The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation is a joint effort between Stanford’s School of Engineering and Columbia Journalism School.

Each year, the Brown Institute awards $1M+ in grants to help grantees “follow your passion and experiment with new stories, new kinds of stories, and new tools for storytelling.”

Magic Grants are a unique blend of technology and media — grantees develop new ways to find and tell stories.

A Magic Grant offers:

• Financial support (salaries) for a team for up to a year — through post-graduate fellowships at Columbia and research positions at Stanford
• Project funding for production, prototyping, software, services and equipment
• Professional development opportunities, including training in entrepreneurship and other specialized skills

The Magic Grant program provides year-long funding awards of up to $150,000 ($300,000 for teams with members of both the Columbia and Stanford communities and their collaborators). In addition to funding, grantees have access to a distinguished advisory and mentoring group and an extensive and inspiring alumni network.

Successful Magic Grant projects have taken various forms — from novel works of journalism to new software platforms, and even innovations in hardware. Since its founding, the Brown Institute has funded over 150 projects and nearly 400 people through its Magic Grant program.

Through the Magic Grant program, they have promoted the work of journalists, computer scientists, engineers, artists, designers, and communications and digital humanities scholars. A complete list can be found on its website.

For the upcoming 2026-2027 granting cycle, they are particularly interested in supporting bicoastal projects that have team members both at Columbia and at Stanford universities.