The director of the Journalism Initiative at the Carnegie Corporation, Susan King, discusses the difficulties in foundation-funded journalism. She cites the different measures that foundations and journalism use for successful work as one example. Journalists typically view a story’s success by the number of people who heard or read the story, while her foundation is more focused on engagement and impact.
You can read the Nieman Journalism Lab summary on foundation based journalism, as well as the PDF of King’s article 
.