Any U.S. community or place-based foundation with an interest in meeting information needs in their region is eligible.

The application period is open now through March 24. You can submit your entry here.

Finalists will be notified the third week of April, 2017. The final application will include a Skype interview with Knight staff. All proposed team members need to be in attendance for this. Final decisions will be made by May, 2017. 

No, this initiative is open to any U.S community or place-based foundation.

The application is broken into three sections with a total of eight questions. We are looking to get a sense of your foundations internal processes and curiosity for meeting information needs.

We encourage you to select a “team captain” for submitting the application, but encourage you to draft the application responses collectively.

We broadly interpret information needs. We are interested in examining the kinds of information communities are receiving, defining the gaps and looking for ways to fill them. The solutions should be wide-ranging and community-specific. In the past, we have funded projects that:                                                           

• Translate data into stories that highlight critical issues and community needs;
• Help newsrooms better engage with residents, or provide in-depth coverage on issues;
• Provide greater transparency and accountability around government data and information;
• Bridge ethnic, economic and generational lines to raise digital literacy.

Definitely. We encourage you to think outside of your normal grant-making programs. However, the focus for the lab is on designing solutions to meet information needs.

Each workshop will be customized for the participants. The sessions will focus on the four principles of human-centered design: inspiration, a time of research and testing assumptions; synthesis and framework, or interpreting the research and drawing conclusions; ideas and action, a period of designing solutions around community needs for and with the target audience; and planning and experimentation, or testing ideas with peers and the community.

The entire program is 18 months and includes four in-person workshops.

Yes. We ask that your team commit to all the in-person workshops. The first workshop will begin in the fall of 2017. We will work with the teams to determine specific dates.

Foundations will receive a grant of $65,000 to cover all travel-related costs for the sessions. This grant is also to support staff time and field work.

We are looking for cross-departmental teams comprised of three to four members with mid- to senior-level positions in the organization.

We are looking for teams that have a willingness to explore ways to address information needs. This process is not to develop one-time solutions, but to integrate the importance of information needs into your organization’s work. This requires the foundation’s leadership to be onboard with the project and to allow staff to work on this throughout the 18-month period, not just during the in-person sessions.

Judy Lee Haworth, a human-centered design expert, will lead the workshops. Knight staff members will also attend.

Teams will hold monthly calls with Haworth and Knight to stay up to date on training and progress. Teams will also receive assignments between the in-person gatherings.

We are eager to see the projects that come out of this process. We are not committed to funding these projects, however, we will work with each team to explore funding opportunities.

Please contact Michelle Huttenhoff at [email protected] with any questions. We also encourage you to participate in and ask questions during our webinar on March 1. You can register here