As the idea of news and journalism has shifted from a marketplace commodity to a public good, there has been an increased focus on the role of foundations in supporting journalism projects and entire news organizations.

All this week on the SaveTheNews.org blog, we’ll be examining the unique potential and the possible pitfalls of foundation funding. As we’ve laid out in our research, we believe that foundations will be important to the future of journalism.

Yet we also acknowledge that we must be both creative and careful about how we develop foundation-funded models for journalism, and that we have to explore the policy challenges that stand in the way of expanding philanthropic support of the news.

This Thursday at 8 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time), we’ll host a live chat with Steve Katz, vice president for strategy and development at Mother Jones and its nonprofit parent, the Foundation for National Progress, and with David Westphal, former Washington editor for McClatchy Newspapers and executive in residence at USC's Annenberg School for Communication.

You can find out more about the live chat and sign up for a reminder at: http://www.savethenews.org/foundationchat.

The subject of foundation-funded journalism has generated considerable attention in recent months. Vince Stehle of the Surdna Foundation has written about the possibility of nonprofit newsrooms attracting "a range of philanthropic support for their operations." He writes, "Foundations and corporations might be willing to underwrite certain broad areas of coverage, in much the way public broadcasting generates sponsorship revenue."

Similarly, Charles Lewis, president and CEO of the Fund for Independence in Journalism, has called on "civil society, especially the nation's foundations and individuals of means, to collaborate with journalists and experts who understand the changing economics of journalism in an imaginative, visionary plan that would support our precious existing nonprofit institutions and help to develop new ones."

Foundations already play a key role in supporting investigative journalism. The Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Investigative Reporting are both impressive, longstanding models that depend – at least in part – on foundation money for their operations. Two newer examples of the model are the recently announced Huffington Post Fund for Investigative Journalism, the Kaiser Health News initiative and ProPublica.

There are, however, real drawbacks and concerns about the foundation model. As we reported in our research, it's unclear whether there is anywhere near enough foundation money available to fully fund the journalism the country needs. According to the Foundation Center's most recent tally, philanthropic contributions to media as a whole amount to roughly $410 million; of this amount, only about one-sixth go to supporting journalism directly.

Philanthropists face the dilemma of how best to spend their money in support of quality journalism over the long term. Can investigative projects be carried out on a larger scale? Should foundations take over and actually run media outlets themselves or work to fill in specific gaps left by commercial media? Are they better off supporting back-end operations, providing seed money for innovative projects, or sharing best practices?

We’ll debate these questions and more here on the blog, and live on Thursday at 8 p.m. (EST) at http://www.savethenews.org/foundationchat.