Is your Colorado newsroom planning to do a year-end community giving campaign or membership drive?
The Colorado Media Project (CMP) is offering matching gifts of up to $5,000 per Colorado newsroom to help inspire more individuals to support homegrown, local Colorado news. In partnership with the national NewsMatch campaign, the CMP also will offer technical support and marketing toolkits for participating Colorado newsrooms.
New individual memberships or donations made before year’s end will be matched dollar-for-dollar, up to a total of $5,000 per newsroom, through the CMP program. Nonprofit news organizations that also participate in NewsMatch can leverage this local-national partnership as a triple match or other incentive! Colorado-based, locally owned commercial newsrooms are also welcome to apply, if you plan to run a year-end campaign to raise community support to sustain your reporting on Colorado communities.
Through this opportunity, the Colorado Media Project aims to help Colorado newsrooms get closer to the communities they serve, by spotlighting the community impact of local news during the year-end giving season.
What might this look like? In 2018, seven Colorado newsrooms participated in the CMP’s #GivingNewsDay Challenge. Newsrooms joined forces to write and send a first-ever joint appeal to readers -- which raised nearly $50,000 for local news from about 300 people in a single day.
Through the Colorado Media Project’s 2019 matching challenge, up to 15 local outlets will come together to brainstorm ways to leverage #GivingNewsDay, December 3, 2019 (a.k.a. Giving Tuesday) or another opportunity this giving season, in order to increase individual donations at each outlet – while also amplifying the vital role that community support plays in sustaining high-quality local news in Colorado.
A $75,000 grant from the Gates Family Foundation is seeding the matching fund through the Colorado Media Project. Rose Community Foundation and the Miami Foundation will provide oversight and administration for the funds.
For general questions about the Colorado Media Project or the matching gift challenge, contact Melissa Davis at mdavis@gatesfamilyfoundation.org. Foundations and major donors who wish to contribute to the matching fund can contact Sarah Kurz at skurz@rcfdenver.org.
THE DETAILS
Goals: To help Colorado news outlets increase grassroots support from individuals for the vital public service they provide to our communities, and to build fundraising capacity and knowledge-sharing across the local media ecosystem.
Eligible Organizations:
Colorado members of the Institute for Nonprofit News OR other Colorado-based, locally owned newsrooms that plan to run a year-end membership campaign in order to sustain original, local reporting on Colorado communities.
Nonprofit organizations that support multiple Colorado newsrooms are also eligible, if the funds raised will be used to sustain or strengthen reporting on Colorado communities.
Newsrooms should already be planning to execute a year-end community giving campaign, as this opportunity will provide additive (not from-the-ground) support.
Newsrooms must be actively publishing high-quality, fact-based, public service journalism for the general public. Religious, campus-based or student publications, and trade or industry publications are generally not eligible.
Newsrooms must apply high journalistic standards for accuracy and fairness, including openly correcting errors and prominently labeling opinion, commentary, and sponsored content. Newsrooms must maintain editorial independence, and avoid conflicts of interest that could compromise the integrity of the work.
Publications with points of view may be accepted on a case-by-case basis. Those publications must be producing original reporting that does not misrepresent facts or selectively publish stories in an attempt to advance a policy or cause.
Eligible Donations:
The Colorado Media Project will match up to $5,000 per organization for new individual memberships or donations of $1,000 or below made on #GivingNewsDay (Dec. 3, 2019), #ColoradoGivesDay (Dec. 10, 2019), or another date or time period prior to Dec. 31, 2019 that is collectively selected by the participating newsrooms.
If a donation includes any benefit to the donor (eg: a subscription or other gift), only the portion above that value can be counted toward the match. See NewsMatch eligibility criteria for complete details.
Participant Requirements: Selected newsrooms must participate in two CMP-led meetings — one group brainstorming and planning meeting on November 14, from 12 - 2 pm, and a group debrief in February. Meetings will be held in Denver — remote newsrooms may attend via video conference. Participating outlets commit to executing the plan they develop at the brainstorming session in November, and to providing outreach examples and lessons learned to cohort members at the February debrief. Basic documentation of donations received toward the match and summary of fundraising results must be submitted in early 2020.
Support: The Colorado Media Project will facilitate meetings and provide strategic implementation support as needed. NewsMatch plans to promote #GivingNewsDay nationwide with a multi-pronged awareness campaign, and will share best practices for local news fundraising, including a webinar on November 14 with Jason Alcorn of NewsMatch.
To apply: Submit a brief statement of interest here that includes organization name and contact info, your current plan and goals for year-end fundraising (if any), and what you would hope to gain from participating in this cohort opportunity. Submissions are due by November 5 at 5 p.m. MT. Selected newsrooms will be notified the week of November 11. Questions? Please contact: info@coloradomediaproject.com.