The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute invites proposals from people and organizations who wish to partner with them on innovative projects that strengthen democracy through better journalism.

Successful projects often include devising new strategies to take advantage of an opportunity or solve a problem, building new tools for news organizations, transforming an idea into a market-tested prototype or advancing a prototype so it’s ready for investment or a full product launch.

Whatever your idea, its benefits should extend to other news organizations and the people who depend on them.

There are have three formats for RJI Fellowships:

• Residential
  • Residential fellowships are designed for people, inside and outside media industries, who want to collaborate with RJI in the pursuit of solutions to a particular journalism problem. Residential fellows spend eight months on campus at the Missouri School of Journalism, taking advantage of the intellectual and technological resources of RJI and the school and interacting with Missouri faculty and students. Resource examples include access to programmers and app developers, financial support to conduct market research, and paid students to produce multimedia content.
  • Solutions — in the form of strategies, products or services — developed from these ideas would be shared with many news and news-related organizations. You must reside in Columbia, Missouri, for the duration of this fellowship.

• Nonresidential
  • Nonresidential fellowships are designed for entrepreneurial individuals with a strong interest in journalism and issues related to digital communications. Your fellowship can be about something you are interested in pursuing on your own or something that could benefit a current employer. Successful ideas, products or strategies should serve as a model for the news industry or help the industry get smarter, faster and nimbler. You do not need to live in Columbia but you will need to make occasional visits to consult with RJI leadership and staff.

• Institutional
  • Institutional fellowships are designed to unlock some of the thoughtful, meaningful ideas inside newsrooms, ad departments, boardrooms and break rooms that for various reasons can’t get any traction. RJI will collaborate with a leader at a company or institution who will identify an employee who can develop an idea or lead a team that could do it. The employee will be named an RJI Fellow but will continue working at his or her job. The stipend for this fellowship will be paid to the company or institution to be used for salary relief for the part-time fellow, or for another purpose that the company or institution determines will best ensure the success of the fellowship project.