For two decades, the Center for Public Integrity has, as one political commentator put it, shown it’s ‘probing flashlight into so many Washington dirty-laundry baskets.’ The result has been best-selling books, dozens of major awards, and changes in public policy and practice.

Yet like all other major media organizations at the dawn of the digital age, the center has faced its share of challenges. How do you keep the flow of investigative journalism both useful and engaging?

Two years ago, Knight Foundation awarded the Washington D.C.-based center a grant to begin to transform itself into a nonprofit investigative leader in the digital age. As part of its evaluation process, Knight Foundation hired a seasoned team – including a leading evaluator, an award- winning investigative editor and a social media analyst ‘ to probe the center’s efforts. The’resulting report is now up on our website.

Part of being a digital age investigator is being confident about the idea of transparency ‘ and the center’s leadership agreed the report could be released to the public as an example of ‘open evaluation’ done in a timely manner to support organizational improvement and learning.

Its findings: ‘ The Center for Public Integrity is producing hard-hitting investigations even as it transforms its digital presence. ‘ It can better pick stories by thinking about their potential to shape the public policy agenda. (Recent work on the Gulf oil spill is an example of this). ‘ A continuous flow of new digital techniques will give the center not just more reporting power but even greater distribution and new ways to engage people.

The report notes the center was able to raise its donations from individual donors by 23 percent, despite the recent economic downturn.

The Center for Public Integrity’s story holds lessons for all nonprofit news sites.

Mayur Patel Director of Strategic Assessment and Assistant to the President

Eric Newton Vice President, Journalism Program