Every Crowdfunding Campaign for Nonprofit News
(That I could find last week)
I recently led a workshop for the Institute for Nonprofit News for nonprofit newsrooms considering crowdfunding. At its best, crowdfunding will help you raise money, appeal to new donors, test drive your appeal and increase engagement. But it also burns staff time quickly, especially at small organizations, and the money you raise isn’t always in proportion to time spent.
One thing that makes a difference between success and failure how well your goals fit with what crowdfunding does best, like helping you reach and build excitement with new audiences. I looked around Kickstarter and a couple other platforms for examples and these are the 34 campaigns I found for nonprofit news in the U.S.
Baltimore Brew: A News Website for the City
$24,624 pledged of $15,000 goal
Center for Investigative Reporting: FOIA Machine
$53,654 pledged of $17,500 goal
Center for Investigative Reporting: Help Reveal Go Weekly
$31,627 pledged of $75,000 goal (not successful)
Center for Public Integrity: America’s Workers: Unequal Risk
$10,685 pledged of $10,000 goal
Charlottesville Tomorrow: A Better View of the Western Bypass
$7,094 pledged of $7,000 goal
Charlottesville Tomorrow: Be More Mobile
$4,343 pledged of $15,000 goal (not successful)
Charlottesville Tomorrow: The Education Beat
$17,565 pledged of $17,000 goal
City Bureau: Creating a Public Newsroom in Chicago
$8,138 pledged of $10,000 goal (still active as of this writing)
CivicLab: Tax Increment Financing Illumination Project
$1,000+ pledged of $1,000 goal
CivilEats: Food Policy News & Commentary with Bite
$100,892 pledged of $100,000 goal
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting: Climate Change Denial
$1,500+ pledged of $1,500 goal
InvestigateWest: Olympia Environmental News 2015
$2,500+ pledged of $2,500 goal
InvestigateWest: Olympia Environmental News 2016
$5,070 pledged of $5,000 goal
IowaWatch: Iowa’s Brain Drain Problem
$800+ raised of $800 goal
The Marshall Project: Life Inside
$40,368 pledged of $20,000 goal
The Nation: Let’s Change the Immigration Debate
$56,910 pledged of $56,000 goal
The New Mexico Compass: Examining a Culture of Aggression
$2,266 pledged of $9,375 (flexible) goal
NJ Spotlight: In the Shadow of Liberty
$31,360 pledged of $15,000 goal
Oakland Local: The Underground Economy
$270 pledged of $5,000 goal (not successful)
ProPublica: Investigating the Intern Economy
$23,711 pledged of $22,000 goal
The Reporters Inc.: The Innocent Convicts
$11,200 pledged of $50,000 (flexible) goal
Seattle Globalist: Historias Indígenas
$1,776 pledged of $1,750 goal
Seattle Globalist: On the Borders of War
$1,837 pledged of $1,798 goal
Seattle Globalist: Slum Rising
$3,736 pledged of $3,440 goal
SF Public Press: Pedal-Powered News
$21,328 pledged of $10,000 goal
Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation: Fixed Income
$5,000+ pledged of $5,000 goal
Texas Observer: Covering the Battle for Equality in Texas
$4,065 pledged of $4,000 goal
Texas Tribune: Livestreaming the 2014 Race for Governor
$65,310 pledged of $60,000 goal
Texas Tribune: The Shale Life Project
$6,030 pledged of $5,000 goal
Texas Tribune: Undrinkable
$3,000+ pledged of $3,000 goal
Texas Tribune: When Police Pull the Trigger
$10,085 pledged of $10,00 goal
TucsonSentinel.com: Photos of the Entire Az-Mexico Border
$13,648 pledged of $5,000 goal
The War Horse: Journalism on War and Trauma
$53,300 pledged of $50,00o goal
WyoFile: Heath Care & Wind River’s Children
$4,000+ pledged of $4,000 goal
The projects I’m including all had formal backing from a U.S.-based nonprofit news organization. Public media has also used crowdfunding, Planet Money most lucratively, as well as any number of magazines, podcasts and indie news outlets, but those are all different lists.
Tell me, what’d I miss?
