John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

private, non-profit foundation dedicated to supporting transformational ideas that promote quality journalism

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts.

It began as the Knight Memorial Education Fund in 1940. For its first decade, most contributions came from the Akron Beacon Journal
Akron Beacon Journal
The Akron Beacon Journal is a four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning morning newspaper in Akron, Ohio, United States, and published by Black Press Ltd.. It is the sole daily newspaper in Akron and is distributed throughout Northeast Ohio. The paper places a strong emphasis on local news and business...

and Miami Herald. It was incorporated as Knight Foundation in 1950 in Ohio, and reincorporated as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Florida in 1993. Its first grant in the area of journalism was to the Inter American Press Association in Miami.

After Creed Black assumed the presidency in 1988, the foundation's national presence grew. In 1990 the board of trustees voted to relocate the foundation's headquarters from Akron, Ohio

Akron, Ohio

Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...

, to Miami, Florida

Miami, Florida

Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

Programs

Funding in 2011 was distributed according to four programs. They are the Journalism and Media Innovation Program, the Communities Program, the Arts Program and the National Program. Each of the programs uses a combination of funding priorities and geographic requirements to select grants, described on the foundation's web site.

Communities which had Knight-Ridder Newspapers in them in 1991 at the time of the last founder James L. Knight's death are considered to be the 26 "Knight Communities", a consideration for funding eligibility in both its Communities Program and Arts Program.

These 8 U.S. communities have a resident program director who is the primary point of contact for funding:

Akron, Ohio

Akron, Ohio

Charlotte, North Carolina

Charlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009...

Detroit, Michigan

Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...

Macon, Georgia

Macon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...

Miami, Florida

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...

San Jose, California

San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

These 18 U.S. Communities have 'Knight Donor Advised Funds' guided by Knight at local community foundations. Those community foundations are the first point of contact for funding:

Aberdeen, South Dakota

Aberdeen, South Dakota

Aberdeen is a city in and the county seat of Brown County, South Dakota, United States, about 125 mi northeast of Pierre. Settled in 1880, it was incorporated in 1882. The city population was 26,091 at the 2010 census. The American News is the local newspaper...

Biloxi, Mississippi

Biloxi is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, in the United States. The 2010 census recorded the population as 44,054. Along with Gulfport, Biloxi is a county seat of Harrison County....

Boulder, Colorado

Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...

Bradenton, Florida

Bradenton is a city in Manatee County, Florida, United States. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's 2007 population to be 53,471. Bradenton is the largest Principal City of the Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a 2007 estimated population of 682,833...

Columbia, South Carolina

Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...

Columbus, Georgia

Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Muscogee County, Georgia, United States, with which it is consolidated. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 189,885. It is the principal city of the Columbus, Georgia metropolitan area, which, in 2009, had an estimated population of 292,795...

Duluth, Minnesota

Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Fort Wayne is a city in the US state of Indiana and the county seat of Allen County. The population was 253,691 at the 2010 Census making it the 74th largest city in the United States and the second largest in Indiana...

Gary, Indiana

Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The city is in the southeastern portion of the Chicago metropolitan area and is 25 miles from downtown Chicago. The population is 80,294 at the 2010 census, making it the seventh-largest city in the state. It borders Lake Michigan and is known...

Grand Forks, North Dakota

Grand Forks is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Grand Forks County. According to the 2010 census, the city's population was 52,838, while that of the city and surrounding metropolitan area was 98,461...

Lexington, Kentucky

Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...

Long Beach, California

Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

Milledgeville, Georgia

Milledgeville is a city in and the county seat of Baldwin County in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is northeast of Macon, located just before Eatonton on the way to Athens along U.S. Highway 441, and it is located on the Oconee River. The relatively rapid current of the Oconee here made this an...

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Myrtle Beach is a coastal city on the east coast of the United States in Horry County, South Carolina. It is situated on the center of a large and continuous stretch of beach known as the Grand Strand in northeastern South Carolina. It is considered to be a major tourist destination in the...

Palm Beach County, Florida

Palm Beach County is the largest county in the state of Florida in total area, and third in population. As of 2010, the county's estimated population was 1,320,134, making it the twenty-eighth most populous in the United States...

State College, Pennsylvania

State College is the largest borough in Centre County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is the principal city of the State College, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Centre County. As of the 2010 census, the borough population was 42,034, and roughly double...

Tallahassee, Florida

Tallahassee is the capital of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, and is the 128th largest city in the United States. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2010, the population recorded by...

Wichita, Kansas

Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...

Leadership

Knight Foundation presidents have been: John S. Knight

John S. Knight

John Shively Knight was an American newspaper publisher and editor.He was born in Bluefield, West Virginia to Charles Landon Knight and Clara Scheifly. He attended Cornell University but never graduated, leaving early to enlist in the Army. While at Cornell he was a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa...

, Lee Hills

Lee Hills (journalist)

Lee Hills was an editor and publisher of the Miami Herald and the Detroit Free Press. He was the first chairman and CEO of Knight-Ridder Newspapers and president of the Knight Ridder news service after he helped arrange the merger of Knight Newspapers and Ridder Publications; later in life, he...

, Creed C. Black, Hodding Carter III

Hodding Carter III

Hodding Carter, III , is an American journalist and politician best known for his role as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs in the Jimmy Carter administration.-Biography:...

(1997-2005) and Alberto Ibargüen

Alberto Ibargüen

Alberto Ibargüen is President and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Miami, Florida. He is the former publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald in Miami, Florida, and is chairman of the board of the World Wide Web Foundation, founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee...

(2005-present).

Grants

Any individual or U.S.-based organization may apply for a grant. (Prior to 2010, an organization must have been a registered section 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.) The process of asking for a grant begins with a letter of inquiry describing the project concept. In addition to the foundation's regular granting program, there are three contests (calls for entries): The Knight News Challenge (www.newschallenge.org); The Knight Arts Challenge (www.knightarts.org/knight-arts-challenge); and the Knight Community Information Challenge (www.informationneeds.org). In 2011 the Foundation added a fourth contest, the Black Male Engagement Challenge (www.bmechallenge.org).

History

From 1907 to 1933, Charles Landon Knight published the Akron Beacon Journal. One of his practices was helping out financially strapped college students with their tuition. Following their father’s death, John S. and James L. Knight created the Knight Memorial Education Fund in 1940 to continue the mission of helping poor Akron college students pay for college. The Akron Beacon Journal also kicked in some money to the education fund.

In December 1950, Knight Foundation was created with $9,047 transferred from that education fund. Knight Foundation incorporated in the state of Ohio with the goal of carrying out the work of the education fund. At its start, the foundation funded education, social services, cultural organizations and some journalism related causes.

In its first decade, the foundation’s money came from contributions from the Akron Beacon Journal and The Miami Herald, as well as personal gifts by John and James Knight. Other Knight newspapers also contributed in the early 1960s, this led to a limited number of grants to those cities. Despite several family ties, the foundation was legally independent from Knight-owned newspapers.

Newspaper contributions to the foundation stopped five years later, when Clara I. Knight, the Knights’ mother, who died 12 November 1965, left her inheritance of 180,000 shares of Knight stock, then valued at $5.2 million, to the foundation.

Two years later, in 1974, Knight Newspapers merged with Ridder Publications to create Knight-Ridder Inc., at the time the largest newspaper company in the country. Lee Hills, former president of Knight Newspapers, became Knight-Ridder chairman and CEO. Hills, a foundation trustee since 1960, was the first person outside the family to head Knight Newspapers.

In April 1975, John Knight signed his final will, leaving the bulk of his Knight-Ridder shares to Knight Foundation. The foundation opened its first office in Akron with two full-time employees: President Ben Maidenburg, former Akron Beacon Journal executive editor and his secretary, Shirley Follo. More than a year after taking the reins, Maidenburg fell ill.

The foundation’s headquarters moved from Akron to Miami in 1990. At that time, the foundation’s portfolio was valued at $522 million and staff had grown to 14 employees.

On 5 February 1991, James Knight died, leaving a bulk of his estate, $200 million, to the foundation. Hills succeeded as chairman of the board.

Knight-Ridder newspapers and the foundation held ties to 26 U.S. cities and in 1998, the foundation’s board of trustees voted to permanently fund these 26 cities, independent from where Knight-Ridder bought or sold their newspaper business in the future.

Across the 26 cities, the foundation deployed program directors to oversee funding initiatives. Also, each city has a Knight Community Advisory Committee, a group made up of local residents, which offer funding suggestions for their city.

Assets and Grant making

YEAR	ASSETS		NEW GRANTS APPROVED	TOTAL PAYOUT
2009	$ 2,189,663,052	276 new grants	$ 141,813,088	$ 105,887,097
2008	1,974,780,135	263 new grants	138,670,778	116,206,414
2007	2,618,700,006	290 new grants	165,310,078	121,267,122
2006	2,261,797,097	191 new grants	73,799,294	104,310,919
2005	2,071,507,291	286 new grants	78,224,147	92,577,162
2004	1,939,340,905	329 new grants	99,905,480	90,358,608
2003	1,845,869,048	349 new grants	128,719,470	90,400,477
2002	1,718,236,238	459 new grants	80,949,242	85,617,981
2001	1,900,829,942	319 new grants	86,433,075	84,970,064
2000	2,198,985,122	356 new grants	93,365,465	69,983,125
1999	1,888,543,168	311 new grants	69,541,641	53,142,772

source: John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Annual Reports

Dedications

John S. and James L. Knight Theatre is a performance venue, part of Levine Center for the Arts in Charlotte, North Carolina
John S. and James L. Knight Concert Hall is a performance venue, part of Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Florida

External links

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation website

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