Media Forward Fund jury awards €500,000 to Eastern Germany

Berlin / Vienna / Zurich – December 10, 2025: From 79 applications from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, the jury of Media Forward Fund selected the podcast radio station detektor.fm from BEBE Medien in Leipzig for funding. This is the first time the non-profit fund has supported a public interest media organization that aims to strengthen the flow of information from and for Eastern Germany through an audio format combined with newsletters and events.

New audio offering strengthens access to information in Saxony-Anhalt

For its cooperation with Media Forward Fund, detektor.fm will receive €500,000 to launch a new podcast offering for Saxony-Anhalt ahead of the election as part of its regionalization strategy. In addition to the weekly podcast and newsletter, four live events are planned in Saxony-Anhalt to build and sustain a regional user community. The goal is to increase newsletter subscribers sevenfold and boost detektor.fm podcast followers by at least 20 percent. The newsletter and podcast will continue to be published after the cooperation ends.

“Maintaining a healthy information ecosystem gets more difficult as the conditions for providers for reliable information - especially in regional markets - get more complicated,” the jury explained its decision: “Against this context, detector.fm has, over sixteen years, established itself as a resilient media organization in Eastern Germany with an innovative approach to audio. The jury is happy to support the next stage in detektor.fm's development with a podcast project that enriches media diversity and strengthens independent journalism in Saxony-Anhalt, according to the jury’s statement.

The independent jury of experts from the DACH region includes Yves Daccord (CH), Maria Exner (DE), Lucy Kueng (CH), Eva Schulz (DE), and Patrick Swanson (AT). They decide which public interest media organizations will receive financial support from Media Forward Fund based on transparent criteria in two calls per year. Since its founding one and a half years ago, the jury has supported eleven media organizations in the DACH region in three calls with a total of more than three million euros.

New funding line for 2026: Media Forward Fund introduces “Strategy Grants”

Media Forward Fund is expanding its funding offerings and will introduce a new funding line in 2026. In addition to the established “Launch Grants” and “Growth Grants,” “Strategy Grants” will be offered for the first time in 2026.

While “Launch Grants” support media organizations in successfully introducing new offerings, formats, distribution channels, or revenue sources to the market, “Strategy Grants” come into play immediately after market establishment. The one-year funding enables media projects to systematically review growth assumptions for a specific offering, format, distribution channel, or revenue source: Through market studies, user research, and targeted testing, public-interest business models are to be validated and further developed.

The aim of the new funding line is to develop a practical, implementable growth strategy. Grantees receive accompanying coaching during the process. At the same time, the “Strategy Grants” serve as a gateway to a possible application for the “Growth Grants” of the General Funding Line, which support media organizations in growing their public value business model and taking the next step toward greater financial sustainability.

“With the new Strategy Grants, we are closing the financing gap between market launch and growth of sustainable business models in journalism,” says Martin Kotynek, Founding Director of Media Forward Fund: “This gives non-profit media organizations the opportunity to test their ideas in a targeted manner and derive a growth strategy – a crucial step in making public value journalism successful in the long term.”

The first call for “Strategy Grants” will take place in September 2026. The next call for “Growth Grants” in the General Funding Line for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland will start on February 9, 2026.

About Media Forward Fund

The first transnational fund for the support of journalism in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is committed to more high-quality independent media with viable business models, which publish strong, trustworthy content and are sustainably financed. The aim is to strengthen diversity in public interest journalism, and thus democracy.

Media Forward Fund was established in July 2024 as a non-profit initiative by Schöpflin Foundation, Mercator Foundation Switzerland, Volkart Foundation, Rudolf Augstein Foundation, ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS, Allianz Foundation, Stiftung für Medienvielfalt, ERSTE Foundation, DATUM STIFTUNG für Journalismus und Demokratie, MacArthur Foundation (USA), the impact investor Karma Capital Group, and Publix – House for Journalism & Public Sphere. As part of a new funding line for science and data journalism, five additional foundations from Germany joined the Fund in January 2025. In March, the German Postcode Lottery followed, and in September, the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space became a partner. The development of the fund was supported by a project grant from the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

To date, Media Forward Fund has been endowed with eleven million euros. Its governance structure ensures that all funding decisions are made independently of both private and public donors.

Press contact for journalists
Media Forward Fund
Lisa Sympher
E-mail: lisa@mediaforwardfund.org
Phone: +49 30 208 4735 50 15