I just got back from the Pocantico Conference Center, located at one of the Rockefeller family's former estates about 45 minutes or so out of Manhattan. The conference center is used for many events connected with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

I was invited to the stone, ivy-covered mansion that the infamous oil baron once called home to participate in a conference of nonprofit investigative news groups. There were about 30 of us there, from the well known (The Voice of San Diego) to the not-quite-started-but-will-soon-be well-known (The Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network.)

The goal was to figure out how we can help each other, how we can stay funded and how we can collaborate on stories.

Ultimately we came up with the The Pocantico Declaration: Creating a Nonprofit Investigative News Network.

Certainly, that was important. But just as important to me was meeting folks who are trying to do in other parts of the country what Texas Watchdog is doing in the Lone Star state. It was great, for example, to meet Joel Kramer, publisher of MinnPost.com and Joe Bergantino, the director of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.

I also had great conversations with Mark Horvit, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors; Daniel Lathrop of Investigate West; Bob Moser, who now runs the Texas Observer; Robert Rosenthal, with the Center for Investigative Reporting; Brant Houston, the Knight Chair at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Marcus Baram of the Huffington Post; and many more.

Rosenthal, Houston and Charles Lewis, the founder of the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity, and who now heads the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, were integral in organizing the event, as was Bill Buzenberg, the current CPI chief.

 Perhaps even more important to me on a personal level is that I met some folks who have been downright heros to me in my journalism career. One example: I broke bread with former Washington Post editor Len Downie Jr., whom I've always respected. (Indeed, I long ago copied his habit of not voting.)

A note of special thanks: I was able to go to this conference because of the generous support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Surdna Foundation and the William Penn Foundation.

Check out what others have written about the conference:

The main website for the Pocantico watchdog conference

The Pulitzer Center on Crises Reporting

The Chicago Reader

Editor & Publisher

MinnPost.com

Reuters

Ken Doctor's Instablog

David Westphal (Thanks for the mention, David!)

The Chronicle of Philanthropy