Five government funding programs you should know about

Over the past several years, News Media Canada has been working with multiple government departments to explain why public service journalism matters to the health of our democracy, and the vitality of all of our communities.

In recent weeks, we’ve fielded several inquiries from members about which funding program would be best for them. We’d like to recap for you the different funding programs that are currently available.

These programs include:

  1. Refundable tax credit: The refundable credit will support labour costs associated with producing original news content and will generally be available to both non-profit and for-profit news organizations. News Media Canada will keep you posted on future developments once the federal government resumes business.
  2. Local Journalism Initiative: The Local Journalism Initiative supports the creation of original civic journalism that is relevant to the diverse needs of underserved communities across Canada, broadening availability and consumption of local and regional news on matters of civic governance. 

    Deadline to apply is November 15, 2019.

  3. The Canadian Periodical Fund: The Canada Periodical Fund is a subsidy program for community newspapers and magazines. News Media Canada will keep you posted on future developments once the federal government resumes business.
  4. Non-refundable tax credit for subscriptions: To support Canadian digital news media organizations in achieving a more financially sustainable business model the government introduced a new temporary, non-refundable 15 per cent tax credit for qualifying subscribers of eligible digital news media.
  5. Access to charitable tax credit incentives: The federal government has introduced a new category of tax-exempt qualified donee for non-profit journalism organizations that produce a wide variety of news and information of interest to Canadians.In order to qualify for registration, a qualified Canadian journalism organization will be required to apply to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to be registered as a qualified donee and meet certain additional conditions,

For more information about each program, please visit our public affairs page here.