Brussels | 1 August 2025How we finance our journalism
Journalism is expensive.
And not just because of journalists' time. It takes a whole ecosystem to make journalism work. Editing, IT, dissemination infrastructure, product development, coordination, and yes, making money. The costs are real. For over two years, we kept the lights on and the system running. But we couldn’t yet pay our team. Read more about our story here.
That changed in August 2025.
Thanks to a grant from the European Commission, we are now able to pay everyone involved. It’s a big step — and long overdue. But it’s also temporary: the funding runs until May 2027. After that, we’ll be on our own.
That means we have two years to build a sustainable, independent revenue model. Our goal: €1 million per year to keep our European newsroom alive and thriving.
Here’s how we plan to do it and how we’ve funded ourselves so far.
Where our money comes from (so far)
This is a list of people and organisations the European Correspondent has accepted money from.
Individual donors
Since April 2022, we have received €102,650.58 in donations. The average contribution was €10.63.
Between 1 January 2025 and 31 July 2025, we’ve received €43,140.87 from 4,525 individual donations.
In winter 2024, we also distributed 1,000 editions of our first print book. The average sale was €22.59, and it brought in €13,376 in total.
Commercial partnerships
Since early 2024, we’ve offered advertising and communication services to organisations that want to engage with a European audience. As of August 2025, we’ve successfully collaborated with over 20 different clients, bringing in a total worth of €38,000.
We have an ongoing relationship with Media Intercept (a US-based agency), which books short-term campaigns. All other partnerships are one-off projects brought in by our strategic partnership team.
We only work with partners who respect our values. No fossil fuels. No tobacco. That limits our pool. It means saying no to big money. But we’re not here to sell out. We’re here to report.
Read more about our advertising policy and promoted opinion policy.
You are interested in working together and engaging with our audience? Our services: www.europeancorrespondent.com/services
Foundations and others / Grants and prizes
We’ve received support from several foundations and other organisations. Here's a breakdown:
2023:
European Charlemagne Youth Prize, €3,000. In May 2023, we won the second European Youth Charlemagne Prize, an early acknowledgement of our work.
European Centre for Digital Action: supported a fellowship for our managing director and funding of €3,000 for an experiential paid Meta campaign to win new subscribers.
2024:
Media Hackathon, €5,000: prize for our pitch to build a European newswire.
Stiftung für Medienvielfalt, CHF 10,000 for our growth campaign with partial focus on targeting Swiss audiences.
European Cultural Foundation, €24,000: funded our reporting on civil society organisations. 82% went to editorial work, 8% to admin/reporting, and 10% to content dissemination. Here is the result, which we are proud of.
JournalismAI Challenge, USD 50,000: funding for an AI-powered editing assistance tool that now forms the basis of our newsroom technology. Most of this went to development and infrastructure.
2025:
International Press Institute, € 7,000: backing for our first subscription-based product (starting mid-August 2025). All funds are dedicated to launching the new product.
Institutional funding
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
So much about from whom we’ve accepted funding. Now, let’s dive into how we want to become financially sustainable.
Where we’re going
Our long-term goal is to be mainly reader-funded. That’s the most reliable way to stay truly independent. But we also know the reality: it's tough to rely entirely on readers – especially as a European medium. So for now, we’re pursuing the next best media funding strategy: diversification. The more we spread out our income streams, the less dependent we are on any one of them, and the freer our journalism remains.
Our strategy
Reader revenue
We believe in small contributions from many rather than dependence on one big donor.
Donations are the backbone of our independence. Later in 2025/early 2026, we’ll launch our first print subscription product.
Commercial partnerships
We sell services that align with our values. And we aim to work with a broad range of clients to avoid relying on any one source.
Foundation grants and EU calls
When it fits our mission, we’ll apply. But we won’t chase funding that forces us off track.
We’re serious about making journalism that’s worthy of our readers' trust — and that includes financial transparency. This page will be updated regularly with new income and changes to our funding sources.
This grant covers 95% of the costs for EU-based journalists reporting on European affairs and the establishment of a learning hub for our network of journalists.
The remaining 5%, plus all non-EU coverage, our publisher’s salary (Switzerland-based), and all commercial activity costs are covered by The European Correspondent through other income sources.
We decided to accept this funding, due to the editorial independence it provides. In our grant agreement, it explicitly states our editorial independence, which we intend to make full use of:
“Beneficiary shall be independent of any instruction, pressure or request from any EU Institution, any EU Member State or any other State or Institution in all matters concerning the editorial content that is produced under this Grant Agreement.”
At a later stage, we will include here a list of the publications which were made possible through this funding.
Your donation, no matter the size, makes a difference.
Sebastian Gräff provided the visuals for this page.
Carla Allenbach, managing director & co-founder, is responsible for the content of this page.
For any questions, do reach out: [email protected]
If you believe in what we do, support us.