Dataharvest 2026 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

In this session, we'll cover budgets in all shapes and sizes — including investigation budgets, project grants, EU grants, and organisational budgets as a whole. We'll provide you with tools to translate your ideas into budgets to present to donors, and to explore different financial scenarios. We will also discuss how to improve your financial reporting and what you need to know about financial statements. We'll look at how to budget for your organisation when there is little core funding and lots of project funding, mistakes to avoid, and how to juggle reporting needs. This aims to be a candid, hands-on session where we can help each other and learn together — so be ready to bring your questions and ideas!

Many journalists, disillusioned with traditional journalism outlets and shrinking media freedoms in their countries, decide to branch out on their own. In Europe, the number of public interest media outlets has been rising, but the sector consists mostly of small to medium-sized newsrooms. The Journalism Value Project found that half of the public interest media it surveyed (174) reported annual budgets of less than 200,000 euros and 70% of all surveyed centres were purveyors of investigative journalism. They found that the sector faced an uncertain future and other existential threats, such as legal, governmental, and similar.

In this panel, speakers will give guidance, tips, and a heads up to people thinking of branching out on their own, those who recently established their own media, and those who have been doing it for a long time. The panel will discuss the intricacies of establishing and running a non-profit media, and things you might have been thinking about.

How does a centre survive the first 2-3 years before funding begins to stabilise? How does the founder survive? What strategies can you adopt? We will also discuss the topics nobody told us about when we were starting out. For instance, if you’re a journalist, you will probably not do much journalism for the foreseeable future. You will need to find a way to manage journalists while being a journalist first yourself. You will compete for funding with your friends and colleagues. You may lose yourself and your personal priorities while trying to make ends meet for yourself and your team. How to navigate it all?

Join this panel to learn how not to make the same mistakes or miss the same opportunities as we did.