Media Development Loan Fund

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Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF) is a New York-registered 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and investment fund that provides low-cost financing to independent news media in emerging democracies. It works with newspapers, radio stations and TV companies in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the CIS, and the Balkans (1).

Through low-cost capital (mainly loans), business training and other advice and support, it aims to help news outlets committed to responsible journalism become commercially sustainable, believing that only financially independent news media can stay editorially independent over the long term.

MDLF was founded in 1995 by Saša Vučinić and Stuart Auerbach, the late Washington Post reporter and editor. Previously Vučinić was editor-in-chief and general manager of B92 radio in Belgrade when, in the early 1990s, the station started to experience financial problems caused by government interference (2). Witnessing freedom of speech slowly slip away partly due to a lack of economic security, Vučinić had the idea of creating an organization that would provide independent media with access to capital (3). The idea was pitched to George Soros, who provided the initial grant for MDLF's start-up (4).

Since 1996, MDLF has financed 147 projects for 61 independent media companies in 20 countries and has provided over $60 million in low-cost financing (5).

MDLF's digital media lab, the Center for Advanced Media−Prague (CAMP), provides open source software and other new technology solutions to independent media in emerging democracies. CAMP's aim is to help bridge the digital divide between developed and emerging democracies by adapting new media technologies to the unique environments in transitional countries (6). It launched the Campware initiative in March 2001 to provide open source software designed specifically for news outlets: Campsite (multilingual web publishing), Campcaster (radio broadcasting), Cream (customer relation management) and Dream (distribution management). MDLF's active partners in Campware are Redaktion und Alltag (Berlin) and the Department of Digital Design of the Parsons School of Design in New York (7).

With its activities growing but the pool of development agency and private foundation funding limited, in 2006 MDLF, Swiss bank Vontobel Group and Zurich-based social investment specialists responsAbility launched "Voncert responsAbility Media Development". Voncerts are a bond-like investment that also include a loan to MDLF and are available in most countries outside the USA and UK. Voncerts are listed on the Zurich Stock Exchange (8, 9).

Their U.S. counterpart, Free Press Investment Notes, allow individuals and institutions to choose the interest rate and term and term of their investment (10).

Funders of MDLF's Loan/Investment Pool include: Bank Vontobel, Calvert Social Investment Foundation, DOEN Foundation, Foundation for Democracy and Media, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Open Society Institute, Oxfam Novib, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and Alexej Fulmek.

Other support for MDLF's work has also come from: Council of Europe, Eurasia Foundation, J.M. Kaplan Fund, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.