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2024 #newsCOneeds Year-End Giving Challenge

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Locally owned and non-profit newsrooms serving communities across Colorado are invited to apply to join the 2024 #newsCOneeds Year-End Giving Challenge, and apply for matching grant funding from CMP.

This year, CMP is making important and exciting changes to the #newsCOneeds matching grant program. Over the last six years, we have worked with over 50 local newsrooms to raise over $2.8 million dollars, and have made constant adaptations to our funding program based on newsroom feedback.  As the fundraising capacity of Colorado’s local newsrooms has grown, we are recognizing the desire for a cohesive, state-wide campaign advocating for the importance of local news and supporting local fundraising initiatives, the value of connecting newsrooms to existing nonprofit fundraising infrastructure and audiences across the state, and the significant opportunity for growth in digital fundraising revenues for newsrooms. This year, we are partnering with the Colorado Gives Foundation to implement the #newsCOneeds campaign, and this year’s #newsCOneeds matching grant program will be run through the ColoradoGives.org fundraising platform. 

Using this platform will significantly streamline the newsroom application and reporting processes, automatically verify eligible donations for the matching grant, give newsrooms access to ColoradoGives.org’s team of expert fundraisers and tools, and connect newsrooms’ fundraising efforts to a centralized, state-wide campaign, which will be visible to the 124,000+ donors who used the ColoragoGives.org platform last year.

Please note that this year all funds eligible for CMP’s matching grant must be raised via the ColoradoGives.org platform. While we encourage you to use any additional fundraising processes that work for you and your community to raise additional funds, we recognize the real power and efficacy of digital fundraising through the ColoradoGives.org platform. This year we are intentionally incentivizing newsrooms to use the state’s standard nonprofit fundraising platform in support of the state-wide #newsCOneeds campaign, and are only able to match funds raised via ColoradoGives.org.

2024 #newsCOneeds Year-End Giving Challenge Matching Grant Details

Goals: To help Colorado news outlets increase public awareness and grassroots support from individuals for the vital public service that journalism provides to our communities, and to build philanthropic fundraising capacity and knowledge-sharing across Colorado’s public-service media ecosystem, via a state-wide fundraising campaign supported by the Colorado Gives Foundation’s coloradogives.org fundraising platform.

Eligibility: Nonprofit or locally-owned for-profit Colorado newsrooms that are planning to execute a year-end philanthropic giving, membership, or subscription campaign are eligible to apply to participate in a 2024 #newsCOneeds Matching Grant program and to receive a $5,000-$10,000 matching grant from the Colorado Media Project, to help inspire dollar-for-dollar matches from individuals during the 2024 #newsCOneeds campaign. Outlets must be actively publishing high-quality, non-advocacy, nonpartisan, public service journalism. Non-profit applicants are eligible to participate in both #newsCOneeds and the Institute for Nonprofit News’ national Newsmatch program. 

Challenge: Colorado Media Project will provide matching grants of up to $5,000-$10,000 per newsroom for new individual memberships, donations, subscriptions or contributions made between 8 a.m. MT on Dec. 3, 2024 (a.k.a. #GivingNewsDay) and midnight MT on Dec. 31, 2024 via the Colorado Gives Foundation’s ColoradoGives.org fundraising platform. To be eligible for a match, contributions must meet criteria set forth by the national NewsMatch campaign, i.e., contributions from individuals up to $1,000, for which the individual doesn’t receive any additional benefit other than the joy of supporting local news, and must be raised via the coloradogives.org fundraising platform. 

Platform, Capacity Building, and Support: This year’s #newsCOneeds campaign will be run through the Colorado Gives Foundation’s ColoradogGives.org fundraising platform. Fundraising through this platform will give local newsrooms access to:

  1. Support and training from Colorado Gives Foundation’s team of expert fundraisers and nonprofit trainers.

  2. Access to a best-in-class digital fundraising tools on a platform with a proven track record of serving nonprofits and communities across the state.

  3. A customizable organization profile or fundraising page for your newsroom that can be linked to the main #newsCOneeds campaign page and used by your newsroom in perpetuity for any other future fundraising activities.

  4. A standardized set of #newsCOneeds campaign materials, content, and collateral, as well as a customizable campaign roadmap, email and social media templates, and more

Note: Locally-owned for-profit newsrooms are encouraged to host their coloradogives.org fundraising pages with local nonprofit or community foundation partners, or with the Colorado News Collaborative (COLab). You can contact Alison Cooper (alison@colabnews.co) to host your fundraising page with COLab, and please join our Sept. 19 Information Session for more information on establishing community partnerships.

Requirements: Participating outlets commit to:  

  • Enroll in the Coloradogives.org fundraising platform and create either a nonprofit profile (for 501(c)3 non-profit newsrooms), or a fundraising page hosted by a community nonprofit partner (for fiscally sponsored and/or for-profit newsrooms) by October 15, 2024. 

  • Attend a Colorado Gives Foundation onboarding and training session, hosted virtually on Thursday November 7, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. MT, and complete their fundraising profile.

  • Develop a fundraising campaign plan, utilizing #newsCOneeds branded campaign content, templates, and materials where appropriate in their fundraising communications and activities.

  • Execute the plan they develop during the December 3-December 31 giving period.  

  • Share fundraising accomplishments, lessons learned, and campaign feedback via a final impact report to CMP.

2024 Timeline: 

This year’s #newsCOneeds grant is a collaborative effort supported by Colorado Media Project and the Colorado Gives Foundation. Many thanks to our talented partners, trainers, and advisors for their support of Colorado’s newsrooms - and any more thanks to the newsrooms of Colorado, for their feedback that continues to inform the evolution of #newsCOneeds! 

CMP’s 2024 #newsCOneeds Year-End Giving Challenge and Matching Grant is made possible through unrestricted support to CMP from Bohemian Foundation, Democracy Fund, and Gates Family Foundation. CMP’s fiscal sponsor, Rose Community Foundation, provides oversight and administration for the funds. Over the last six years, #newsCOneeds has raised nearly $2.8 million for local Coloradan news outlets.

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