Metro Nonprofit News Network

THE INSPIRATION

Responding to the Local News Crisis in the Twin Cities metro: The April closing of six newspapers in southwestern communities has increased awareness of the crisis in local journalism. In response to the loss of their respective local papers, citizen-led groups in Eden Prairie, Woodbury, Prior Lake/Savage, and others are devoting volunteer efforts to establish and to grow a network of nonprofit, independent, hyperlocal, online newsrooms.

These newsrooms would be aided by MNNN, a metro clearinghouse led by a part-time professional executive and a fiscal sponsor to mentor, fund shared services, and collaborate with national journalism service groups. MNNN would nudge each newsroom from planning to launch and eventually, to sustainability.

Our grassroots team requests an initial grant of $100,000 from the McKnight Foundation to accelerate our efforts to form and grow these newsrooms, which would identify as newsrooms unique to their communities while generating economies of scale through informal coordination.

Statement of Need: Each newsroom would organize as a nonprofit and seek 501(c)(3) status to house a board of directors, an editor, reporters, and business staff for their community newsroom. Each newsroom would buy software and services at non-profit rates through Tech Soup.

But three areas especially critical to successful launches require professional expertise that start-ups find intimidating, costly and difficult to access. These include:

• Specialized technology support to launch and maintain the critical infrastructure associated with online publishing platforms used by journalists.
• Building a revenue strategy that leverages collaborative reporting and new media products to generate revenue from ads, sponsorships, and foundation underwriting.
• Audience development targeted at building loyal connections within our diverse communities and growing/expanding a subscriber funnel developing future donors.