The Investigative Journalism Foundation has been nominated for three more awards including new business of the year, news product of the year and startup of the year.
The IJF is a finalist for the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) annual awards in the startup of the year category, which goes to an organization that is less than three years old and has established “strong support of their journalism throughout the community and the revenue growth to sustain it.”
LION Publishers, an organization representing local independent online news in Canada and the United States, nominated the IJF in two LION Sustainability Awards categories.
The IJF was chosen as a finalist for the new LION business of the year award, given to an outlet that “exhibits a commitment to working toward achieving sustainability through operational resilience, financial health, and journalistic impact.”
“I’m so proud of the entire IJF team. It’s an honour to be the only organization that is a finalist in both LION and INN’s new business categories. Our team is building the future of journalism and it’s wonderful to see that recognized,” said IJF CEO Zane Schwartz.
The IJF’s Open By Default database is also a LION finalist for product of the year.
Open By Default is the biggest database of internal government documents released by the federal government through access to information requests.
The IJF launched Open By Default on March 5. The database contains 34,129 completed freedom of information requests, totalling nearly 4.7 million pages of government records, with new documents being added daily.
These nominations add to the list of recognition the IJF has received for its accomplishments in its first year of publishing. In April, reporters Kate Schneider and Roberto Rocha were both nominated for the 2024 Digital Publishing Awards in the data journalism category.
Schneider ultimately won the silver medal for data journalism for her story that found Trudeau’s Liberal government sold $1.3 billion worth of weapons to authoritarian countries — eight times more than Stephen Harper’s Conservatives had.
The IJF currently offers nine public interest databases for political donations, lobbying, charity tax returns and Open By Default, with plans to launch two more databases in the coming weeks.
The IJF has published more than 150 stories, including a growing number of collaborations with other media outlets, including CBC, The National Post, The Walrus, CTV, The Canadian Press, Capital Daily, The Tyee, Canada’s National Observer and The Narwhal.
The LION Sustainability Awards winners will be announced on Sept. 5. Nonprofit News Awards winners will be announced on Sept. 18.