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.

Independent newsrooms operate in a landscape full of contradictions. Digital journalism has the potential to reach large audiences, yet people today are overwhelmed by a constant stream of online content – much of it shaped by opaque corporate algorithms and polluted with disinformation. At the same time, funders increasingly ask newsrooms to demonstrate measurable audience reach, impact, and engagement.

Against this backdrop, in-person events offer a powerful opportunity. By reclaiming the spirit of the public square, live gatherings allow newsrooms to meet their audiences face-to-face, build community, and create deeper, more meaningful reporting and engagement. Yet organising such activities and integrating them into editorial work can also be time-consuming and resource-intensive.

In this session, speakers will share practical ways independent newsrooms are combining audience data with in-person events to better listen to the public and co-produce journalism with their communities. What tools and spaces can make this possible? What are the advantages – and limitations – of small, intimate gatherings vs large public events? What works, and what doesn't? Join us to explore practical strategies for using in-person engagement to strengthen journalism, deepen audience relationships, and support the long-term sustainability of independent newsrooms.

Independent newsrooms across Europe are facing a tough reality: grant funding is becoming more competitive, short-term, and unpredictable. This panel will explore the challenges small newsrooms encounter when forced to downsize, and how they can restructure teams, workflows, and output to continue producing quality journalism under financial pressure. We’ll also examine how one can try to secure new revenue streams - and how to pursue them without compromising editorial independence-and about the strain that sudden influxes of one-off projects and grants can place on already overstretched teams. Join us to discuss these challenges, share experiences, and learn practical, transferable strategies.