The North American GNI Innovation Challenge is open to local news organizations of every size. Applicants should be operating in a local news market and aim to tackle the challenges of better understanding and serving communities in ways that demonstrate the value of journalism to enhance the relationship with their various audiences.

Established publishers, online-only players, news startups, publisher consortia, academics and local industry associations are all eligible to apply. Collaborative applications with other industry players are very welcome. Incorporated organizations must be incorporated in one of the eligible countries in the North American region. Unincorporated organizations must be registered in North America (or, if unregistered, have their principal place of business there).

The theme of the North American GNI Innovation Challenge is:“Understanding and serving the needs of your communities”

Local news organizations strive to address the needs of their communities and attain financial sustainability. Given the changes in our digital world this requires both a fresh understanding of the community needs and an understanding of how to communicate the benefits and values of the local news organization back to the community.

The goal of the North American GNI Innovation Challenge is to enable new thinking in how local news publishers assess the needs of their diverse communities online and understand how best to communicate the beneficial services they provide.

Projects will be evaluated against five main criteria:

• Process and tools used: Preferred projects will differentiate themselves by employing rigorous research based on data-driven methods.
• Diversity: Preferred projects will be able to demonstrate their self-defined commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) whether that is within their audience, organisation or content.
• Innovation: Preferred projects are innovative (plan to share the learnings, method to share the research framework, use of technology, new readers engagement approaches…) and be transformative for the applicant and for users.
• Feasibility: Projects should demonstrate a sound research plan, clearly outline key performance indicators or metrics, and set out key risks and mitigation steps.
• Inspiration: How can the project help news organizations learn from each other? Willingness to share knowledge or/and to contribute to the improvement of the ecosystem overall.

Initial selection of projects will be done by a Project Team, composed of a select team of Google staff who have knowledge and/or experience in digital publishing and local journalism. They will review all applications for eligibility, innovation and impact. They’ll compose a shortlist, conduct interviews with applicants and make recommendations to the North America GNI Innovation Challenge Jury.

The application window was open from June 23rd, 2021 9:00 PT until August 26th, 2021 23:59 PT. Further details will be announced on the GNI website.

Applicants were asked to provide descriptions, detailed project plans and budget information in our online application form as well as accept the North America GNI Innovation Challenge Application Terms and Conditions.

The application window lasted for 10 weeks. Take advantage of this time to document your application as thoroughly as possible and please download the list of questions in advance. All eligible applications submitted by the deadline will be reviewed, so there’s no need to rush into filling in the online form.

Please take the time to consult and do research on opportunities and investment requirements, brainstorm with your team and prepare the draft responses. When you are ready, please go to the online form and submit the application. If you need additional information, please contact us at nagnichallenge@google.com

In order to assess the projects, the Project Team will need information including:

• Company/individual information
• Location, URL, number of employees, number of journalists
• Project description
• Project budget and amount of funding requested
• Key indicators to measure the impact of the project
• A slideshow of, ideally, 10 slides or fewer which should address at least the following:
  1. Introduction
  2. Team
  3. Problem
  4. Steps of the project (1 slide each)
     One: Initial research methods
     Two: Product, editorial or messaging enhancements
     Three: Follow up research methods
     Four: Plan for disclosure of learnings/ frameworks
  5. DEI commitment
  6. Contact

As set out in the North America GNI Innovation Challenge Terms & Conditions, we require that applicants do not submit any Business Sensitive Information (as defined in the Application Terms and Conditions). Google intends to publicize its activities relating to the GNI Innovation Challenges. As outlined in the Application Terms and Conditions, it is a condition of application that Google may publicize aggregated data showing how funds have been offered in the GNI Innovation Challenges and certain project-specific information.

Collaborative applications with other industry players are very welcome. You can find more information on how to make a collaborative application in the North America GNI Innovation Challenge Terms & Conditions.

You can find the North America GNI Innovation Challenge Terms & Conditions here.

Yes, we will review all eligible applications received by the application deadline.

If you would like to contact the team please email nagnichallenge@google.com. During the assessment process, applicants may be asked to provide additional details about their project, including through interviews and/or the submission of further supporting documents.

Each applicant may only submit one application per round and we will not consider multiple applications in respect of the same project. For organizations that are part of a larger group or holding structure, we are unlikely to fund more than 3 projects per group or holding per application round. organization groups are therefore encouraged to focus their applications on top priority projects.

A limited number of people from the Project Team and Jury will have access to the responses that applicants provide. They will use the responses to assess the projects.

Application information received by the Project Team and Jury will be exclusively used for GNI Challenge operations and processes. Google will only share detailed application information outside the Project Team and Jury with the applicant's permission. Additionally, as described in the Application Terms and Conditions, certain information may be used by Google for publicity purposes.

Please see the Application Terms and Conditions for further details on how we will treat the information that you provide to us. As set out in the Application Terms and Conditions, we require that applicants do not submit to us any Business Sensitive Information. If the applicant has indicated that they wish to be connected to other applicants or industry groups, the Project Team may contact the applicant to offer knowledge sharing opportunities (featuring projects at events, case studies, etc).

Funding may not be spent on: General and overhead costs such as office rental, furniture and travel expenses, costs and expenses connected with registering, protecting, defending or monetising any intellectual property rights you may have (or that you may obtain through registration). This includes payments to any personnel engaged in such activities, or expenses or liabilities incurred before the date on which the parties enter into a Funding Agreement.

Eligible expenses include engineering and operations costs (e.g. product development, project management, user experience design, database build and maintenance, and hosting) and marketing expenses. Please note marketing expenses will only be covered up to 20% of the total funding offered. Editorial expenses are also part of the eligible costs for the Google funded portion of a project. Please note that the effective date for the project will be the date that we sign the funding agreement. No expenses incurred before this date can be covered by the funding.

Business Sensitive Information is confidential information which, if disclosed, would provide your competitors with a competitive advantage over you or would otherwise cause substantial harm to you.

Please see the Application Terms and Conditions for further information on this.

As the owner of your project, you are the best judge on what information is Business Sensitive. However, if you are in any doubt about this then we recommend that you seek independent legal advice.

If your application is shortlisted, you will hear from us about two months after the closure of the application window with any follow-up questions we have before communicating our final decision to selected applicants. At that time we will contact you by email and arrange a video meeting to discuss the funding process in greater detail. Unsuccessful applications will be notified, but we can’t provide specific feedback to applicants who have not been selected.

Unfortunately, due to the high volume of applications expected, the Project Team is unable to provide personalized feedback on each proposal. That said, we will make ourselves available for general advice in the future and to answer questions about the application process. The email for contact is nagnichallenge@google.com

Initial selection of projects will be done by a Project Team, composed of experienced Google staff, who will review all applications for eligibility, innovation and impact. They’ll pre-select projects and make recommendations for final selection to the Challenge’s Jury.

Innovation Challenge oversight and final approval will be decided by a Jury composed of Google staff and experienced industry figures. The Jury team will consist of internal, high-level stakeholders responsible for the final selection of projects of the NA GNI Innovation Challenge. This group will include Google’s regional and global executives and may be open to external experts from the news industry.

The Project Team will consist of internal stakeholders responsible for ensuring and communicating the success of the GNI Innovation Challenge. Team should include, but not be limited to:

• Alex Paterson (Growth & Opportunities, CA)
• Anntao Diaz (News Consumer Insights, US)
• Ashley Edwards (News Lab, US)
• Ben Shaw (GNI Innovation Challenges, DE)
• David Stoller (Global Partnerships, US)
• Juan Marchese (Americas Partnership Solutions, US)
• Katherine Chang (Google News Initiative, US)
• Ludovic Blecher (GNI Innovation Challenges, FR)
• Megan Chan (News Ecosystem, US)
• Robbie Brown (Google News Initiative, US)
• Sarah Hartley (GNI Innovation Challenges, UK)
• Thibault Davet (Americas Large Customer Sales, CA)

Jury is composed of regional and global Google executives and might be open to external experts from the industry.