Honors an individual who is new to the field of nonprofit news (less than two years) and is contributing to the success of their organization through innovation.

2024 Award Winner

Ruby Franzen

The Hechinger Report

Ruby Franzen is The Hechinger Report’s first development manager. She helps maintain, operate and expand Hechinger’s membership and sponsorship programs. Since joining the team in May 2023, Franzen “expertly executed a spring appeal campaign,” began professionalizing and expanding the outlet’s “nascent sponsorship program,” and “became a vital member of the organization, straddling responsibilities within the development team, liaising with the engagement team, and participating in a host of internal DEI initiatives,” Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Willen said in the nomination letter.  

Aside from a long list of innovative approaches to sponsorship and membership programs, Franzen is also collegial and valued by her colleagues for her skills, creative ideas, communications style and willingness to collaborate, Willen wrote. 

“Every nonprofit should have a person like her,” a judge said of Franzen, “someone whose clear writing and enthusiastic appeals for members, subscribers and sponsors professionalize the pitch to these stakeholders and helps translate the need for high-quality donor supported journalism.”

Finalist

• Matthew DeFour (Wisconsin Watch)