Media Development Investment Fund

Last updated
Media Development Investment Fund
AbbreviationMDIF
Formation1995
Founder Saša Vučinić and Stuart Auerbach
TypeNGO
Website www.mdif.org
Formerly called
Media Development Loan Fund

Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), formerly Media Development Loan Fund, is a New York-registered non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and mission-driven investment fund that provides low-cost financing to independent news and information businesses in challenging environments, mostly in countries with a history of media oppression. [1] As one of the United States–based groups involved in direct media development, it specializes in impact investing and provides affordable debt, equity and quasi-equity financing to help journalists build sustainable businesses around professional, responsible, quality journalism. [2] [3]

Contents

In 2016, MDIF was declared an "undesirable" organization by the Office of Prosecutor General of Russia using Russian undesirable organizations law and put on the list of organisations banned in Russia. [4] [5]

Mission and impact

According to its website [6] “MDIF invests in independent media around the world providing the news, information and debate that people need to build free, thriving societies”.

Its own impact analysis [7] found that more than 268 million people get their news from media supported by MDIF. After five years of working with MDIF, media businesses increase their revenues by an average of 196% and their reach by an average of 169%.

History

MDIF was founded in 1995 by Saša Vučinić and Stuart Auerbach, the late Washington Post reporter and editor. [8] According to its website, George Soros provided the initial $500,000 funding in 1995 towards what later became MDLF. [9] The organisation was initially established to support media companies in Europe transitioning from communist systems to free markets, but has then expanded to provide financing to media businesses around the world. [10]

Vučinić served as the CEO and Managing Director of MDLF until 31 March 2011, [11] when he stepped down and was succeeded by Harlan Mandel. [12]

In 2013 Media Development Loan Fund changed its name to Media Development Investment Fund. [13] Currently, MDIF funders and investors include a wide range of organizations and individuals who share organisation's commitment to independent media. [14]

In 2016, MDIF was declared an "undesirable" organization by the Office of Prosecutor General of Russia using Russian undesirable organizations law and put on the List of organisations banned in Russia. [4] [5]

Financing

According to its website, [15] from 1996 to June 30, 2024, MDIF has provided more than $321.1 million in affordable financing, including:

MDIF has invested in 152 clients across 47 countries, writing off 9.5% of the total loaned and invested. [15]

MDIF has returned $100.4 million to investors. It ended June 30, 2024 with a portfolio allocated in 61 media businesses across 34 countries. [15]

Other activities

MDIF is one of the founders of the European Press Prize. [16]

Together with King Baudouin Foundation, Tinius Trust and Mediahuis, MDIF is among European media companies, foundations and impact investors who launched Pluralis, with the aim to support plurality of news across Europe. [17]

In 1998 MDIF also founded CAMP (Centre for Advanced Media-Prague), which provided technology support to independent media in developing countries. In 2010, MDIF spun off CAMP as an independent organization, Sourcefabric, whose mission is to provide independent media outlets with the open source software, tools and support they need to produce the news. [18]

In 2017 MDIF acquired a majority stake in South African media company Mail & Guardian. The restructured ownership saw M&G’s Chief Executive Officer, Hoosain Karjieker, acquire a minority stake in the business as part of a Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) transaction. The former majority shareholder, Trevor Ncube, disposed of his equity interest in M&G. [19]

On 30 October 2024 MDIF sold its majority shareholding in South Africa’s Mail & Guardian to minority shareholder and former CEO Hoosain Karjieker and Director Thembisa Fakude. [20]

MDIF report “Media Capture in Europe" [21] and an op-ed by CEO Harlan Mandel written for the EUObserver [22] that drew attention to problem of media capture in Europe, a situation when governments and business interests collude to control and manipulate the flow of news and information, prompted a reply by Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Relations Zoltán Kovács. [23] Harlan Mandel then published a reply to the government’s reply. [24]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Finance Corporation</span> World Bank Group member financial institution

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private-sector development in less developed countries. The IFC is a member of the World Bank Group and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States.

Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term seed suggests that this is a very early investment, meant to support the business until it can generate cash of its own, or until it is ready for further investments. Seed money options include friends and family funding, seed venture capital funds, angel funding, and crowdfunding.

Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm uses its internal reserves to satisfy its necessity for cash, while the term financing is used when the firm acquires capital from external sources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lone Star Funds</span> American private equity firm

Lone Star Funds, legal name of main entity Lone Star Global Acquisitions, Ltd. is an American private equity firm that invests in distressed assets in the U.S., Canada and internationally. The founder of Lone Star established its first fund in 1995 and Lone Star has to date organized 21 private equity funds with total capital commitments since inception of over $86 billion. Lone Star's investors include corporate and public pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, university endowments, foundations, fund of funds and high-net-worth individuals. Lone Star Funds has affiliate offices in North America, Europe and Japan.

Rusnano Group is a Russian state-established and funded company. The Rusnano Group's mission is to create competitive nanotechnology-based industry in Russia. Rusnano invests directly and through indirect funds into all major knowledge-based areas where nanotechnology is widely implemented: electronics, optics, telecom, classic and renewable energy, healthcare and biotechnology, materials and metallurgy, engineering and chemistry.

An angel investor is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors often provide support to startups at a very early stage, once or in a consecutive manner, and when most investors are not prepared to back them. In a survey of 150 founders conducted by Wilbur Labs, about 70% of entrepreneurs will face potential business failure, and nearly 66% will face this potential failure within 25 months of launching their company. A small but increasing number of angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding or organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share investment capital and provide advice to their portfolio companies. The number of angel investors has greatly increased since the mid-20th century.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, operating as CPP Investments, is a Canadian Crown corporation established by way of the 1997 Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act to oversee and invest the funds contributed to and held by the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).

AlpInvest Partners is a global private equity asset manager with over $85 billion of committed capital since inception as of December 31, 2022. The firm invests on behalf of more than 450 institutional investors from North America, Asia, Europe, South America and Africa.

Castle Harlan is a private equity firm based in New York City. The company focuses on buyouts and growth capital investments in middle-market companies across a range of industries. Founded in 1987, Castle Harlan invests in controlling interests in middle-market companies in North America and Europe, Australia and Southeast Asia through Castle Harlan Australian Mezzanine Partners.

Corporate venture capital (CVC) is the investment of corporate funds directly in external startup companies. CVC is defined by the Business Dictionary as the "practice where a large firm takes an equity stake in a small but innovative or specialist firm, to which it may also provide management and marketing expertise; the objective is to gain a specific competitive advantage." Examples of CVCs include GV and Intel Capital.

Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is about an alignment of an investor's beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newscoop</span>

Newscoop is a free and open source multilingual content management system for news websites. Its localizable user interface was built with journalists, editors and publishers in mind, rather than computer experts, and it can be configured to suit different profiles of end users. Newscoop follows a newspaper publishing model, so it structures sites by default as Publications, Issues, Sections and Articles, rather than nodes or objects. Newscoop is intended for medium-to-large-size online news publications, but it can be used to manage content for smaller sites too. Newscoop allows the management of multiple journalists and publications from a single interface.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian Direct Investment Fund</span> Fund established by the Russian government in June 2011

The Russian Direct Investment Fund is Russia's sovereign wealth fund established in 2011 by the Russian government to make investments in companies of high-growth sectors of the Russian economy. Its mandate is to co-invest alongside the world's largest institutional investors, direct investment funds, sovereign wealth funds and leading companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mosaic Inc.</span> Solar crowdfunding company

Solar Mosaic is a clean energy fin-tech company based in Oakland, California. Founded in 2010, Mosaic created its initial business model using crowdfunding principals to offer loans for commercial solar development projects. After shifting its model in 2014, Mosaic is now focused on financing residential solar projects by leveraging third party capital partners. Through this model, the company aims to democratize the social and environmental benefits of clean energy.

Saša Vučinić is a Serbian journalist and is the co-founder of North Base Media VC, and co-founder and former CEO and Managing Director of the Media Development Loan Fund.

Equity crowdfunding is the online offering of private company securities to a group of people for investment and therefore it is a part of the capital markets. Because equity crowdfunding involves investment into a commercial enterprise, it is often subject to securities and financial regulation. Equity crowdfunding is also referred to as crowdinvesting, investment crowdfunding, or crowd equity.

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over US$34 billion was raised worldwide by crowdfunding.

The U.S. Russia Investment Fund (TUSRIF) was an investment fund from 1995 to 2008. It was established by the United States government to make private investments in the Russian economy. By 2005, it had invested $300 million in 44 Russian companies. James Cook, Managing Director, founded and developed two of the leading companies DeltaBank, the first bank to sell credit cards in Russia, and DeltaCredit, the first bank to sell residential mortgages in Russia. TUSRIF was replaced by the U.S. Russia Foundation (USRF) in 2008, while its financial arm, Delta Private Equity Partners, was purchased by Deutsche Bank in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Chandler (businessman)</span> New Zealand-born businessman

Christopher Chandler is a New Zealand businessman and founder of Dubai-based investment company Legatum which also provides funding for UK media channel GB News.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grzegorz Hajdarowicz</span>

Grzegorz Hajdarowicz is a Polish entrepreneur, film producer, publisher, honorary consul of the Federative Republic of Brazil in Kraków. Participant of the international Bilderberg meeting in 2018. Ranked 17th on the list of Business Leaders 2021 by the Polish edition of "Forbes" magazine.

References

  1. ↑ Ashoka. "3 Innovations In Participative Journalism That Will Change The Media Industry". Forbes. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  2. ↑ "How digital media sites can monetize their social capital". ijnet.org. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  3. ↑ "Media Development Investment Fund: Banking on a Free Press | ImpactAlpha". impactalpha.com. 21 October 2014. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  4. 1 2 "Russia Bans More International Organizations". Human Rights Watch. 2016-08-22. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  5. 1 2 "Russia declares two more non-profits as undesirable". www.amnesty.org. 18 August 2016. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  6. ↑ "MDIF". www.mdif.org. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  7. ↑ "MDIF". www.mdif.org. Retrieved 2020-12-01.
  8. ↑ "Timeline: 20 Years of Financing Independent News – MDIF". 8 September 2015.
  9. ↑ "The Big Bang Theory of MDIF – MDIF". 22 January 2013.
  10. ↑ "Media Development Investment Fund Case Study - Convergence Resources | Convergence". www.convergence.finance.
  11. ↑ "MDIF". Archived from the original on 2017-03-02. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  12. ↑ "Harlan Mandel – MDIF".
  13. ↑ "MDLF rebrands as Media Development Investment Fund". sifanews.com. February 5, 2013. Archived from the original on March 3, 2017.
  14. ↑ "Funders and investors – MDIF".
  15. 1 2 3 "Track record – MDIF".
  16. ↑ "Partners - European Press Prize". European Press Prize. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  17. ↑ "Home". Pluralis. Retrieved 2022-02-21.
  18. ↑ Sourcefabric. "Mission/History". Sourcefabric. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  19. ↑ "MDIF acquires majority stake in South Africa's Mail & Guardian". mg.co.za. 12 December 2017. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
  20. ↑ "MDIF exits South Africa's Mail & Guardian". mdif.org. 30 October 2024. Retrieved 2024-10-30.
  21. ↑ "MDIF publishes report on media capture in Europe". MDIF. 22 May 2019. Retrieved 2019-03-02.
  22. ↑ Mandel, Harlan (6 June 2019). "Orban-style 'media capture' is spreading across Europe". EU Observer.
  23. ↑ Kovacs, Zoltan (11 June 2019). "Right of reply from the Hungarian government". EU Observer.
  24. ↑ Mandel, Harlan (11 June 2019). "MDIF responds to Orban criticism". EU Observer.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.