Biggest Challenges

The precarious financial situation is by far the biggest challenge for Magločistač.

Because funding for local media in Serbia always goes hand in hand with attempts by the government to exert political influence on the funded publication, Serbian grants are out of the question for Magločistač.

However, grants from abroad are usually project-related and therefore don’t contribute to sustainable core funding. Dmitrović also mentioned that the workload with project management and project reporting is extremely high and causes a lot of stress in the team, The Serbian government not only has no interest in supporting small independent media that might be able to report critically on them, it also puts obstacles in the way for non-profit newsrooms. In Serbia, non-profit organisations must conclude a donation contract with each individual donor for each individual donation. This makes regular monthly donations, which are common in membership models, downright impossible. The use of tools such as Patreon or Buy me a coffee is also severely restricted for donations in Serbia, to the extent that donations basically cannot be processed via such platforms. This rigid legislations means that reader-revenue is also not a financing option for Magločistač.