Editorial Independence Policy

Our organization retains complete authority over all editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services, or opinions.

We accept grants from foundations, philanthropists, individuals, and partner
organizations for the general support of our activities, however, all journalistic decisions are made independently and not on the basis of donor support.

Our organization may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, such as Democracy and Housing Affordability, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.

Our organization will make public all donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per year. Anonymous donations will be applied to general support only.

Fact-Checking Policy:

Our reporters and editorial team work hard to verify all information we receive from our sources. If you should find something in our work that you think is inaccurate, please let us know and we will be sure to investigate. Email derek@atlantaciviccircle.org for any fact-check requests or explanations.

Corrections Policy:

Our editorial team does its best to be accurate in our reporting. Please let us know if you have any concerns or corrections pertaining to our reporting. We will make a correction and share the changes on any social channels where the article was shared online. Email derek@atlantaciviccircle.org to request all corrections.

Donor Transparency

ACC is committed to transparency in every aspect of funding our organization. Accepting funding does not mean we endorse our donors, their products, services or opinions.

We accept gifts and grants from individuals, organizations, and foundations to help with our general operations, coverage of specific topics, and special projects. Our internal team will make all judgments independently of our donors to ensure there is no influence by outside sources. Donors do not have the option to assign, review or edit any content.

We will make public all donors who give $5,000 or more per year. As a nonprofit, we will avoid accepting donations from anonymous sources, and we will not accept donations from government entities, political parties, elected officials or candidates actively seeking public office. Our board of directors will oversee and approve all sources of funding to ensure no conflict of interest with our work or efforts to compromise our independence.

Thank you to our Generous Donors

Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership

Robert R. Woodruff Foundation

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta

Georgia Humanities

Peter Aman

Howell Adams

Bob Hope

P Kent

Brad Currey*

Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation*

* A special thank you to those who provided matching funds for the ACC end-of-year campaign with NewsMatch. This important investment in our newsroom was generous and helped us raise additional funding for our newsroom.

ACC Code of Ethics

Our organization adheres to the SPJ Code of Ethics. Click below to read the full documentation:

Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics