Nonprofit journalism sites are proving to be healthy but slow to scale

By Rick Edmonds, Poynter Institute

A recent Pew Research Center/Knight Foundation roundtable conference on the future of nonprofit journalism had the feeling of an annual physical. After three hours of poking and probing, the sector was found to be slowly getting stronger but with some serious lingering issues.

On the good news half of the examination, sites aimed at doing serious journalism, often investigative, are growing in number. Pew counted 174 in a study released this June.  And some potential heavyweight funders, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MacArthur Foundation, were represented at the meeting.

Another plus is that many of the nonprofit startups are finding partners in legacy media willing to publish their reports to a wider audience. Many ProPublica stories have a national or regional publishing partner, and the Tampa Bay Times’ recent expose of America’s worst charities was a joint project with the Center for Investigative Reporting and CNN. That can open syndication as a possible revenue stream or at least spread the impact of the work beyond an organization’s own site.

The Pew study, and one in progress by Knight, are amplifying earlier reports that the strongest nonprofits are developing diverse sources of support and typically have some of their staff dedicated to the business and technical sides of the venture. However, while that works well for the bigger sites, like ProPublica or Texas Tribune, or a mid-sized one like MinnPost, it is hard to pull off at a small site with two to five employees.

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