Fundraising HQ is designed for journalists and fundraisers who are seeking to secure funding from philanthropic foundations, particularly those working in journalism, media, and nonprofit spaces. It’s ideal for professionals who need a structured, efficient system to manage their fundraising efforts, whether they are new to fundraising or experienced fundraisers looking to refine their strategies and increase their success.

After our coaching and consulting clients kept requesting access to our internal database of funders, we decided to make something that doesn't publicly exist: a rock solid fundraising productivity system PLUS a comprehensive database of journalism funders.

It's perfect if you've never fundraised before, or come from a different sector and quickly want to get up to speed.

Similarly, if you are an experienced fundraiser with an outdated list of funders, looking to kickstart a new strategy, this will allow you to skip the mind-numbing research and start writing proposals.

With over 80 funders categorised and tagged you'll be able to quickly discover and filter a comprehensive list of funders, and understand more about their funding focuses, application processes, and preferences. The database is designed to help resource-stretched, time-poor organisations and individual reclaim days of research time and reinvest that into engaging funders and writing applications.

Your download includes:

• An Excel database (can be uploaded in Google sheets, or used with other spreadsheet programmes like Numbers).

• Tabs for: Strategic Prioritisation Criteria to rank funders by mission alignment, a Lead Database with detailed potential funders, an Opportunity Tracker to monitor progress and manage deadlines, and a Prospect Tracker to identify bottlenecks and stay on schedule.

• 80+ funder entries.

• 30 columns of information, tags, and intelligence.

• Contact details and website addresses.

• Geographical focus breakdowns (country, continent, global).

• Tags for core, project, and capital funding.

• Key strategic priorities.

• Funding amounts (min/max).

• Filter for multi-year / unrestricted funding.

• Detailed eligibility criteria.

• Application process information and tips on how to apply.

• Colour-coded Categories: Strengthening Media, Journalism Innovation, Investigative Journalism, Freedom of expression, Defending Human Rights, Civic and Political Participation,Strengthening Democracy, Empowering Communities, Social Justice, Young People, Culture, Diversity and Inclusivity, Environment and Climate, Education, Technology.

• Ability to filter and sort on any column.

The Lead Database contains:

• Locally and nationally-focused funders based in Europe and the UK.

• European-wide funders interested in cross-border projects and funding outside of their home countries.

• Funders based outside of Europe who fund in Europe.

• Thematic funders who have topical interest in journalism and journalism-adjacent projects.

• Major re-granters (organisations giving major grants on behalf of foundations)

• US-based foundations who are interested in European projects and organisations.

From experience, we know that one of the problems with funding databases are that they are bloated, with thousands or irrelevant funding sources.

In order to help you focus and save time, we have only included sources widely relevant to our target audience.

The following are therefore not in the database:

• Broadly, any funders external to Europe, who are not interested in Europe. e.g. US funders with a purely local or national US focus.

• Rolling grants or open calls for small reporting grants (these lists exist elsewhere for free!).

• Regranters offering small ongoing grants.

• National government/overseas grants (e.g. USAID or the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office).

• Hyperlocal or local government funders in Europe or elsewhere.

• Impact investors, business loans, or other grants.

• Companies with commercial interests in sponsoring journalism (e.g. Google News Initiative, or corporate social responsibility departments). Relevant corporate foundations are included.

• High net worth individuals (unless they have a public-facing foundation).

The creators of this database are Adam Thomas and Zöe Hull.

Adam is the founder of Evenly Distributed, and an award-winning journalism and technology leader. He's been an executive and leader in non-profits (European Journalism Centre; Sourcefabric), start-ups (Storyful), and corporate media companies (News Corp) and has personally fundraised over €30m from Open Society Foundations, Luminate, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, Facebook/Meta, Democracy & Media Foundation, News Integrity Initiative, Civil Media, Evens Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Bay & Paul Foundations, Schoeplin Stiftung, Fondation Puech, Adessium Foundation and many more. He was the co-founder of the Journalism Funders Forum, an initiative to bridge the gap between funders and journalism in Europe.

Zöe is an experienced fundraiser and bid-writer who has spent over 15 years in the UK charity sector working in arts, culture, environment, and health for Macmillan Cancer Support, Alzheimer's Society, Teenage Cancer Trust, Durham Wildlife Trust, and Northern Stage.

We've developed a course that will help you get the most out of this system. You can get access to that here.

Alternatively, you can book a Funder Intelligence One-on-One, where we'll assess your fundraising needs and goals, help you prioritise the database, and provide specific funding intelligence on your top targets.

We'd love for you to share the new knowledge, confidence (and future funding!) you’ll gain from this database with your colleagues.

But we’d rather you didn’t share (like, copy and paste!) the actual content or send it to anyone. Even though it is free!

Why? Well we'd like to know who is using this in the hope that they might be interested in buying other products and services from us.

Now, we know of course that it’s basically impossible to stop those who want to steal our hard work, but here are two good reasons not to.

1. We want to scale our support to as many journalists, nonprofit leaders, changemakers, and social pioneers as possible. This database is our effort to make this knowledge as accessible as possible. The small profits we make elsewhere are reinvested in keeping the database updated, and the prices of our other services low (fundraising databases and the time it takes to create them often costs thousands a year).

2. We are just a small team of humans like you, trying to support our families while making the world a better place. By not stealing this content, you help us balance build a business while trying to be the best parents we can. And we’re super grateful that you help us do that.

The content in this database is provided for educational and informational purposes only. While we strive to keep the information up-to-date and accurate, we make no representations or warranties of any kind about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, or availability with respect to the course or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the course for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.

The information and materials presented in this database are derived from a variety of sources, including academic research, industry insights, and professional experience. Where specific sources are used, they are cited.

ChatGPT 4 was used to assist the creation of this database. We used it to help structure and draft short texts based on our inputs, and edit for clarity and tone. Everything has been fact-checked by a human.

But, things change very rapidly in the world of funding - and we can't be held responsible for out of date data, nor how you use this data.