The ‘laif Genossenschaft’, owner of the renowned photo agency laif, is launching a four-week grassroots campaign today with the aim of gaining 200 new members for the establishment of the non-profit ‘laif foundation’ GmbH. This is because independent and transparent journalistic offerings that are oriented towards the common good are urgently needed in our society.
What are the tasks of the laif foundation?
As a wholly owned subsidiary of the cooperative, the foundation pursues three key objectives to promote an informed society and a strong democracy:
- We want to equip young people in particular with greater media literacy, as the ability to gather information and evaluate news is becoming increasingly important.
- We are building an independent international publishing and community platform focused on photojournalism and documentary photography, giving photojournalistic work greater visibility.
- We are campaigning for the introduction of a quality seal for the origin and credibility of images.
Why is non-profit journalism so important right now?
Artificial intelligence blurs the lines between fact and fiction.
Within seconds, prompts can be used to easily generate artificial images that can lead to the spread of misinformation. Profit-driven social media companies control the dissemination of information – often without transparent ethical or editorial standards.
This creates gaps in public opinion formation, and our democracy is gradually losing its ‘fourth estate’.
That is why a functioning press is so important right now – as an authority for credibility and guidance that verifies information, constructively classifies topics and stories, and highlights connections.
“When we can no longer trust our eyes, we need reliable and independent institutions to verify the credibility of images and texts. That is why we are establishing the non-profit laif foundation,” says Ulf Schmidt-Funke, future managing director of the foundation, describing the situation.
What makes the cooperative model so successful?
Around a year and a half ago, photographers from the renowned photo agency laif demonstrated that joint commitment to a good cause can generate enormous momentum.
Through a crowdfunding campaign unprecedented in the industry, they were able to spin off the agency from a listed corporation and lead it into the future independently and autonomously in a cooperative model based on the principle of ‘one member, one vote’.
This laid the foundation for an innovative concept that would expand the impact of the organisation’s own journalistic work and make a greater contribution to diversity of opinion and public information.
“With the laif foundation, we are now taking the next step in our transformation process and pioneering new approaches, forms of publication and revenue models as trailblazers in photojournalism,” says board member Andreas Herzau.
How do we achieve this goal?
“To this end, we are appealing to around 200 people who consider our photojournalistic approach and the strengthening of our democracy so important and meaningful that they are willing to become part of a unique, committed and inspiring initiative with a one-time membership fee of 1,000 euros – or even more. Our goal is to celebrate the 500th member of the cooperative in October,” explain Christoph Bangert and Manfred Linke, also members of the cooperative’s board of directors.
Further information on the campaign for new members can be found on the website. www.laif-foundation.org.
Press contact:
Ulf Schmidt-Funke
+49 40 43091337
ulf.schmidt-funke@laif-foundation.org
