CJET is coming to Austin, TX

INN’s Community Journalism Executive Training (CJET) is coming to Austin, TX, from September 10 to 12, 2014. CJET is an annual training conference that gathers journalism entrepreneurs for a crash course in news-industry leadership and the essentials of running a sustainable news and information business.

Do’s and Don’ts of Covering Protests

On June 4, INN invited members to a webinar on how to navigate some of the ethical and legal challenges journalists are faced with in covering the current protests over police brutality after the death of George Floyd. Sarah Matthews, a senior staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and Tracie Powell, program officer, Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy, covered practical tips and guidance for reporters who are covering protests including a discussion of curfew rules/media exemptions as well as advice on how journalists can approach this protest story. Because these topics are important to all journalists, we'd like to share how reporters can cover these protests in a respectful, responsible way. We thank Tracie Powell and the team at REJ, Borealis for sharing with us. Download as a PDF.

Donation page optimization tips for year-end fundraising

An optimal donation page is key in acquiring new donors and retaining them. The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) conducted an audit of member donation pages in summer 2018 to help members optimize donation pages ahead of year-end fundraising and has also aggregated additional resources that are currently available. DONATION PAGE OPTIMIZATION RESOURCES
With the start of NewsMatch, this is the time to create optimal donation pages to increase donations by year-end. Take advantage of more help from INN and friends in the following ways:

1. If you need web development help on your donation page, the INN Labs team can assist.

New year, new newsletter resources

A new year calls for new and improved newsletters for many nonprofit newsrooms, as newsletters are becoming core editorial products and important distribution channels to find new audiences. We have some resolutions for you. Ninety percent of INN members could benefit from adopting at least one of five common best practices for their newsletters, from customized subject lines and longer article descriptions (but not too long). We outline them below. These five recommendations emerged from an audit of member email newsletters conducted by INN’s Emma Bowen Foundation intern Nikita Advani last year.  We covered easy fixes in an earlier posting; if you missed it, you can revisit it here. 

INN members who are building or improving their newsletters can tap into a newsletter training series led by digital marketer Tim Windsor starting Feb.

Six newsletter tweaks now can pay off at year’s end

News nonprofits focusing on end-of-year fundraising should check their email newsletter setups now. An audit of INN member newsletters this summer found that four out of five member news organizations have newsletters that could benefit from one or more quick-hit areas for improvement that we identified. Addressing them can increase your email list, open rates and donations. While we recommend addressing these now, they can be done any time during the year. INN audited member newsletters to understand what email newsletter tools and training could help newsrooms year-round.

Tips for Managing Coronavirus Reporting Risks

With help from Reuters and many INN member news leaders, we have assembled advice and tips to help nonprofit news managers think through some of the risks of reporting this story.

VTDigger: A Rising Star in Nonprofit News

A study in leadership
To editors and executive directors of nonprofit news organizations, Anne Galloway’s story will sound familiar: An experienced local newspaper editor, set adrift in a round of layoffs, starts her own nonprofit digital news enterprise, learns business skills on the job, produces community-changing journalism, and works herself to exhaustion in the process. This report was produced with the generous support of The Knight Foundation and is being published with the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. The full report is available for download. Join INN on June 27 for an online Q&A with VTDigger founder Anne Galloway. Register for the free event here.   But Galloway’s story is remarkable.