How Five Newsrooms Benefited from NewsMatch this Year

As the next NewsMatch campaign is getting ready to launch Nov. 1, Mark Glaser interviewed INN members South Dakota News Watch, Sahan Journal, The Current, Patagonia Regional Times and Mississippi Today to hear about how much money they raised last year, how it helped their newsrooms and what they would tell others interested in joining this year.

SD News Watch team

How South Dakota News Watch uncovered abuses in a youth home and changed state policies

It was a story waiting too long for public attention: Some staff members at a rural facility housing young people with behavioral issues had physically, sexually and psychologically abused the children. South Dakota News Watch uncovered the story in June — resulting in the governor ordering an overhaul of the inspection processes for all youth treatment facilities in the state. The "Treatment or Trauma?" series exposed the harsh physical restraints on the residents that some employees of the facility regularly used — resulting in facial rug burns, black eyes, bloody noses, bruising and injured limbs. The story relied on a dozen on-the-record interviews and documents hard to obtain in a state with weak public records laws.

NewsMatch

Nonprofit newsrooms tell the stories about communities, issues, and solutions that might otherwise go untold. They empower each of us with trusted information to make decisions in our own best interest. Nonprofit news can’t survive without community support. NewsMatch is a unique collaboration between newsrooms, funders, and news industry experts that is designed to strengthen the fundraising capabilities of nonprofit newsrooms and promote giving to journalism in the U.S.

Through NewsMatch, individual donations made to nonprofit newsrooms between November 1 and December 31 are matched by a coalition of national funders. Since 2016, the campaign has helped raise over $100 million for nonprofit journalism, helping jumpstart small, emerging newsrooms, supporting newsrooms that serve or are led by underrepresented communities, and strengthening mission-based organizations.

NewsMatch 2019 Analytics how-to guide now available

Use this step-by-step guide to build your news organization’s NewsMatch campaign
The Institute for Nonprofit News has launched a how-to guide on working with web analytics to provide newsrooms participating in NewsMatch 2019 with easy-to-use tools and examples to develop their fundraising programs.  Nearly 200 INN members are participating in the nonprofit news annual fundraising campaign, which runs Nov. 1 through Dec. 31. The weeks leading up to the Nov. 1 launch are a critical window to prepare newsrooms’ campaigns.

NewsMatch 2019 Campaign for Nonprofit News Was Best Year Yet: Raised $43.5 Million

Originally posted on NewsMatch's Medium page by Kip Dooley
June 3, 2020 — This month, NewsMatch kicks off its fifth funding cycle with the goal of helping scores of nonprofit newsrooms continue to inform their communities and provide in-depth coverage of critical social issues. Results from the 2019 NewsMatch cycle, published for the first time today, show that it was the most successful to date, with an initial pool of $3.37 million in philanthropic funds leveraged into a $43.5 million payout — a nearly 1,200% return on philanthropic investments that infused much-needed cash into independent newsrooms just as the coronavirus disrupted business as usual. Credible, local news is more critical than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to be a vital resource for voters during the 2020 election season. Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) members have found new and innovative ways to serve their communities during the current crisis: Outlier Media (Detroit, Mich.) has been providing vital health information via text message to residents without internet access; Chalkbeat (Colo.) created food maps for families that rely on school lunches; and countless others like CalMatters (Calif.) and East Lansing Info (East Lansing, Mich.) are providing real-time reporting on the local effects of COVID-19. Flyer from OutlierMedia.org
Results from NewsMatch 2019 show that communities are stepping up to support this kind of quality journalism: Last year, the dollar amount of local matching gifts during NewsMatch more than doubled to $1.4 million, while the number of individual donors increased by 26 percent.

NewsMatch 2020 broke records: more newsrooms, donors, dollars and local matches

The fifth annual NewsMatch campaign was the most successful ever with a record-breaking $47 million raised by nonprofit newsrooms across the country. In November and December 2020 -- at a time when the health and economic impacts of the COVID pandemic and elections made access to reliable news absolutely essential -- matching gifts from funders, philanthropists, and local businesses were leveraged to generate this groundswell of support from individual donors. NewsMatch is a collaborative fundraising initiative that benefits members of the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) — a nationwide network of 300+ independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organizations. NewsMatch brings together national and community foundations, corporate partners, and small businesses, providing them with multiple opportunities to support independent journalism:

Contributing to the main NewsMatch fund that matches donations earned by nonprofit newsroom
Creating special funds for a cohort of newsrooms that meet specific criteria (e.g., diversity, education)
Setting up a local matching grant
Donating directly to an individual newsroom. Over the past several years, as many communities have lost their local news sources due to consolidation and closure of daily and weekly newspapers, NewsMatch’s collaborative fundraising model has been one solution toward building enduring and resilient sources of independent news. 

Here are some highlights from the 2020 campaign:

More dollars: newsrooms leveraged a pool of $6.7 million in matching funds to attract more than $47 million from individual donors (compared with $43.5 million in 2019) -- the largest amount to date.

NewsMatch fund increases to more than $5 million with investments from Google News Initiative, Abrams Foundation

The Google News Initiative and Abrams Foundation are investing a combined $1 million in the 2020 NewsMatch fund, bringing the program’s total investment in nonprofit news organizations to more than $5 million this year. The Google News Initiative’s $750,000 contribution will provide added support to the participating 266 newsrooms: every organization that raises $11,500 from its audience will receive an equal matching gift from NewsMatch and a $2,500 “GNI Bonus” totalling $14,000. GNI funding will also enable an award to newsrooms that bring on 100 first-time donors during the campaign cycle, from November 1 to December 31. As part of the GNI partnership with NewsMatch, all participating newsrooms will receive coaching and personalized support across GNI tools and training, including News Consumer Insights and the GNI Digital Growth Program. “The Google News Initiative has been focused on critical investment areas required for a healthy news ecosystem, including cultivating a new class of digital news startups and growing subscriptions and contributions for quality journalism,” explained Ben Monnie, the director for Global Partnerships Solutions at Google.

WDET’s Courtney Hurtt to Manage NewsMatch Program

Public media strategist Courtney Hurtt joins the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) as the program manager for NewsMatch, the largest grassroots funding campaign for nonprofit journalism. Previously, she led collaborative initiatives to diversify audience and revenue for WDET, Detroit’s public radio station. As associate director of product strategy and operations, Hurtt created “Framed by WDET,” an award-winning series of community exhibitions that have appeared in more than 25 locations. “Independent journalism is an essential service that helps people navigate the world around them,” said Courtney Hurtt. “I am excited to step into a role at NewsMatch and scale support for nonprofit media organizations that provide the news and information that communities rely on.”

Hurtt will manage the NewsMatch program, which combines a matching gift campaign with tools, training and fundraising development for nonprofit, nonpartisan newsrooms that provide public service reporting.