Legislation enacted by Congress and signed into law in December authorized the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation to build a memorial on federal land in Washington to honor slain journalists. Now, the project has begun its capital campaign.

The foundation announced last week that it has received two grants to support the establishment of the memorial. The Annenberg Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides funding and support to other nonprofits in the United States and around the world, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a nonprofit that provides grants in journalism and communities, will give a total of $6 million in grants to support the early stages of establishing the memorial.

The Annenberg Foundation grant includes a commitment to match up to $2.6 million in other foundation grants, which is intended to spark early-stage seed funding.

The memorial will commemorate America’s commitment to a free press by honoring journalists and photojournalists who have sacrificed their lives in service to that cause. It will be the first such public memorial in the nation’s capital.

“These funds will be instrumental as we work to build support for and erect a permanent memorial in Washington that demonstrates how our country values a free press, honors the sacrifices of journalists, and supports the family, friends and colleagues of the fallen,” Barbara Cochran, president of the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation, said in a statement.

The foundation announced plans for the memorial in 2019, near the one-year mark of the mass shooting at the Capital Gazette newsroom — the deadliest attack on journalists in American history. Five people — Gerald Fischman, John McNamara, Wendi Winters, Rebecca Smith and Rob Hiaasen — were killed by a man with a shotgun June 28, 2018. The insanity trial for the gunman who has already pleaded guilty to the murders began last week in Annapolis.

The announcement of the funding came just after the third anniversary of the mass shooting at the Annapolis newsroom. On Monday, a new memorial in Annapolis honoring the Capital Gazette shooting victims was unveiled. The “Guardians of the First Amendment” installation at Newman Park has five granite pillars, positioned in front of an engraving in stone of a passage from the U.S. Constitution.