 | |
| Formation | 2009 |
|---|---|
| Type | 501(c)(3) organization |
| 27-2614911 | |
| Registration no. | C3250040 |
| Membership | 475 (in 2024) |
| Staff | 20-30 |
| Website | inn |
The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) is a non-profit consortium of nonprofit journalism organizations. The organization promotes nonprofit investigative and public service journalism. INN facilitates collaborations between member organizations, provides training in best-practices and fundraising, and provides back-office services. [1]
INN was founded as the Investigative News Network in 2009 at a summer conference held at the Pocantico Center in New York with journalists from the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Investigative Reporting, among other newer organizations. The result of that conference was the Pocantico Declaration with the intent to share resources and collaborate on projects. [2]
Two papers in 2010 described a trend in news media where watchdog journalism was being done increasingly outside of mainstream newsrooms. [3] [4]
INN was granted 501(c)(3) nonprofit status by the IRS in March 2012, 19 months after applying. [5]
In November 2014, the board of INN met to conduct a strategic review of the organization. During that meeting the board decided to refine the organization's and to change its name from "Investigative News Network" to the "Institute for Nonprofit News". In March 2015, the board voted to terminate the organization's first CEO, Kevin Davis, and appoint data reporter Denise Malan as the interim CEO while a search was conducted to find a permanent replacement. [6] In September 2015, Sue Cross, formerly a consultant and before that a long-time employee of AP was hired as the new Executive Director and CEO. [7]
As of November 2024, INN has 475 members, [8] up from 189 in March 2019 [9] and 60 in 2011. [10]
In 2023, 48% of newsrooms that applied to become members were accepted, with others not meeting membership standards like editorial independence, quality of journalism and transparency around who funds their work. [11] Most outlets, as of 2023, were focused at the state and local level. [12] A growing number of outlets also reported having volunteers play a significant role. [12] As of February 2024, the median member had 4 staffers and $271,000 in revenue. [13]
As of 2024, the network reported having 80 INN-member newsrooms across 47 states. [14] In 2021, The Associated Press reported on how INN was helping to form The Rural News Network, a collaboration that started with 60 rural nonprofit news organizations [15] before it reported growing to 70 in 2022. [16]
As a 501(c)3 non-profit education organization, INN provides coordination, training, support services and financial sponsorship to its membership. It has published educational resources and training materials, including a whitepaper, "Audience Development and Distribution Strategies", [17] [ better source needed ]
In 2011, INN joined the Thomson Reuters media platform. [18]
In 2011, INN also launched the INNovation fund with the Knight Foundation to support experimentalism in nonprofit journalism. [19]
In 2012, INN developed "Project Largo", a WordPress theme and CMS platform for news websites based on NPR's Project Argo that is used by member organizations in New Orleans, Connecticut, Maine, Iowa, Oklahoma and elsewhere. [20] [21]
In 2013, INN's CEO Kevin Davis consulted on a nonprofit media working group for the Council on Foundations to produce a report titled "The IRS and Nonprofit Media." The report urges the IRS to update its approach to granting charity status to non-profit journalism organizations. [22]
In 2013, INN member I-News merged with Rocky Mountain PBS and Denver-based NPR affiliate KUVO in what was a first of its kind merger between public broadcasters and INN members. [23]
Since 2016, INN has partnered with NewsMatch, an initiative supported by several national foundations that match donations from individuals to nonprofit news organizations. [24]
In 2021, TheNew York Times highlighted how communities where local newspapers were shuttering followed INN's playbook for how to start a nonprofit news organization, which it found were becoming more prevalent. [25]
In November 2024, the Institute for Nonprofit News secured press credentials for all of its 475 member organizations in a partnership with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. [8]
The Online News Association (ONA), founded in 1999, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Washington D.C., United States. It is the world's largest association of digital journalists, with more than 3,200 members. The founding members first convened in December 1999 in Chicago. The group included journalists from WSJ, Time, MSNBC, and the FT, among other outlets.
The American Independent is a pseudo-news organization funded by Democratic Party political action committees. According to the organization, its aim is to support journalism which exposes "the nexus of conservative power in Washington." The current institute, started by David Brock in 2014, is a relaunch of the former state-based digital news-gathering network known as the American Independent News Network.
The Colorado Independent was a nonprofit media organization, first reporting news via its online website that was started in July 2006, later revitalized again in September 2013 under new Colorado-based management.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit politics and public policy news website headquartered in Austin, Texas. Its stated aim is to promote civic engagement through original, explanatory journalism and public events.
The Franklin News Foundation, previously the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, is an American online nonprofit news organization that publishes news and commentary from a conservative and free market, limited government perspective on state and local politics. Its journalism platform is called The Center Square, rebranded from Watchdog.org. Founded in 2009 in North Dakota, the organization moved to Virginia and is now based in Chicago.
Computational journalism can be defined as the application of computation to the activities of journalism such as information gathering, organization, sensemaking, communication and dissemination of news information, while upholding values of journalism such as accuracy and verifiability. The field draws on technical aspects of computer science including artificial intelligence, content analysis, visualization, personalization and recommender systems as well as aspects of social computing and information science.
The Global Editors Network (GEN) was an international association of over 6,000 editors-in-chief and media executives with the mission of fostering digital innovation in newsrooms all over the world. GEN had three main programmes: Editors Lab, the Data Journalism Awards, Startups for News, as well as an upcoming hub for the international data journalism community. The organisation’s flagship event, the GEN Summit, gathered over 830 participants from 70 countries. The GEN newsletter was read weekly by more than 13,800 subscribers. It is a non-profit, non-governmental association.
DocumentCloud is an open-source software as a service platform that allows users to upload, analyze, annotate, collaborate on and publish primary source documents. Since its launch in 2009, it has been used primarily by journalists to find information in the documents they gather in the course of their reporting and, in the interests of transparency, publish the documents. As of May 2023, DocumentCloud users had uploaded more than 5 million documents.
Nonprofit journalism or philanthrojournalism is the practice of journalism funded largely by donations and foundations. The growth in this sector has been helped by funders seeing a need for public interest journalism like investigative reporting amidst the decline in revenue for for-profit journalism. Transparency and diversified funding streams have been put forward as best-practices for these types of organizations. Journalism done at a nonprofit organization should be evaluated just as critically as journalism from for-profit or other outlets.
Wisconsin Watch or the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is a nonprofit investigative news organization housed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The organization's mission is to "increase the quality and quantity of investigative reporting in Wisconsin, while training current and future generations of investigative journalists."
The Marshall Project is a nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about inequities within the U.S. criminal justice system. The Marshall Project has been described as an advocacy group by some, and works to impact the system through journalism.
Coda Media is a nonprofit news organization that produces journalism about the roots of major global crises. It was founded in 2016 by Natalia Antelava, a former BBC correspondent, and Ilan Greenberg, a magazine and newspaper writer who served as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
Mississippi Today is a nonprofit online newspaper based in Ridgeland, Mississippi
The Markup is an American nonprofit news publication focused on the impact of technology on society. Founded in 2018 with the goal of advancing data-driven journalism, the publication launched in February 2020. Nabiha Syed is the current chief executive officer and Sisi Wei is the editor-in-chief.
Julia Angwin is an American investigative journalist, author, and entrepreneur. She co-founded and was editor-in-chief of The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the impact of technology on society. She was a staff reporter at the New York bureau of The Wall Street Journal from 2000 to 2013, during which time she was on a team that won the Pulitzer Prize in journalism. She worked as a senior reporter at ProPublica from 2014 to April 2018, during which time she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Chalkbeat is a non-profit news organization that covers education in several American communities. Its mission is to "inform the decisions and actions that lead to better outcomes for children and families by providing deep, local coverage of education policy and practice." It aims to cover "the effort to improve schools for all children, especially those who have historically lacked access to a quality education". Its areas of focus include under-reported stories, education policy, equity, trends, and local reporting.
City Bureau is an American non-profit organization based in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is a non-profit newsroom with a stated mission "to equip every community with the tools it needs to eliminate information inequity to further liberation, justice and self-determination." It was founded in 2015.
States Newsroom is a nonprofit news network with newsrooms or a partner news organization in all 50 U.S. states that focus mostly on state policy and politics.
The Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) is a Canadian not-for-profit organization that creates publicly accessible databases about philanthropic donations, political funding, and lobbying in Canada.
CalMatters, a nonprofit news organization covering California state politics and policies, launched in 2015. Founders cited the decline in coverage of state politics in the decade leading up to the founding of CalMatters as a major motivation. As of 2017, it was becoming one of the largest nonprofit newsrooms in the country raising 90 percent of its funding from individuals with only some foundation support. It has also credited its partnership with the LA Times and Capitol Public Radio, among others, as helping to grow the organization quickly.
