This is the first in a series of excerpts from our new booklet “Journalism and Media Grant Making.” Based on the experiences of foundations that are making media grants, it’s a primer for foundations that want to get started.

Five Things You Need to Know: 1. This is everyone’s issue

No matter what you are trying to do in your community, you probably can’t get it done without a healthy flow of news and information. Foundations committed to media and journalism grants consider them an essential component of their programming efforts.

After all, how can a city engage in development issues if no one knows where or when new building is planned? How can the water be cleaned if no one knows it’s dirty? How can schools be improved if people don’t understand why they are failing? Quality news and information is an essential element of effective citizen engagement.

The William Penn Foundation has funded $3 million in journalism grants since 2000, including $800,000 for Plan Philly, an independent online news organization that covers planning and development and works to engage citizens in discussions about the future of Philadelphia.

Feather Houstoun, president of the William Penn Foundation, says the project has created civic debate about issues that previously went uncovered.

“Our early grants for journalism came directly out of our program interests in public education and urban planning, and at the time, we would not have considered ourselves a ‘journalism funder.’ The impact those news projects had on the success of our grant-making strategies taught us that journalism could be a powerful tool to increase civic debate and public accountability – key elements that underpin most of our desired goals.

“When PlanPhilly started filming and posting every zoning board and planning commission meeting, the behavior in those meetings changed dramatically. The mere fact that officials knew they’d be presented in unedited form on the Internet within hours made a huge difference to the quality of discussion at those meetings.”

– Feather Houstoun, President, William Penn Foundation

Tomorrow: 2. You can build on what you’re already doing

Stay tuned for more ideas. The full booklet will be available as a pdf on this site next week and in print in April at the annual conference of the Council on Foundations. The booklet is sponsored by the Knight Foundation and the William Penn Foundation.

Has your foundation invested in news and information efforts? Please tell us about them in the comments.