Evaluation and Research

This brief explores how, through the Knight Community Information Challenge, place-based foundations are incorporating community information needs into their work for the benefit both of their communities and their own strategies and missions. Permalink

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy is a group of 17 media, policy and community leaders. Its purpose is to assess the information needs of communities, and recommend measures to help Americans better meet those needs.

The Knight Commission sees new thinking about news and information as a necessary step to sustaining democracy in the digital age. It thus follows in the footsteps of the 1940s Hutchins Commission and the Kerner and Carnegie Commissions of the 1960s.

But in the digital age the stakes are even higher. Technological, economic and behavioral changes are dramatically altering how Americans communicate. Communications systems no longer run along the lines of local communities, and the gap in access to digital tools and skills is wide and troubling.

The Commission seeks to start a national discussion – leading to real action. Its aims are to maximize the availability and flow of credible local information; to enhance access and capacity to use the new tools of knowledge and exchange; and to encourage people to engage with information and each other within their geographic communities.

Informing Communites: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age

Four years ago, as the media industry teetered, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation began to explore new ways to advance quality journalism in the digital age.  We asked: what innovations will inform 21st century communities the way the Knight brothers’ newspapers did in the 20th?

To help find them, we created the Knight News Challenge – a five-year, $25 million contest seeking fresh ideas for using digital technology to inform geographic communities. We believed that living through a time of such enormous change, the most effective thing we can do as a foundation is to experiment and learn.

This study forwards that mission. After three rounds of the Knight News Challenge, we took a step back to examine how we could improve the contest. We consulted past challenge judges, entrepreneurs and technologists. We also explored lessons from the broader field. In general, contests are increasingly being used as a tool to solve society’s most entrenched problems. In the area of news and information alone, the number of contests has doubled since we first launched the challenge in 2006.

We hope that you will find the information contained in this report as beneficial as we have. We hope it will be a useful resource for organizations that are designing and implementing contests to spur innovation, as well as for nonprofits and individuals looking for funding opportunities in the area of media, information and communication.

-Gary Kebbel,
Journalism Program Director,
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

-Mayur Patel,
Director of Strategic Assessment & Impact
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation