During a conversation last month about a journalism project that needs more funding, I was explaining to a foundation program officer our policy for disclosing grant funding in the journalism we publish noting that The Associated Press maintains complete control over our content.

This editorial independence, I said, is critical to the trust that audiences have in news organizations like AP.

But how then, the program officer wondered, could she be sure the journalism she was being asked to support really would align with her foundation’s goals?

This question gets to the heart of one of the key reasons I believe many foundations don’t fund journalism significantly, if at all.

In the five years I’ve been working with philanthropies at AP, I’ve been inspired by the number who deeply value an independent, fact-based press, see its importance for an accountable democracy, and who understand that a better-informed public is more able to act on the challenges society faces. As AP’s President and CEO Daisy Veerasingham noted in her blog post earlier this month, philanthropy is needed more than ever to power vital journalism in a time of deep and disruptive financial pressure, especially for local news.

Our missions are often in harmony, even if our methods differ. Philanthropies can do even more to support journalism, and I believe many of them want to. To get there though, we must properly acknowledge the tension between a news organization’s editorial independence and foundations’ goals to reach specific policy outcomes.

In this post, I’ll talk about how our not-for-profit news cooperative works with philanthropies to design projects they can enthusiastically support while adhering to AP’s mission of independent newsgathering. The practices AP has established may help increase understanding of the balances and boundaries that news organizations must set — or risk damaging our position of trust.

Read the full article about philanthropy and journalism by Lisa Gibbs at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.