News Innovation Fund

The News Innovation Fund Grant Program will run over 2 financial years from 2026-27 to 2027-28. This program is part of the News Media Assistance Program (News MAP), which aims to support public interest journalism and safeguard media diversity.

There is a total of up to $31.5 million available over 2 years for the program. Grants will be from $10,000 to $9 million.

Supports Australian news producers and enabling organisations to increase their commercial sustainability and improve the resilience of the sector through the funding of innovative new projects.

You can apply if you:
- Have an Australian business number (ABN)
- Are registered for the Goods and Services Tax (GST)
- Have an account with an Australian financial institution.

And are one of the following entities:
- An entity, incorporated in Australia
- An Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation registered under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 (Cth)
- A company limited by guarantee
- An incorporated trustee on behalf of a trust
- An incorporated association
- A co-operative
- A partnership
- An incorporated not for profit organisation or registered charity
- A sole trader.

You can use this grant funding for:
- Wages of new journalists and content support staff
- Domestic travel for training/upskilling of staff or for research and targeted reporting (up to 10 per cent of eligible expenditure)
- Cost of training courses and conference fees for training/upskilling of staff
- Capital expenditure for the purchase of assets directly related to the project
- Alternate advertising
- Purchase of equipment including computer/ICT software and hardware
- Contracting of external support for any of the following:
-> new Web Publishing services
-> software engineering
-> technical support for installing digital news content production or distribution equipment (e.g. sound production installation)
-> commissioning, for example: commissioning feasibility studies or planning work through to commissioning full IT builds or installations, or commissioning research to better understand the sector you are targeting and best ways to deliver your content
- Developing a content and marketing model for user-generated income via digital subscriptions
- Core function expenditure items that do not exceed 10 per cent of total eligible project expenditure. Core function expenditure items include:
-> accounting
-> legal advice
-> human resources
-> in-house marketing and communications
-> wages for administrative support staff.

Your project must be a new activity, that expands or transform:
- The production and provision of core news content distributed digitally, including new reporting in under-represented areas, or
- The commercial sustainability of an Australian digital core news producers, or
- The internal capacity, capability and resources of an Australian digital core news business.