An Open Fund for Projects Debunking Vaccine Misinformation

• Eligibility: 
  • The COVID-19 Vaccine Counter-Misinformation Open Fund is open to news organizations of every size, both for profit and nonprofit, publishing on any medium (digital, print, video, etc) that aim to produce original journalistic content. Applicants can be individual organizations or coalitions of publishers, both formal and informal.
  • All applicants should have a proven track record in fact-checking and debunking activities or partner with an organisation with such recognition. Evidence that third parties recognize the organization as a fact-checker will be required in the application, with membership of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) being the most prominent.
  • Projects must be ready to launch as soon as possible and no later than April 15, 2021. They should be fully realized within 12 months of obtaining the funding.
• Funding amount: Google will fund up to $1,000,000 per selected project. Special discretion on the total project cap may be considered by the jury depending on the scale and impact of a very large collaborative application. Google will finance up to 80% of the overall costs of the selected projects. Organizations are expected to detail costs for their projects, which can include in-kind expenditure (for example, people assigned to the project).
• Type of funding: Programmatic
• Target countries: Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean
• Application languages: English

The uncertainty and developing nature of the health crisis provoked by the novel coronavirus has made providing accurate, evidence-based journalism more essential than ever.

The COVID-19 Vaccine Counter-Misinformation Open Fund is aimed at supporting journalistic efforts to fact-check misinformation about the COVID-19 immunization process, with a concentration on projects that aim to reach audiences underserved by fact-checking or targeted by misinformation.

The Fund will make up to USD $3,000,000 available for projects which demonstrate a clear potential to provide effective corrective tools and content to counterbalance COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. Google will fund selected projects up to USD $1,000,000 each, covering up to 80% of the total overall budget of the project. Applicants cannot ask for an amount higher than 50% of their annual total income (Please note, this should reflect the combined annual income of partners for collaborative projects and include revenue generated as well as donations, philanthropy support etc).

Priority will be given to collaborative projects (e.g. multiple news organizations / entities working together) and that are interdisciplinary in nature (e.g. involve journalists working alongside epidemiologists or immunologists).

Read more about the project here.