Rethinking Local News Requires Us to Rethink Philanthropy Too

Today’s post — the fifth in our six part series on building new networks for local news and fostering more creative, sustainable and community-driven journalism — is a little bit of a departure from the previous installments. Today, Josh Stearns and I are talking about philanthropy and what we think are the best ways for the philanthropic sector (especially place-based foundations and community foundations) to support local news initiatives.

Here’s a snippet:

Philanthropy Needs to Be More Patient
At its heart, this is culture change work and relationship-driven work, which take time and a deep investment in human capital. This work is circuitous and complicated. This is especially true when working with small newsrooms where health issues, community issues and financial issues can unpredictably slow down or derail progress. If we want to ensure that the work is community-grown, not funder-driven, it needs to be tied to the infrastructure and institutions of the community to be sustainable. We still have much to learn about the essential ingredients for a strong and vibrant local news ecosystem in the digital age, and we have to acknowledge that the recipe might keep changing.

As a program director at a private foundation, I spend a lot of time thinking about philanthropy; it is an enormously complicated job to understand when and how best to make grants that will actually have an impact on the system you are trying to change, and many of the factors (timing, people, money needed) are constantly shifting.

Despite that, I think there are some obvious ways that philanthropy can improve the way it works — it can be more creative, more nimble, and also more patient — so Part Five is an attempt to build that list. I’ll be interested to hear what you think.