You may request up to $500,000. If you wish to apply for more, choose one of the other two categories.

The Knight Foundation places a high priority on engaging young people to shape their own future. For that reason, we have set aside $500,000 of this year's Knight News Challenge funding specifically for people 25 and under, and we have enlisted MTV, the world's premier television network for young people, as a partner. Your odds of winning could be bigger by choosing this category because of a smaller pool of contestants.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation invests in journalism excellence worldwide and in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities. Since 1950 the foundation has granted more than $300 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression. It focuses on projects with the potential to create transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

The only place you can apply is here on the Knight News Challenge web site. No applications are accepted by mail, e-mail, fax, or any other means.

First, you take about 20 minutes to fill out a simple form that tells us the essence of your idea. If we think your idea shows promise, we’ll ask you to write a full proposal. (This is to keep you from wasting a lot of time if we aren’t interested.)

You will be asked whether you want your entry to be “open” or “closed.” If you choose “open,” then others will be able to read and comment on your submission.

Those who submit their applications and proposals in the open process are seeking the wisdom of the crowd to help improve their ideas and their application. They don’t care if others try to develop the same idea, or if others help them with their work. They get to revise their application based on public feedback. On the other hand, those who submit in the closed process are confident they have a good idea, and they don’t want public help developing it further. They are ready to be judged on their idea as it is when they submit it. Neither type of entry has an advantage with the reviewers, who simply are looking for great ideas.

The “entry” is the first step of the application process, and it is fairly quick and easy to complete. The “proposal” is the second step, and it is more detailed. You will be notified whether or not you make it to the “proposal” stage.

If you can say yes to every one of these, then your idea qualifies for submission:
Digital – Your idea uses digital technology (computers, the internet, cell phones, that sort of thing).
Innovative – Your idea is new and original. It’s different from what people have done before. You are, in some way, breaking new ground.
News/information – Your idea is about giving people access to what they want to know.
Timely – Your idea delivers news or information while it’s still fresh.
Community-building – Your idea helps create a sense of community among some group of individuals.
Limited geographic area – Your idea affects people in a specific area, which could be as big as a state or province, or as small as a city block. (If your idea is national or worldwide in scope, it must work at a regional level.)
Open Source – The inner workings of what you create will be visible to the world, so that others can take it and improve upon it. (Read more here.)

The Knight News Challenge is a contest run by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which has earmarked $25 million over a five-year period.

As much as $5 million will be given away this year. Anyone can apply.

The goal is to spur innovation in the delivery of information and news using digital media.

Whether it’s election coverage, crime statistics, little league scores, road conditions or anything else; we’re looking for smart, innovative solutions that connect people with the news and information that matters to them most.

Knight staff, outside digital media experts and the Foundation’s
journalism advisory committee review entries. Senior staff recommends
winners. Foundation trustees make the final decision.

Anyone in the world 25 years of age or younger

Anyone, anywhere , from a high school student in Beijing to a business executive in New York.

This
competition is open to nonprofits, companies or individuals of any age
and anywhere in the world. The question is not who you are, but what
kind of idea you have.

You
do not need to be 18 years old to enter, but awards to minors will be
made to an intermediary designated by the Knight Foundation.

Awards will be distributed in 2008. Knight Foundation will work out a schedule with each winner.

Spring 2008

October 15, 2007

No entries by mail are accepted. Please apply here, on this site

Anywhere in the world, but it must affect a specific geographic community.

The community can be as small as a city block or as big as a state or province.
If your idea is national in scope, it must work on a local level. (For
example, MTV won last year with the idea of putting Knight Mobile Youth
Journalists all over the country, but each one operated within his or
her own state.)

Here’s our thinking behind this:

Online
communities don’t need our help. Virtual communities spring up every
day. But using digital news and information to enhance physical
communities — that’s something we think does need our help.

The
reason we’re focusing on physical communities is that our democracy is
organized by geography. We want to help improve the lives of people
where they live, work and vote.

Everywhere. You do not need to be a U.S. citizen to enter.

Because you have a big idea and you want to bring it to life.

Because you want to make your mark.

Because you want to do something that improves people’s lives.

Newspapers used to be the glue that held communities together.

The news they printed helped people identify problems and work together to find solutions.

TECHNOLOGY has changed everything.

Most of us use the internet, cell phones and other gadgets to find out what we want to know.

Although technology connects us with the world, it can leave us disconnected from those in our geographic community.

We want to help people use technology to find out what they want to know and what they need to know to improve their lives.

We want to bring people together in the real world through technology.

Depending on the number of entrants, your odds of winning may be higher
for the Young Creators Award.  Your idea will be competing against
other people in your age group.  The playing field may give you an
advantage

There are only two categories:

General
(open source, open standards) We’re looking for people with great ideas
who don’t quite know how to make them happen, or people who have an
exciting idea they want to test. You just have to use digital news and
information in a new way to create a sense of community for people in a
given geographic area.

Commercial
– Your idea is a for-profit product or service that will have positive
social impact. This category is for entrepreneurs whose ideas might not
have enough profit potential for venture capital. If you have an idea
we like in this category, we will help connect your company with the
funding it needs. We want more corporations to think about the double bottom line.

So the only question is whether your idea is for-profit or not.

• State the essence of your idea within the first two or three sentences.
• Ask someone who is not familiar with your project to proof-read your application for clarity.
• Make
  sure your applications meets the basic requirements (digital,
  news/information, limited geographic area, timely, open source,
  community-building – see FAQ item “What kind of projects will get
  funded?”

We face IRS restrictions in giving to the Miami Herald, the Akron Beacon Journal and the Detroit Free Press because these former Knight-Ridder newspapers once gave contributions to the foundation. But employees of those papers may still apply for individual news challenge awards. There are, however, exceptions, including officers or directors of those newspapers or their parent companies. The best way to find out whether or not you are eligible is to apply. When employees apply, they must apply as individuals, and not propose to use any company resources, time or intellectual property rights.

The award money would be distributed to both of them. Each person would
have equal claim on the money unless they agree between themselves, and
tell us clearly, that they wish a different distribution because of
different contributions to the application.

We don’t have a problem with blogs. But paying someone to blog about
the local school board is not a digital innovation. A person can do
that right now, without this contest. The blogs we support are for the
purpose of publicly developing new ideas of how to create community
news experiments using digital innovation. We also ask all winners to
blog about their projects, as part of their obligation to share their
knowledge.

Because individual situations vary, you need to consult a professional tax adviser with this question.

f you are awarded a grant, Knight Foundation will work with you to help
you succeed. We will bring our resources and experience to your aid,
where feasible. Nonetheless, sometimes ideas still don’t work out. If
that happens, the important thing is to learn from the experience.
That’s why we call these projects “community news experiments”.
Experiments fail all the time, but at least if you are rigorously
honest, you learn what didn’t work.

No. Knight Foundation will select an intermediary who is not a family member to manage the money for you.

That could happen. It’s the trade-off of that
category. You can seek the wisdom of the crowd and use it to improve
your entry. It would be possible for someone to read your idea and
submit a similar one in the open or closed category. If someone
submitted a similar proposal to yours and did so in the closed
category, you probably never would know that your idea had been copied.
Submitting in the closed category would avoid this situation but would
prevent you from getting ideas from others that might improve your
application. During Knight Foundation’s process of reviewing
applications, we might be able to identify ideas that appear to be
copies and to decline applications that appear to be copies but we
cannot promise to do that. 

Entering
“openly” means you are either confident enough in your own abilities
and track record that you’ll be chosen to do the work even if others
have similar ideas, or that you don’t really care who does the work as
long as it gets done. If someone copies your idea and then submits a
“closed” application, you might not ever know that happened. The only
way to avoid that situation is to submit your entry as a closed entry.

Can
I claim a piece of someone else’s prize if I give them the idea (in the
open entry) that propels their project into a winning category?[top]

Only
if you are a co-applicant. Otherwise, if you comment on an entry you
are doing so freely and voluntarily with the knowledge that you are not
creating any ownership rights for yourself.  It is theoretically
possible for a technology expert with a good entry to meet up through
the comment process with a community expert and want to invite them to
join in as a partner in a revised entry. But that’s up to the original
applicant.

Yes. The applicant holds the intellectual property rights, subject to
Knight Foundation’s requirement that the intellectual property be
shared with the world. By entering the contest you agree to share those
rights with the world in line with open-source, open-standard
philosophy. If you enter your idea as an “open” idea, others can
comment on it. They are freely giving you their wisdom, and by doing
that, they are agreeing to let you incorporate their ideas into your
project. If you win, however, under the open-source rules you’ll have
to share your software code and other know-how with everyone.

Anywhere from zero to a large number.

It depends on the number of quality proposals we get.

Yes, if the company is uniquely positioned to test or develop a new technique or technology and is willing to share the results of that test with everyone. We see the challenge as a kind of flexible research and development fund, open to anyone.

The Young Creators Award is one of the three
categories in the Knight News Challenge (the others are 'general' and
'commercial').  If you enter the Young Creators Award, you may not also
submit the same idea in another category.  (You may, however, submit a
different idea in any of the categories.)

Yes, if you have more than one proposal. But you may not submit the same proposal in multiple categories.

You
may even enter as an individual in one category and as part of a
nonprofit or company in another category, providing that the proposals
are different.

There is no limit.

Contact us.