Institute for Nonprofit News

From the VTDigger delivering election information postcards to post offices across rural Vermont to Enlace Latino NC using WhatsApp groups for direct communication with agricultural workers, rural newsrooms worked to address a critical information gap this election year. With funding support from the Microsoft Democracy Forward initiative, the Rural News Network facilitated the distribution of voter guides across 31 rural parts of the country to help audiences better understand local, state and federal election candidates and processes. Read more about the project: https://lnkd.in/ekW-QY_g

For Nieman Journalism Lab's 2025 predictions, INN’s Manager of Distribution and Audience Growth Sam Cholke predicts that news will face its “final phase of unbundling" next year. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eKUB-r4r

We teamed up with Lenfest Institute for Journalism to create a new data dashboard for INN members that are a part of Lenfest’s Statewide News Collective. The dashboard leverages INN’s Index data and shows revenue and audience growth for statewide news publishers. Here's Tyler Machado's report on the key findings: https://lnkd.in/eZNyqFUB

We’re building the future of news. At 475+ members, there are now almost 18x more newsrooms in the INN Network than there were when INN was founded in 2009. That’s a lot more fundraising, programming and training that we need to provide to help our members launch, grow and sustain their nonprofit news organizations. How does it work? Hear from journalists in the INN Network featured in this inspiring 3-minute video marking our 15 year anniversary. Then, support the movement as we continue building the future of news. https://inn.org/donate/ We’d like to thank Director Alex Garcia of Three Story Media & INN’s Sharene Azimi for working hard on this video, as well as the featured members of the INN Network: Wendi C. Thomas, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism; Jim Malewitz, Wisconsin Watch; Joe Coughlin, The Record North Shore; Ron Smith, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, and Miles MacClure and Justin Perkins, Barn Raising Media Inc. We couldn’t have made this without you all! For more info, visit: https://lnkd.in/ehXXMVAh

Ruby Franzen had worked for education-focused nonprofits before. But when she joined The Hechinger Report in May 2023, she quickly learned that "fundraising for journalism is different because the reason for support is more abstract." Read about Franzen's successful switch to journalism in our latest edition of In Other News:

In October 2023, Meta completely eliminated all posts on the Facebook feed from Pages, the only type of accounts that organizations — including news publishers — are able to operate on the platform, according to Meta’s quarterly “Widely Viewed Content Report.”  But despite the decline of social media referral traffic, a majority of INN members (60%) were able to hold their website visitor numbers stable or even grow during 2023, while other parts of the media industry saw sharp declines. Read Sam Cholke's INNsights on how some INN members are adapting and investing in their audience growth: https://lnkd.in/eqdj-FhE

Despite a downward trend in unique monthly visitors to nonprofit news sites, 4 in 10 outlets grew web traffic, according to chapter 3 of INN's 2024 Audience & Distribution Index Report. These "web gainers" are more likely to be local, smaller and younger compared to "web decliners," which are mostly older national and global organizations. Why? It comes down to goals, investments and maturity. Read more on these direct audience trends & tactics: https://lnkd.in/eQWQnnhv

On this #GivingNewsDay, your donations can go twice as far with #NewsMatch. Double your impact by donating to one of the 391 news organizations participating in this year's NewsMatch campaign. Find a newsroom to support today:

What if we embraced news as a public good? INN’s Courtney Lewis wrote about what it would look like if the media industry truly embraced the concept of news as a public good instead of a commercial product – including what that would mean for funding, trust, revenue and impact. Read now: https://lnkd.in/edJkTNtq

This Thanksgiving, we're grateful for the 475 independent, nonpartisan news organizations in the INN network providing high quality journalism as a public service. Show your thanks by supporting a newsroom today: https://lnkd.in/dbe2uR2P