Whatever your first issue is, this should be your second: The rationale for funding local news

In the philanthropic sector, we’re used to funding public goods like emergency response, education, government accountability and the arts. What many of us have failed to see, however, is the vital role local news plays in supporting these public goods – and serving as its own public good, something many need but not all will pay for.

Consider this: A journalist may be a first responder, providing residents with evacuation and shelter information during a natural disaster. Or a government watchdog, informing residents about policy decisions by the school board and spending decisions by county government. Or a connector, highlighting a city’s free museum nights or an outdoor concert.

Recently, many funders have started to realize that supporting local news is essential; it connects people to accurate, timely information about their communities. It also raises awareness of many issues philanthropists care about, whether that’s climate, health inequities or free and fair elections. 

Much of philanthropy is now coming to local news because, for decades, media was a profitable industry. The internet disrupted the business model for local news outlets twenty years ago, and today it’s extremely challenging for news outlets—including digital startups—to financially sustain themselves. This is market failure. About 1 in 6 Americans lives in a place with no access to local news, according to Northwestern Medill’s most recent State of Local News Report. 

Not only do residents in these communities lack access to essential information, they also experience other negative impacts: where there is no local news source,  research shows people are less likely to vote, it becomes more expensive for municipalities to borrow money, and residents are more polarized. Put simply, the absence of local news affects our democracy, our economy, and the health of our communities.

To address the market failure of the news industry, we, at the MacArthur Foundation, partnered with Democracy Fund and Knight Foundation to build the Press Forward coalition. Officially launched in September 2023, Press Forward has attracted more than 110 funders, invested more than $200 million in local news and given rise to 36 local chapters throughout the country, from Press Forward Silicon Valley to Press Forward South Florida. Part pooled fund, part aligned grantmaking, Press Forward aims to connect people to information and to each other.

One of the MacArthur Foundation’s early Press Forward investments was in the NewsMatch program, which the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) runs to benefit its network of 500+ newsrooms. Through NewsMatch, INN pools funds to match gifts procured by participating news organizations and also trains staff in how to supercharge end-of-year fundraising campaigns. It’s a smart program because it invites the PTA President, the nurse, the block captain, the small business owner, the union member, and the firefighter to contribute as well.

Over nine NewsMatch annual campaigns (2016-2024), INN and the outlets in its network have raised more than $400 million, proving that civic-minded people are willing to donate so we can all have accurate, timely information moving through our towns and cities.

Peter Gignac of Asheville, North Carolina is one of the more than 1,000 supporters who stepped up to provide additional match funds to a participating INN member newsroom, Asheville Watchdog, during NewsMatch 2024. Gignac and his wife are long-time Asheville residents who founded and ran three furniture stores, then started purchasing commercial properties, and became full-time investors when they sold their business about a decade ago. 

“We appreciated the fact that Asheville Watchdog was willing to tackle issues that our local newspaper ignored either intentionally or through lack of interest,” Gignac told INN, noting that the local newspaper had “eliminated” many of its journalists. 

Gignac credits Asheville Watchdog with launching an investigation that exposed threats to the quality of care at the local nonprofit hospital after it was purchased by a large, for-profit system.

By helping newsrooms attract individual donors, major gifts and investments from local and community foundations, NewsMatch is an important engine for the long-term sustainability of independent news outlets.

INN’s NewsMatch also gives funders a way to support their priority issues by creating dedicated funds to support newsrooms that produce aligned topical coverage. In 2024, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a Press Forward funder, awarded $60,000 to seven local newsrooms that strengthen the information ecosystem around our country’s K-12 education systems. Those newsrooms are playing a critical role in keeping their communities informed about their districts. For example, Cityside, which serves the Bay area, has reporters dedicated to covering K-12 education in each of the cities it serves (Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond). In each case, their reporters are the only journalists in the city focused on local schools.

Newsrooms supported by the foundation are also producing coverage that can lead to actionable insights. In February 2025, The Baltimore Banner published the results of their year-long investigation into issues for Baltimore City Public School students trying to get to school despite inadequate public transit solutions. A member of the school district’s board of commissioners said that the coverage and subsequent discussions about it helped open her eyes to the specific issues students face, the impact of the problem on academic achievement, and ways the school board could address it.

For more than 15 years, INN has been the hub of the nonprofit news movement, vetting newsrooms for high standards and growing membership to more than 500 member outlets across North America. Collectively, the INN Network publishes 24,000 original stories per month and distributes content to 26,000 other media outlets. 

And yet, to refer back to the Northwestern Medill data, this growth is still not enough to ensure that all Americans have access to quality local news and information.

During the Stanford PACS Philanthropy Innovation Summit 2025, we joined colleague Peter Lattman of Emerson Collective for a conversation about informed communities. One question often comes up: What if climate or gun control or racial justice is your number one issue, why would you want to support journalism?

The answer remains the same:

Whatever your first issue is, local news and journalism should be your second. Because if we don’t have a shared set of facts, then we will not be able to get to rational policy solutions. And if we don’t have communities where people can talk across their differences, we’re not going to have a democracy.

In the summer of 2025, a quality news outlet might disseminate its breaking news via text message—in Spanish. It might serve up news analysis in a weekly e-mail newsletter and invite voters to attend town halls via Instagram.

Times have changed, but the public’s need for accurate information about what’s happening in our world is arguably more important than ever.

We all have a role to play. If you are a funder, join the movement to support quality independent journalism. Let’s stand up for facts. Let’s invest in local news.