Pulitzer Center: U.S. Local News Reporting Grants

Pulitzer Center: U.S. Local News Reporting Grants

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Pulitzer Center
Last Updated: November 19, 2025

Summary

The Pulitzer Center offers U.S. Local News Reporting Grants aimed at supporting freelance and staff journalists in producing in-depth investigative reporting for local news outlets. This initiative seeks to amplify underreported stories crucial to community engagement, particularly those addressing systemic issues. The grants are available on a rolling basis, encouraging diverse voices in journalism. Applicants must provide a project description, budget estimate, and distribution plan to qualify for funding that covers essential reporting costs.

Overview

Grant Overview This opportunity is open to freelance and staff journalists working with local U.S. news outlets to publish in-depth enterprise and investigative reporting projects. The Pulitzer Center is already actively working with partner outlets in many cities, from Milwaukee to Louisville to Tucson to St. Louis. We are committed to investing in U.S. local news by providing the resources to cover stories that might not otherwise get told. You decide what underreported stories your community needs to engage with, and we support that reporting and champion it, including creating educational materials and organizing events to expand the reach of your stories and the conversation about them. We value data, investigative, and accountability journalism projects that tackle systemic issues and hold to account powerful local figures. To Apply, You Will Be Asked To Provide The Following: A description of the proposed project in no more than 250 wordsA preliminary budget estimate, including a basic breakdown of costs A compelling distribution plan We aim to support teams that reflect the communities they report on. We hope our investment in U.S. local reporting projects will help our partner organizations advance their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals and commitments. We accept grant proposals on a rolling basis. Our editorial team meets regularly to review the proposals we receive.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Freelancers are eligible for our U.S. local news grants as long as they publish their stories in U.S. local outlets. Grants are open to all journalists: writers, photographers, radio producers, and filmmakers; staff journalists as well as freelancers. We support veteran reporters who have been widely published, but also back younger applicants who are looking for help to jumpstart their careers. A diversity of voices— gender, ethnicities, backgrounds and nationalities—is important to us. Grants are for the hard costs of reporting a specific story or series of stories. These costs can include travel, paying for essential data, or temporarily hiring additional people with certain skills.

Ineligibility

We do not fund academic reports, advocacy campaigns, book projects, or broad concepts without specific story ideas. We do not provide support for staff salaries or the purchase of basic equipment for freelancers or newsrooms.