In June, the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) gathered hundreds of journalists, editors and nonprofit news leaders for its annual conference, INN Days. This year’s event in Minneapolis drew 490 registrants, a record turnout for the 16-year-old journalism support organization. “2025 has not been the easiest of years,” INN’s CEO Karen Rundlet told a room of nonprofit journalists in early June. “We sit at a critical juncture for facts, for access, for journalist safety, digital and physical.”
INN shared a video recording with E&P of the event. In it, Rundlet spoke candidly about pressures facing independent newsrooms today. “You’ve reached out to me and the INN team about all kinds of things — defamation lawsuits, the difficulty accessing public documents, safety programs for employees born abroad, covering immigration, protections for Black and LGBTQ reporters,” she said. “You want certainty, and that’s difficult to guarantee right now. But I am here to tell you there is light. There is a community here to protect you, and we are in this room.”
Rundlet pointed to the support available from INN’s programs and team, the growing network of members, the organization’s legal partners, and their own engaged audiences who “see your value” and increasingly “stand up for you.”
INN counts more than 500 nonprofit newsrooms as members. These members include global, national and local organizations. Some like ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and PBS NewsHour are larger newsrooms, while others, such as MLK50 in Tennessee and the Sahan Journal in Minneapolis, are smaller. The membership also includes a network of rural newsrooms, tribal news outlets and public media organizations.
As more nonprofit newsrooms have opened, INN’s membership has grown, gaining more than 40 new members in the past year. Members have access to training programs, collaborative projects and experts to help them with business development, audience engagement and fundraising.
“If you’ve felt alone,” Rundlet said, “Please know this — you are not. You are part of a living ecosystem of truth-tellers, watchdogs, connectors and caretakers. Let’s use this moment, this gathering, to fortify each other.”
A mission to serve
INN was founded in 2009 by a group of editors and publishers who saw the need for a formal support network for nonprofit newsrooms. Initially focused on investigative reporting, the founding declaration stated, “We, representatives of nonprofit news organizations, gather at a time when investigative reporting, so crucial to a functioning democracy, is under threat. There is an urgent need to nourish and sustain the emerging investigative journalism ecosystem to better serve the public.”
Laura Frank, a founding member and former board chair who now leads COLab in Colorado, said the group believed collective support was critical to survival: “We had very lofty visions. We began with editorial collaboration, and we quickly realized that it isn’t enough. People say, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ And we know that is not true in journalism. … Pretty quickly, we realized we have to support some of those back-office kinds of things.”
The organization eventually expanded beyond investigative journalism to serve local community publishers, statehouse watchdogs and issue-specific newsrooms. “What it has become is beyond what any of us imagined then,” Frank said. “Thankfully, many people have come along in those years since and helped it evolve into what is needed.”
Frank praised INN’s role in helping startups succeed: “INN is really good at helping get people to the next level, whether you’re a startup reaching equilibrium or needing to operate differently. INN is good at connecting people and creating a community of support. It’s a giant leverage for anybody working in this field.” She cited the organization’s high startup success rate: “INN's success rate with news organizations that start up and are still going a year later is over 90%. That's unbelievable in any field.”
She credited INN leadership for guiding the organization through change: “Sue Cross came in and professionalized the organization, made it more responsive to members, and guided it into becoming an organization that evolves and iterates.”
Frank said current CEO Karen Rundlet brings a collaborative focus and deep understanding of member needs from her time working for the Knight Foundation and helping newsrooms secure grants. “Karen is extremely aware of the challenges that individual news organizations face. The role gave her a view of the needs of many newsrooms,” explained Frank. “Her leadership style is so collaborative, and that’s exactly what INN needs right now. She is doing an excellent job of connecting with members and with other journalism service organizations and helping streamline work across the field.”
Rundlet said INN’s commitment to the nonprofit model sets it apart, “Our members are deeply mission-driven — people before profits. Profits go back into the work, which is, of course, the public service reporting and investigative journalism. We know there are for-profit news organizations seeking philanthropy now because they see it as a new revenue stream. That’s a business-first, transactional reason. Our members know they have to run strong businesses, but they aren’t doing the work exclusively for revenue; they’re doing it to serve the public.”
Becoming a member isn’t as easy as just having your nonprofit status. Rundlet pointed out the organization puts a high priority on editorial standards, community mission and transparency. “In 2024, 76% of those who applied to INN were accepted. Not everyone gets to be an INN member. Applicants must meet INN standards, and our vetting is not casual. Investigative journalists are reviewing those applications ahead of Board approval.”
“We’ve built a huge collaborative network,” she shared, noting that members often share content with each other and with more than 26,000 other outlets, including for-profit media.
INN’s signature program, NewsMatch, a collaborative fundraising campaign, is entering its 10th year. It provides training, digital assets, campaign support and up to $15,000 in matching funds. In 2024, 381 nonprofit newsrooms raised a total of more than $55 million in donations from audiences with Newsmatch. Rundlet noted that small-dollar donations have become essential for many newsrooms: “They ask, they make the case, and they receive.” INN has also expanded year-round small-donor campaign training, reaching nearly 100 members.
Another industry-known project is the INN Index. It tracks trends from a comprehensive survey of its members. Since 2017, it has gathered key insights and made them available for the field and for philanthropists interested in supporting journalism.
Supporting newsrooms in crisis
Jonathan Kealing, INN’s chief network officer since 2019, said the organization is always trying to meet the needs of its diverse members. In 2021, the organization piloted a project to help rural newsrooms. Four years late, the program is supporting some of the most remote and under-resourced outlets in the country.
“There are 80 or 90 nonprofit newsrooms within INN that cover rural communities,” he said. “We lead editorial collaborations, provide data journalism support, and are testing a sponsorship network to strengthen those newsrooms — which seems as important as ever as news deserts grow and CPB cuts loom.”
Kealing also highlighted INN’s new disaster rapid relief fund, launched with the Google News Initiative, providing $10,000 grants to newsrooms covering declared disasters. The fund has distributed $470,000 in grants so far, supporting members and nonmembers alike, including family-owned newspapers, public radio stations and for-profit outlets that meet the criteria.
“We just got tired of the ‘thoughts and prayers’ response,” Kealing said. “We wanted to do something more.” The fund has already assisted newsrooms covering wildfires in Los Angeles, floods and blizzards in Kentucky and West Virginia, and flooding in the Texas Hill Country. One publisher who received emergency support from INN, Louis Amestoy of the Kerr County Lead, told Kealing, “You are the only people from this whole industry who reached out with actual help.”
Looking to the future
INN’s June conference reflected the challenges nonprofit newsrooms face today. Sessions covered diversifying philanthropic support beyond “the usual suspects,” building trust with communities, developing audience strategies to counter disengagement, and building resilience through smart policies and healthier workplace cultures.
They also had sessions on newsroom safety — both digital and physical. Legal preparedness was another key theme, with support from Lawyers for Reporters, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Committee to Protect Journalists and PEN America, which provided tools and resources.
Also on the INN Days agenda was the challenge facing public media. The conference took place a few weeks before Congress voted to cease federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
INN counts 30 public media stations as members. Kealing noted that while only 6% of INN members are public media, more than half collaborate with such stations. “We serve both big outlets like WNYC and small critical sources of news like CoastAlaska,” he said. “One of our members, Honolulu Civil Beat, sent out a donor appeal to its donor list last week. It was a joint fundraising effort, saying, ‘Half of what you give will go to Hawaii Public Media.’”
A plenary session featured a conversation between INN’s Rundlet and Tim Isgitt, CEO of Public Media Company, who previously worked at CPB, about the fate of public media in the face of the cut to federal funding for the CPB. At the time of the conference, the rescission had not yet been voted on.
The stakes, they agreed, are enormous. They noted there are 1,200 public radio stations across the United States — many in rural areas. Isgitt said his association did a review of public media finances to identify those who were set to lose 30% or more of their funding. “We consider those at risk for closing. Can you imagine if you lost 30% of your revenue?” He said they identified 78 radio and 37 television stations that fell into that category — including many in rural communities. “We’re looking at tens of millions of people losing their services,” Isgitt said, noting that tribal stations, HBCU-based outlets and rural communities are among the most vulnerable.
Rundlet asked Isgitt what he envisioned might be built to fill this great loss and whether INN might be of help.
“There would be key tenets,” said Isgitt. “Community rootedness, mission-driven. I think those are the important aspects of our current system. We could think about something more robust and broader — maybe the INN network here could be a base for something new as well.” That response drew a round of applause from the audience.
Rundlet responded, “Well, that was provocative.” That also drew applause.
Diane Sylvester is an award-winning 30-year multimedia news veteran. She works as a reporter, editor, and newsroom strategist. She can be reached at diane.povcreative@gmail.com.
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