By Michele McLellan, Jesse Holcomb and Emily Roseman
Oct. 5, 2022
Definition: Local news organizations are those that cover part or all of a community, municipality or county or a cluster of them, ranging from large metro areas to small neighborhoods. The factsheet covers data for 121 local news organizations.
The Landscape
Local nonprofit news is in the midst of a multiyear expansion into more communities, and the number of organizations has more than doubled in five years. They have launched at an average rate of more than one per month, a total of 66 outlets, since rapid growth began in 2017. Fourteen outlets in this study launched in 2021.
Growth: Local news outlets made up about one-fourth of the nonprofit field in 2017, when the number of outlets began to expand rapidly. Now, four in 10 nonprofit news organizations are local in scope. Local startups, which we define as launching in the past four years, account for more than half (55%) of the nonprofits that started up in that timeframe.
Local news organizations operate in 30 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Twenty-two are in California, 12 in Texas, and 10 in Illinois. For the most part they are spread evenly across five major regions of the United States.
Local organizations are starting up in smaller communities – four in 10 launches in 2016-21 were in communities with populations of less than 100,000. The local expansion is predominantly urban so far: Only one in six outlets targets a rural audience.
Mission & Impact: More than the rest of the field, local news organizations are likely to say encouraging and inspiring civic engagement is a top priority. Nearly three-fourths (72%) say it’s a high priority. (Non-local outlets are more likely to emphasize exposing wrongdoing or shedding light on complex topics.)
Two-thirds of local publishers say their coverage casts a wide net, reporting on a range of local topics. This contrasts with non-local nonprofit publications that are more likely to focus on a narrower band of related topics or to specialize in a single topic.
Focus on communities of color: Local nonprofit news outlets are more likely to say coverage of a community or communities of color is a primary mission. One in four local organizations have that focus, compared to one in six across all INN members.
Local organizations generally operate on small budgets. Half generate less than $250,000 a year in revenue and half of those earn less than $100,000 a year. Median revenue was $245,000 per outlet in 2021, about the same as the year before.
Revenue mix: As a group, local outlets derive about 40% of their total revenue from foundation grants. Many small organizations struggle to attract foundation funding, which is more likely to benefit larger national and global organizations. One illustration of the disparity: Local outlets employ nearly one-fourth (23%) of the personnel in the field and make up the largest group of nonprofits in number of outlets (42% of the nonprofit field). But they collect only one-tenth (11%) of foundation revenue.
Earned revenue: Local organizations have historically led the field in earned revenue such as advertising and sponsorships. And 2021 was no exception, with local outlets reporting that nearly 3 in 10 of their revenue dollars came from earned sources and more than half of that from advertising. This was more than twice the percentage of total revenue taken in by state, regional, national and global organizations. Still, earned revenue proved volatile fieldwide during the pandemic and local organizations were hard hit. Median earned revenue dropped in 2020 and in 2021 to less than $28,000 per outlet, down nearly one-third from the pre-COVID level.
Revenue outlook: As the wave of local startups matures, revenue growth is likely. Still, local outlets face challenges on all three major revenue fronts: Foundation grants, donor support and earned revenue. They must establish or grow a donor base within their audience. Mature organizations must restore earned revenue lost in the pandemic while newer organizations must figure out how to make this type of revenue a steady source. Grant revenue for local outlets often depends on local foundation resources, which may not be available in every community.
Staffing
The median number of personnel among the local organization is 4 and paid employees per organization range in number from 0 to 38.
One-third of all employees of local organizations are people of color.
Nearly 4 in 10 organizations say 40% or more of their employees are people of color, a higher percentage than state/regional outlets and similar to national/global outlets.
Audiences & Distribution
Three in 10 local outlets say serving communities of color is a primary focus of their work, compared with 2 in 10 among non-local organizations. Local startups are driving much of this focus. Out of 32 startups with a primary focus on serving communities of color, 20 are local in scope. Overall, local organizations are much more likely to target Black and Hispanic audiences as well as low-income and immigrant communities..
Examples: Public Square in Newark, New Jersey, and The Tributary in Jacksonville, Florida, launched in 2021, are among startups that aim to serve communities of color.
By their own estimates, local publications serve populations that are significantly more diverse than their state, regional, national and global counterparts. About half (49%) of local outlets say people of color make up 30% or more of the local population, including about one-fourth (25%) who say people of color make up 50% or more of the population they serve.
Correspondingly, local outlets have fewer third-party publication partners than their non-local counterparts. The median number is 2 partners, about five times fewer than the rest of the field. Their work was published regularly in 2021 by an estimated total of nearly 700 publications. The most common third-party vehicles were digital outlets, emails and print newspapers.
Learn what drives nonprofit news, how it’s funded, who it serves, and how we can continue expanding sources of high-quality information for the public.
