The Index is the most comprehensive study of the state of nonprofit news.

As the nonprofit news field rapidly changes and grows, INN tracks and studies what’s happening behind-the-scenes.

Through exploring Index data, you can 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.

Latest research

Index In Focus

INN’s fact sheets dive deep into the five main types of nonprofit news: local news, state and regional news, national and global news, news that primarily serves communities of color, and single-topic news.

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Index Reports

INN’s latest 2021 Index Report shows that during a year of crises, audiences swelled, coverage expanded, staffing measures increased, and individual giving revenue surged for many outlets.

This tumultuous year generated the fastest growth in nonprofit news media since the financial crisis of 2008, when many journalists left legacy media to create nonprofit newsrooms, with the aim of saving accountability and investigative reporting considered essential to democracy. The breadth of growth in 2020 accelerates the establishment of this new kind of media.

Here’s what INN’s 2021 Index Report tells us about the state of the field:

• News nonprofits produce in-depth, specialized coverage. One third of the field focuses on investigative reporting, and close to 40% primarily provide deep explanatory coverage. Specialized reporting has migrated to nonprofits, many of which have become the “beat reporters” for other media. Most nonprofit newsrooms focus on one or a few related topics. This in-depth coverage is generally not paywalled, but provided as a public good.

• Audiences grew and the journalism served more people. Web traffic to nonprofit news sites grew by 43%, newsletter lists by 36%. Direct audiences remain small and targeted compared with broad commercial media, but nonprofits also collaborate to provide coverage to millions through partners: More than 3,800 third-party outlets regularly published or aired the work of nonprofit news organizations in 2020, according to publisher estimates.

• Revenue grew for most outlets. Individual giving and foundation funding increases drove overall revenue growth. Nearly two-thirds of sites with comparable data saw individual giving grow, and 60% saw grant funding gains. These increases weren’t minor. More than half of organizations with individual donation growth saw it increase by more than 50%.

• Staffing held steady, and even expanded by some measures. Among established, primarily digital publications, total staffing was estimated at 2,700, including nearly 2,000 journalists. This represents a 17% increase in total staffing from the year before. Current staffing figures are higher, as 2020 totals do not include recent startups nor hundreds of staffers at two dozen public media INN members.

• Staff diversity appears to be growing. In 2020, over a third of outlets had a staff where people of color made up 40% or more of total personnel, representative of the U.S. population. Across the field people of color were in 31% percent of management positions and 24% of top executive leadership roles, pointing toward needs to focus on retention, promotion and leadership recruitment.

• The startup pace is accelerating again. A third of the nonprofit news outlets publishing today did not exist five years ago. Nonprofit outlets have launched at an average pace of a dozen or more a year since 2008; more than 20 launched in 2020. INN’s membership grew 27% from 2019 to 2020.

Fans of the Index

The Index acts as a compass for the field. But don’t take it from us — here are a few examples of how the Index data is used across different sectors.

“Understanding life in the long tail is really important as news ecosystems redefine themselves in the digital age. The Index was an important springboard for us to evaluate the UK landscape for independent news, to further understand the complex parameters of sustainable journalism. The opportunities for comparative international research are rare.”

— Clare Cook, Public Interest News Foundation

“We are trying to rebuild America’s access to the local news and information that communities and our democracy rely on, and the INN Index is a vital tool to understand this emerging sector. The Index helps us listen to the nonprofit news field and ensure our strategies and grantmaking are making a positive impact.”

— Josh Stearns, Democracy Fund

“At INN, we are only as strong as our network of member organizations. As the nonprofit new field continues to grow and strengthen, we’d hope to see some problems be solved while new challenges emerge. The Index helps to signal these shifts and evolve INN programs like NewsMatch to better serve what newsrooms need today.” 

— Courtney Hurtt, NewsMatch

“As a nonprofit newsroom, we have long tracked how our work resonates with readers. The Index Report provides us with a critical tool to compare our organization to similarly situated news outlets. This kind of evaluation allows us to have meaningful conversations and set realistic goals as we continue to grow our newsroom.”

— Nichole Dobo, The Hechinger Report

INN shares data on nonprofit news

Want Index data for your research project, journalism course, or assessment? Please complete this data request form, and a member of our team will be in touch.

Have other questions about the Index or nonprofit news data? Reach out to Emily Roseman, INN’s research director at emily.r@inn.org.

For media related inquiries about the INN Index, please contact news@inn.org.

More of INN’s research

INN provides actionable research on nonprofit journalism for our members, partners and the wider field. Our research captures the progress and setbacks across the nonprofit news field and highlights the best practices and success stories that emerge from our members.