Local Philanthropy Partnerships
We work with civic leaders, local philanthropists, and foundations and business leaders to identify and address community information gaps with smart, sustainable solutions.
We read thousands of articles by local news outlets across the country. Here’s what we learned.
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Communities across the country are recognizing that sustainable local journalism requires homegrown investment. Through our Local Philanthropy Partnerships program, we collaborate with civic and business leaders, community foundations, and local funders to create tailored strategies that address each place’s unique information landscape. We serve as both strategist and catalyst, providing deep market analysis, community listening, and stakeholder convenings to help local leaders understand their information ecosystem and raise capital for sustainable solutions.
By the numbers
$80M
Raised for local news.
7,700+
local residents engaged through community listening activities.
30+
Local philanthropic partners.
Our process
In every community, we work with local leaders by providing research, facilitating partnerships, raising capital, and helping design solutions that work for each unique context.
Steering committee
We start by establishing a steering committee of local civic leaders to help guide and contextualize our process.
Community listening
Our community listening program is designed to reach a range of residents, especially those who are historically underrepresented in news media. We hire and train local community ambassadors and conduct interviews, digital surveys, and focus groups (in multiple languages if necessary), creating pathways for the broadest group of people to participate.
Information ecosystem research
We study the local information ecosystem to understand the health and trajectory of existing information sources and the extent to which they serve residents’ needs through volume of original reporting, representation of perspectives, relevance to residents’ needs, and reach and accessibility.
Solution design
Drawing from our work with newsrooms across the country, we synthesize our findings into program concepts that address information gaps. We find the most effective paths to serving communities that need news and information, sometimes launching new startups and/or strengthening the work of existing outlets.
Business modeling
We design and support business models that are or can become sustainable over the long-term, combining new and traditional revenue streams for nonprofit news. We then work closely with partners to put these models into action. When the best path is creating a new local news organization, we launch it through our Startup Studio to give it a strong foundation for success.
Capital raise
After designing models based on residents’ priorities, we lead market-based fundraising, designing and executing capital campaigns that excite the local philanthropic community and bring transformational — and often first-time — investments to the local news and information sector.
Our partners
