The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also known as the Knight Foundation, is an American philanthropic organization that provides grants for the arts, journalism, research, and community development, with a focus on impact.
The organization was founded as the Charles L. Knight Memorial Education Fund in 1940. The fund was incorporated as the Knight Foundation in December 1950 in Ohio, and reincorporated as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Florida in 1993.
The Foundation’s mission is to support a more effective democracy by funding projects that promote free expression, arts and culture, research in media and democracy, and the success of its 26 Knight communities, where the Knight brothers published newspapers.
History
20th century
Charles Landon Knight was the publisher of the Akron Beacon Journal from 1907 to 1933. C.L. Knight had a tradition of providing financial assistance to college students until his passing in Autumn 1933.
Following their father's death, with the help of Jack Barry, John S. and James L. Knight established the Knight Memorial Education Fund in 1940. It would provide scholarships to students continuing their father's mission of helping Akron college students afford college. The funds were contributed by Knight’s and their newspapers, such as the Akron Beacon Journal, which contributed to the education fund.[2][3]
In December 1950, the Knight Foundation was incorporated in the state of Ohio. It began with an initial balance of $9,047, transferred from the education fund. Its stated goal was to continue carrying out the work of the education fund, but it was expanded to serve charitable, religious, scientific, literary, and philanthropic purposes for the benefit of the general public. The Foundation began making small grants to local education, social services, and cultural organizations. The Foundation’s first grant to a journalism organization was to the Inter American Press Association for a scholarship fund in 1954.
In its first decade, the majority of the Foundation's financial resources were provided by contributions from Knight Newspapers, such as the Akron Beacon Journal and the Miami Herald, including gifts from John and James Knight. Other Knight Newspapers also contributed, resulting in a limited number of grants being awarded to those cities. Despite several family ties, the foundation was legally independent of Knight Newspapers.
On November 12, 1965, Clara L. Knight, the mother of the Knight brothers, died, leaving her 180,000 shares of Knight Newspapers stock to the Foundation. At the time, the stock was valued at $5.2 million. As a result, in 1966, the Knight Newspapers' contributions to the Foundation stopped.
In 1972, the Board of Trustees authorized the sale of Clara Knight’s stock, raising $21 million for the Foundation, leading it to expand its grant programs and scale.
John S. Knight (also known as Jack) did not intend to leave his wealth to the Foundation. However, several factors led him to change his will in 1974. Jack’s health was deteriorating, there was an incoming merger with Ridder Newspapers, and changes to estate tax laws through the 1976 Tax Reform Act could have potentially led to a liquidation of Knight Newspapers' stock, which would have disrupted the merger. Knight Newspapers' C.E.O., Lee Hills, came to Jack and offered the idea of leaving his estate to the Foundation to secure the future of the company and the Foundation. Jack acquiesced, leaving his heirs' trust funds and the rest to the Foundation. After Jack’s passing and when his estate was settled, this would leave his 6,356,504 shares of Knight-Ridder Newspapers totaling $400,000,000 in total assets to the Foundation.[3][4][5][6][7]
The foundation's headquarters moved from Akron, Ohio to Miami in 1990. At that time, the foundation's portfolio was valued at $522 million and staff had grown to 14 employees.
On February 5, 1991, James Knight died, leaving a bulk of his estate, $200 million, to the foundation. Hills succeeded as chairman of the board.
With the foundation besieged by requests in the early 1990s for emergency funding to "save our symphony," Penelope McPhee, director of the Arts Program, designed the Magic of Music initiative.[8]
21st century
In 2005, to address the Internet's increasingly disruptive impact on the traditional media industry, Knight began a number of systemic changes in its approach to making grants. As one of his first actions as CEO, Alberto Ibargüen suspended the further creation of endowments of journalism programs at colleges and universities. The premise was that traditional journalism education had to change to meet the unique challenges of the digital age. Knight also began experimenting with non-traditional approaches to connecting with new grantees, such as contests that limited grantees to 150 words to describe ideas and were open to anybody.[citation needed]
In 2006, Knight launched the Knight News Challenge, an open competition to fund digital technology projects that improved how communities accessed news and information. The Foundation also operated the Knight Community Information Challenge, a fund for projects addressing local information needs.[9]
In 2008, Knight announced a $60 million investment in the South Florida cultural sector, including a $20 million Knight Arts Challenge. It has also funded projects and institutions such as the Miami City Ballet.[10]
From 2008 to 2011, Knight collaborated with Gallup to conduct the Soul of the Community study. The findings revealed a strong link between residents’ emotional connection to place and economic vitality.[12][13] Later in 2011, Knight partnered with the Mozilla Foundation to launch OpenNews.[14][15]
In response to Detroit’s 2013 bankruptcy, Knight joined 11 other foundations to preserve the Detroit Institute of Arts’ collection and protect city pensions in an $816 million agreement known as the Grand Bargain. Knight contributed $30 million to the effort.[16][17] Knight also supported urban revitalization and civic commons projects in cities affected by deindustrialization. Through the Knight Cities Challenge and Knight Emerging City Champions, the foundation funded grassroots civic projects including Lock 3 in Akron,[18] and Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia.[19][20][21]
In 2016, Knight partnered with Columbia University to establish the Knight First Amendment Institute which is dedicated to defending freedom of speech and the press in the digital age through litigation, policy advocacy and research.[22][23]
In 2019, Knight published the Knight Diversity of Asset Managers report, revealing that diverse-owned firms represented a small portion of the industry despite comparable performance. At the time, only 1.4% of 82.2 trillion of U.S.- based assets are managed by diverse-owned firms meaning women and people of color.[24][25][26] In the same year, Knight committed $300 million over five years as part of the Local Journalism Initiative. It also co-created the Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund and Lenfest Newsroom Initiative with the Lenfest Institute.[27][28]
In 2023, Knight joined 20 other funders to launch Press Forward, a $500 million initiative to support local journalism. Knight made a $150 million anchor investment, and by 2025 the initiative had invested $200 million in local newsrooms and established 36 community chapters.[29][30]
In 2024, Maribel Pérez Wadsworth became Knight’s President and CEO. In her first address, she called for “philanthropy to move at the speed of news,” emphasizing timely and responsive support.[31] New initiatives followed, including a new partnership with Pew Research Center to study civic information consumption and trust,[32] and a partnership with the Poynter Institute to educate new philanthropic funders to the ethics and best practices of funding local journalism.[33]
The foundation's website describes grant-making programs in journalism, communities, and the arts.[34] Communities which had Knight-Ridder Newspapers in 1991, at the time of the last founder James L. Knight's death, are considered to be among the 26 "Knight Communities" which are eligible for funding through the foundation's community and arts programs.[35]
Communities
Knight works in 26 communities in the United States. In eight communities, a local program director leads the work:
Another 18 communities have "Knight Donor Advised Funds" guided by the Knight Foundation via local community foundations. In those communities, the local community foundation is the first point of contact for funding:
The foundation endows Knight Chairs who are journalists in tenured positions at universities across the United States.[36][37][38] The Medill Knight Lab at Northwestern University, a journalism technology lab, is also funded by the Knight Foundation.[39]
The Knight Foundation funds multimedia training in newsrooms such as National Public Radio and through programs like Knight-Mozilla OpenNews.[40][41]
Alberto Ibargüen, president and chief executive of the Knight Foundation in 2013
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