction " | Josephine Moulds, Hajar Meddah China's Shadow Empire (Axios) | Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian Civilians Killed by U.S. Drone Strike in Somalia (The Intercept) | Nick Turse " The Dark Seas of Deception: Unmasking EU Fisheries in West Africa's Troubled Waters " | Gideon Sarpong " Where Is My Pension?

" | Lilia Saúl Rodriguez, Luisa García Tellez, and collaborators Immunity and Impunity: How Diplomats Get Away With Exploiting Domestic Workers (Rappler) | Ana P. Santos " 'Caliber 60': A Podcast About the Flow of Avocados, Guns and People " | Stephania Corpi Arnaud and Toya Sarno Jordan To see all of our Transparency & Governance coverage, please visit our initiative page .

TO APPLY, YOU WILL BE ASKED TO PROVIDE THE FOLLOWING: A description of the proposed project in no more than 250 words (you can also attach a longer project description or reporting plan as “Additional Materials”); A preliminary budget estimate, including a basic breakdown of costs; A compelling distribution plan This opportunity is open and we are accepting applications. Please review our grant application guidelines and apply today.

If you have specific questions about applying, please contact [email protected] . We aim to support teams that reflect the communities they report on. We hope this grant can help our partner organizations advance their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals and commitments.

We accept grant proposals on a rolling basis. You typically will hear back from us one-two weeks after submitting your application. We particularly welcome applications from the Global South and seek reporting from Africa, Latin America and South and South East Asia.

We are also interested in receiving proposals for collaborative reporting projects by teams of reporters investigating corruption, transparency, and governance issues. Distribution: Proposals should include detailed distribution plans and letters of commitment from outlets where the stories will be published. The Pulitzer Center also encourages creative forms of content distribution and audience engagement beyond story publication.

If you have ideas and strategies for engaging diverse audiences with your reporting project, please include them in our proposal submission form.

To save our grantees and staff time, we thought it would be helpful to outline editorial products and project expenses we don’t fund: Books (we can support a story that might become part of a book, as long as the story is published independently in a media outlet) Feature-length films (we do support short documentaries with ambitious distribution plans) Staff salaries (with the exception of some of our yearlong fellowships) Equipment purchases (equipment rentals are considered on a case-by-case basis) An outlet’s general expenses (for example, rent, utilities, insurance) Routine breaking news and coverage Data projects aimed solely at academic research.

Data should be developed to enhance/support journalism.