Notes from Poland’s editor-in-chief, Daniel Tilles, urgently appeals for your support (which can be given here) amid the likely sudden loss of a major US grant that sustains our work.
While Notes from Poland usually focuses on covering “big” news – things like politics, rule of law, defence, business, energy and climate – we have always enjoyed having a bit of fun with our readers on April Fool’s Day. But unfortunately, although today is 1 April, what we have to say is no joke.
In exactly one month, on 1 May, the Notes from Poland non-profit foundation is meant to receive the next quarterly payment from an ongoing grant we were awarded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an American organisation funded by the US Congress that has supported us since 2020.
However, we believe that our current grant – scheduled to run until March 2026 – is now likely to be cut short. This is because NED saw its funds suddenly frozen under the Trump administration, forcing it to halt almost all payments to grant recipients.
The precise fate of our payment due on 1 May remains uncertain, but we have been told to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Moreover, we have been advised that subsequent instalments of our agreed grant are highly unlikely to come, depriving us of significant funds scheduled as a key part of our budget.
We do not wish to comment on an ongoing internal US political and legal debate. However, what we can say with certainty is that, if any of our grant payments do not arrive, and if we are unable to find other sources of funding, NfP will not survive in its current form.
We will have to dramatically cut back expenditure. That would mean, most sadly of all, having to end the employment of most of our small team of five outstanding writers and editors, most of whom have worked with NfP for years.
That, in turn, will mean much less content for our readers: fewer news stories, probably none of the “insight” articles we commission from expert authors, no more podcasts or newsletters.
We are therefore urgently appealing to our readers and supporters to help us through this difficult time as we seek other sources of funding. We hope that you can make a donation, however large or small, to our non-profit foundation.
We have a range of ways you can donate, including with your credit/debit card, through PayPal, or via a bank transfer. Donations can be one-off or made on an ongoing monthly basis. You can find all the details here: https://notesfrompoland.com/donations/support-us/
All of the money we receive is used to pay editorial staff and guest authors and to maintain our website. We don’t have overhead costs (Notes from Poland doesn’t have offices; we work entirely online) and the members of our foundation’s management board do their work voluntarily, without pay.
Our website is visited by hundreds of thousands of readers each month. If even a fraction of them made a €1 or $1 donation, our position would be transformed. If they gave more, or committed to making monthly donations, we would become fully sustainable.
As readers will know, we regularly appeal for donations, and we have been fortunate to get a lot of generous support from many of you already, for which we are extremely grateful. But it has not been enough at current levels to sustain our activity by itself.
In the meantime, we continue to actively seek further grants to support our work, and we remain open to discussions with organisations interested in supporting us.
Another option would be for us to explore some form of commercial activity. But that would probably mean much or even all of our content going behind a paywall – something we absolutely want to avoid.
The whole ethos behind NfP is to help as big an audience as possible to stay informed about what is happening in Poland, and to help them understand it. As such, we have always wanted our content to be free for all readers, not just available to a privileged few who are willing and able to pay for it.
But if we want to continue as a non-profit organisation, we can only do so with the support of grants and donations – and we hope that the readers who value our service, and anyone who appreciates the importance of independent media, can help us achieve that.
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
