The National Press Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to “make good journalists better.” We educate journalists on the complex issues of the day and train them to use the latest reporting tools and techniques. The foundation recognizes and encourages excellence in journalism through its awards and fellowships.
Since 1976, the foundation has provided in-person professional development opportunities to thousands of editors, producers and reporters, helping them better understand and explain the effects of public policy on readers and viewers. All NPF programming is free and on the record. Recordings and summaries of hundreds of expert briefings can be viewed under Resources.
National Press Foundation is funded by journalism organizations, foundations, corporations and individual benefactors. We are grateful to our funders, who are listed here.
Our programs are held in the nation’s capital, around the United States and overseas. We bring together leading authorities to discuss significant issues ranging from racism, health and economics to politics and policy. NPF produces digital curriculum from these fellowships and briefings that are posted to our website, allowing journalists across the world to access the expertise to enhance their reporting.
Journalists are currently under fire, overworked, underpaid, and too often threatened with violence. The landscape for media continues to deteriorate with widespread layoffs, newsroom closures, mistrust, and disinformation. Against this grim background, the National Press Foundation’s mission – making good journalists better – has become more necessary than ever.
NPF senior staff stays abreast of topics in the news as well as trends in technology and the digital world. We also rely on our Board of Directors, comprised of top-notch journalists, corporate communications professionals, accomplished academics, technology executives, and experienced leaders in the legal profession to offer suggestions on trends, emerging issues and noteworthy speakers. Our mission is to produce training that journalists cannot get elsewhere or in such depth. We often pair current issues programming with skills training.
NPF trainings are free of charge to journalists and their organizations.
Training can range from one-hour webinars to three and four-day in-person seminars. And continuing fellowships can last up to a full year with monthly workshops.
Our training takes place in person in Washington, in other U.S. cities, and around the world. And some trainings are done online.
Two things never change: Our programs are on the record, and there is plenty of time for Q&A.
From each briefing, we produce video, audio, transcripts, blog posts, speaker slides, databases, photos and detailed lists of resources designed to help journalists on deadline find accurate information quickly. This content is free-of-charge to reproduce, with credit to NPF. Our programming is also distributed through social media and YouTube to expand the reach of our training to tens of thousands of journalists in every corner of the world.
Our awards are funded by generous individuals and foundations dedicated to celebrating the best in journalism. Previous winners can be found by award here. We are especially grateful to our volunteer judges for their service.
NPF conducted its first educational program in 1976 and has since trained thousands of journalists in person; another 150,000 use NPF’s online resources each year. In 1993, NPF joined forces with the Washington Journalism Center, a training center that traced its educational programs to 1965.
We research the best experts on a particular topic for each training. Speakers come from government, industry, academia, journalism. We don’t pay our speakers. On occasion we may pay their travel expenses for out-of-area speakers.
NPF has multiple sources of funding. We have approximately $4.0 million in endowment and investment funds. We withdraw 5% annually from unrestricted and board restricted funds to support operating expenses and some training. We produce an annual awards dinner, and the net proceeds from that go to operating costs and some training. We also apply for and receive grants from nonprofit and for-profit organizations. A list of our funders can be found here.
Financial contributions are tax-deductible because NPF is registered as a 501(c)(3). Your contributions go directly to training and educating journalists, our sole mission. You can encourage journalists to apply for our fellowships and register for our briefings. You can spread the word about our journalism awards, or contact us about endowing an award. You can purchase a table or sponsorship for our dinner. Or you can simply make a donation of any amount by clicking here.
We have a strict set of guidelines that has been in place for more than a decade. It can be found here.
