Work & Partners

This field-building project to develop a framework for understanding the health of local news and information ecosystems includes three iterations of a report on media ecosystems in the U.S., including a literature review, methodology, case studies, and a free, easy-to-use playbook.

Impact Architects offers custom designed impact measurement frameworks and offline impact tracking platforms for newsrooms and organizations interested in better understanding the effects of their work.

Impact Architects’ media impact model is a starting point for developing custom impact models that reflect the complexity of social change, recognizing not only the power of media to “shine a light” on those in positions of institutional power, but also in contributing to the building and wielding of power by community members and groups to create change.

Impact Architects partnered with the Ford Foundation to conduct a portfolio level evaluation of the Creativity and Free Expression’s Journalism Program investments from 2016-2021.

We partnered with KPCC/LAist to develop a custom methodology to measure the inclusivity of their content, based on their own language guidelines, values, and internal goals.

This evaluation looks at five years of DF’s grant-making through its Public Square Program, including local news ecosystems, equitable journalism, and freedom of the press.

We conducted a source and content audit for KUOW public radio in Seattle, WA. This work created custom categories for source diversity, including community of belonging, to deeply understand KUOW’s coverage and inclusion of community members across greater Seattle.

This primer and toolkit, designed for program officers and staff without prior experience supporting journalism and media, was a first step in supporting the Walton Family Foundation to create a framework for its media and journalism investments, including impact measurement.

We partnered with the Knight Foundation to conduct an assessment of its $300 million commitment over five years to strengthen local news sustainability. The goal of this assessment is to better understand the impacts of these investments and promising practices that contribute to sustainability.

This field-building project, supported by the News Integrity Initiative, shares a definition for engaged journalism, based on a field survey and literature review, as well as case studies for different approaches to engaged journalism.

This research project, a collaboration between the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University and Impact Architects, documented how various journalism collaboratives are currently documenting and measuring the impact of this work and puts forth recommendations for future impact strategy and measurement.

Impact Architects partnered with Capital Public Radio to conduct a collaborative, participatory evaluation of its engaged journalism initiative, Place & Privilege, including surveys, arts-based-evaluation tools, and participant observation by CapRadio staff.