Factually staff and where their they get their funding
Executive summary
FactCheck.org is a nonpartisan fact‑checking project housed at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) at the University of Pennsylvania that employs a small professional staff plus fellows and translators to produce fact checks; its primary financial backbone is the Annenberg endowment and APPC resources, supplemented over time by foundation grants, individual donations and limited project funding from platforms such as Meta/Facebook [1] [2] [3] [4]. The organization emphasizes editorial independence and discloses donors, while critics point to any outside grants — notably from platforms whose content the site sometimes audits — as potential optics issues that require transparency and safeguards [2] [5] [6].
1. Who writes the checks: staff size and composition
FactCheck.org began with a single writer in 2003 and has grown into a small newsroom model: contemporary descriptions show variance — a mid‑2020s Wikipedia entry listed roughly four full‑time journalists [7] while University of Pennsylvania reporting on the site’s 20th anniversary described nine full‑time staffers, undergraduate fellows, and several freelance translators and contributors [4], reflecting staffing growth and differing snapshots over time; FactCheck.org also runs paid fellowship programs tied to undergraduate training [4] [8].
2. The long arc of funding: Annenberg and the Flora Family Foundation
From its founding until about fiscal 2010, FactCheck.org was funded almost entirely from APPC resources funded by the Annenberg Foundation’s endowment and supplemental grants, with additional support from the Flora Family Foundation, an arrangement documented in FactCheck.org material and independent summaries [1] [9] [8]. That core institutional backing established the site as a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which was itself created by Walter Annenberg’s philanthropy [1] [3].
3. How funding changed after 2010: diversification and public donations
Beginning around 2010 FactCheck.org opened to donor diversification: it began accepting individual donations and pursued foundation grants and project funding to expand features like SciCheck and fellowship programs, while continuing to receive in‑kind support from APPC such as office space and administrative services [8] [5] [2]. Specific seed funding for SciCheck came from the Stanton Foundation, and since 2016 the Stanton Foundation has funded the fellowship program in some years [5] [8].
4. Platform money and exceptions: Meta/Facebook grants
FactCheck.org’s funding policy states it does not accept money from corporations, unions, partisan organizations or advocacy groups, but there is a notable exception: Facebook/Meta provided grants for projects to debunk viral deceptions on its platform, including payments explicitly disclosed in FactCheck.org’s funding breakdown (e.g., roughly $201,574 and smaller sums for fellowship support reported by FactCheck.org) — an arrangement the site discloses and says does not influence editorial decisions [2] [9] [8]. Critics have flagged any funding from platforms that host misinformation as a potential optics problem even when editorial control is contractually protected, making full transparency and procedural safeguards central to maintaining credibility [6] [5].
5. Transparency, safeguards and contested perceptions
FactCheck.org publicly discloses donors, reports quarterly funding breakdowns and stresses that donors do not control editorial decisions; independent observers like Inside Philanthropy have praised its transparency model [6] [2]. The APPC also provides in‑kind support that FactCheck.org does not monetize in those disclosures, and the organization asserts policies refusing corporate, labor or partisan funds except for the delineated Meta/Facebook grants [1] [3]. Nonetheless, the site has been subject to partisan attacks from both left and right over perceived bias, and skeptics point to any external grants — however disclosed — as lines of influence to watch [4] [6].
6. Bottom line: small newsroom, anchored by Annenberg, supplemented by grants
FactCheck.org operates as a relatively small fact‑checking newsroom anchored institutionally and financially in the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s endowment, expanded over time through foundation seed grants (Stanton, Flora Family), individual donations since 2010, and selective platform project funding from Meta/Facebook, all of which the organization documents publicly and says are subject to editorial independence safeguards; where sources disagree about exact staff numbers, that reflects growth over time and different reporting dates, not a contradiction about the funding model itself [1] [2] [5] [4].