5 Takeaways from the First New Mexico Local News Matching Campaign
With support from News Revenue Hub, we helped 9 newsrooms raise more than $120,000
By Mark Glaser
You’ve probably heard the pitch before, most likely on public radio: “If you donate money today, your donation will be matched by a corporate donor!” The enticement is that warm and fuzzy feeling that happens when you give $100, and then it’s matched and doubled so it ends up being a $200 donation. The power of algorithmic giving.
That’s what has made the national NewsMatch program such a big success, helping hundreds of nonprofit newsrooms around the country raise millions of dollars each November and December. (To learn more about the amazing impact of that program, check out this story.)
At the New Mexico Local News Fund, we were inspired by Colorado’s own matching campaign started in 2020, so that nonprofit newsrooms would get an additional match and for-profit newsrooms (with a public service mission) could have their own fundraising campaigns with matches. So in December last year, we launched our first Local News Matching Campaign in New Mexico, with the #supportNMnews hashtag, offering to match up to $3,000 per newsroom based on how much they raised in donations, subscriptions and memberships.
It was a big success for a first try, as we helped 9 diverse newsrooms across the state raise more than $120,000. Some newsrooms that had planned to participate had to drop out because they couldn’t devote the time necessary to make a successful campaign. And some didn’t hit their goals. But overall, the campaign gave newsrooms a chance to think more deeply about fundraising, and we expect it will build momentum for next December’s campaign and beyond.
Here’s a quick overview of some of our big takeaways from Year 1 of the program:
- It’s important to provide support and expertise.
We hired the wonderful folks at News Revenue Hub to help us design our campaign graphics (see the image above), provide templates for emails, and give newsrooms a special training and office hours. It didn’t hurt that the Hub also runs similar trainings for NewsMatch, so their expertise was key to our success.
2. It’s not just about money. It’s about building infrastructure.
Yes, the overall money raised looks great, but something that’s under the radar is the way the Matching Campaign helped smaller newsrooms build fundraising infrastructure for the long run. They can use these templates, and the tempo of the outreach to their audience, as a model for future campaigns. For example, the Questa Del Rio News was able to raise more than $11,000 while also becoming a more sustainable publication.
“The December Matching Campaign was the successful culmination of months of working with the Local News Fund in a guided initiative to create financial stability and sustainability for our local newsroom,” said Lou McCall, the newspaper’s editor. “Through the Local News Fund’s support we have expanded our staff, expanded our online presence, gained followers, and true to our objective, increased revenue. Our December ‘FUNraiser’ was our first and we are already moving forward to make it an annual event.”
3. Even veteran fundraisers can use another match.
Of course, we also had some old pros like KSFR public radio in Santa Fe and Searchlight New Mexico, who have been doing fundraising for years. But even in those cases, having another match to pitch to potential donors can help them build momentum for a flagging campaign. Searchlight was able to raise nearly $30,000 during the campaign.
“By matching donors, the Local News Fund helped us to double our revenue from year-end contributions but also allowed donors to double their impact,” said Christian Marquez, director of operations and data editor at Searchlight New Mexico. “The impact of this program went beyond the additional funding, by offering increased value and ultimately helping to drive donations in excess of the match cap. It is a win-win scenario for New Mexico, and I believe programs like these will prove their worth as the media landscape continues to shift in New Mexico and around the nation.”
4. Don’t shy away from asking for donations again and again.
Many publishers who aren’t used to running fundraising campaigns can feel a bit awkward when pitching donations to their audience. They expect a lot of pushback from the audience, who they think don’t want to hear the pitch. The reality is that these communities depend on the work of the news publishers, often appreciate the hard work that reporters are doing, and want to know about ways to support these publications. Fundraising experts often say that if you think you’ve asked too many times, ask again. Not everyone sees every email, every story in the paper or hears every ask on the radio. So repeating the ask is very important.
5. Make sure you have the time to devote to your campaign.
While we provided support and templates for the campaign, it was still up to the newsrooms to follow through and put the time in to make sure the campaign was successful. In a couple cases, newsrooms just didn’t have the time or energy left in December to run a campaign. That’s fair. But in the future, publishers should make sure they have dedicated time and staff to help market the fundraising campaign in the community, in print, on social media, or on the air.
Overall we were really excited to launch this program in New Mexico, and look forward to more matching campaigns in years to come. We’ll use our lessons learned to improve the program and hopefully bring in even more newsrooms to participate!
Mark Glaser is the Innovation Consultant for the New Mexico Local News Fund. He is also an Associate at Dot Connector Studio, and was the founder and executive editor of MediaShift.org.
