GFMD Insider: A Quarterly Intelligence briefing on what our members need to know.

• A Funder's Perspective
  A Talk with Open Society Institute's Gordana Jankovic
• Media Map
  A realtime guide to GFMD member activities
• Eye on Results
  Susan Philliber on Outcome, not Output
• Forward Thinker
  James Deane on Media Development in a "Democratic Recession"
• Management 360º
  Yasha Lange on Staff Motivation
• Tech Corner
  Amy Webb on Mobile Trends

Each GFMD Insider will assemble a list of up-coming conferences and meetings important to media development organizations, a service to help GFMD members plan their calendars and travel budgets. View the calendar.

I am so pleased to send you the first issue of the GFMD Insider, an electronic briefing full of useful information for media development organizations. In it, you’ll find important insights on donor trends, management skills, program monitoring and evaluation, technology tips – and much more.

The first Insider is going out to everyone working in the field. But future editions – one every three months – will go only to GFMD members, so we urge you to join the Global Forum for Media Development now.

A Talk with
Gordana Jankovic,
Open Society Institute

The Open Society Institute’s Media Program is one of the world’s largest supporters of independent media. Its mission is to assist "media outlets that promote democratic values and demonstrate through their editorial approach a high level of professionalism, independence and openness.” Gordana Jankovic has served as its director since 1995.
Recently, she spoke to GFMD Director Bettina Peters about OSI’s priorities.

Peters: What is the current level of support provided by the OSI Media Program?
Jankovic: The Media Program has a budget of 10 million USD per year. OSI also supports media development in some of its other programs – the special initiatives journalism program, topical programs (like public health), and regional programs. Overall, I would say OSI spends about 50 million USD per year on media development. There are also national OSI foundations; some of them have media programs, as well.

One of our key initiatives this year is to create a real-time map of GFMD member activities. This map will enable you to locate potential partners, see in a glance programs taking place in a given location--and help you avoid duplication. In this issue of GFMD Insider, we have mapped member programs in Kenya. By yearend, we hope pinpoint all activities around the world. If you are not yet a GFMD member, please sign up and get your work on the map. Visit the map

Donors are strapped and competition for money is high, so demand for measurable results is way up. Someone’s warm feeling that a program is working is just not enough these days. That’s why any media development organization – whether giving or receiving money – needs to know the basics in monitoring and assessment. Setting up a system to evaluate a program should happen as soon as you create a proposal. In this first column I will introduce you to the fundamentals of the process.

Media development has ridden a rocky but successful road created by the flourishing of democracy, especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Support to independent media certainly predated that, and it has had to confront real democratic reversals since, but the past 20 years has generally provided fertile democratic soil in which media development has grown. The straws in the wind are gathering that suggest this period of democratic advance may be coming to an end. Not enough to make a haystack, but they are real.