The International Center for Journalists is making public a new manual that has helped its flagship program, the Knight International Journalism Fellowships, achieve significant impact. Knight Fellows use the manual to create models and strategies for projects designed to increase the free flow of news in the public interest.

By making the manual public, ICFJ hopes other media development organizations will find these new tools helpful in their work. “We believe that others can benefit from this resource that has helped us tremendously in our work,” says ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan. “It gives our fellows the ability to keep tabs on progress on ultimately achieve their goals.”

Since Knight Fellows started using this handbook, they can take credit for significant changes in public policy, including:

• $7.5 million to improve health care in Kenya after a series on shoddy care in public hospitals;
• A government order for hospitals in Indonesia to build their own wastewater treatment facilities after reports on medical waste; and
• A new law requiring taxi drivers in Peru to show official identification after crimes by unlicensed cab drivers were highlighted in the media.

Working with ICFJ, independent evaluator Philliber Research Associates developed this useful guide that assists Knight International Fellows in three keys ways. First, it helps them to create a “logic model,” or outline of key goals as well as the strategies needed to achieve them. Second, it explains how to collect the kind of data that shows hard evidence of the progress made. Finally, it has “reporting templates” to help the fellows focus their activities on the impact they are working to achieve.

According to Susan Philliber, the founder of Philliber Research Associates, this manual helps Knight Fellows “to focus like a laser, not on strategies, but on the desired outcome.” She adds: “Strategies and timelines can change over the course of a fellowship, but long-term outcome is the thing we hang onto the tightest.”

The ICFJ Knight International Evaluation Manual is now available online here.