Staff & Capacity

By Michele McLellan

The 412 nonprofit news organizations in the Index reported 4,700 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff in 2025, up from 4,300 FTEs in 2024. Because INN’s membership also grew over this period, this increase reflects a larger pool of outlets rather than an increase in staffing per outlet, which held steady. Using staffing data from participating outlets combined with estimates for those that did not respond to the survey, INN projects total employment across its full membership at 5,000 FTE in 2025¹, up from an estimated 4,600 FTE in 2024.

Median staff size was five FTEs, with local outlets reporting a median of four and national outlets reporting 11.5. 

Workforce diversity remained well above industry levels, with 35% of staffers identifying as people of color — a share that is distributed unevenly across the field.

In 2025, staffing levels remained the same, with lean teams that vary in size based on geographic coverage and age of the organization

As INN membership grew in 2025, so did total staffing — the outlets participating in the Index survey reported 4,700 FTEs, up from 4,300 in 2024. This increase, however, largely reflects growth in the number of outlets rather than an expansion of staff at existing ones. 

In 2025, 3,200 FTEs (69%) were devoted to editorial work, and 1,400 (31%) handled other tasks such as revenue generation, technology and general administration. 

An organization’s staff size correlates to the geographic scope of its news coverage, with local organizations having the smallest staffs (median 4 FTEs) and national organizations having staffs nearly three times as large (median 11.5 FTEs). For example, Madison365, based in Wisconsin, reported 4.5 FTEs, which is typical for a local organization. Next City, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has 11.5 FTEs, a typical number for a national organization.

Across the board, nonprofit news organizations are devoting two-thirds or more of their staff to editorial responsibilities. The remaining staff work in other areas such as general administration, fundraising or technology. 

Volunteers provide meaningful support, especially for local outlets and for editorial duties.

Volunteers continue to play a significant ongoing role at nearly 4 in 10 nonprofit news organizations, increasing from 36% in 2023 to 40% in 2025. Overall, more than half of volunteers (52%) assist with editorial duties. Other roles include executive management (10%), revenue generation (10%) and audience development (10%).

Volunteer contributions are most pronounced at the local level. Local organizations are twice as likely as their counterparts to rely on volunteers (53% of local outlets vs. 25% for the rest of the field).

A few organizations work with dozens of volunteers. For example, Applegate Valley Community Newspaper in southern Oregon reports having 160 volunteer editorial contributors. 

Most often, outlets report fewer volunteers. For example, Root River Current in southeast Minnesota reported two volunteers in executive roles. The eight volunteers at the Ottawa News Network in West Michigan work mostly in fundraising. 

Nonprofit newsrooms remain more diverse than the field as a whole, but outlets focused on communities of color have a much higher proportion of representation 

Across the network, INN members reported that 35% of all staff in 2025 were people of color, while 58% were white and the race of another 6% was not specified. By comparison, a 2022 Pew Research Center survey of 12,000 U.S.-based journalists found that 76% were white, while 17% were Asian, Black or Hispanic, and the rest were not specified.

National/global and local organizations had higher percentages of employees of color: 38% and 37%, respectively. Percentages for state/regional organizations were lower at 30%.

While the overall numbers present a favorable picture for racial and ethnic diversity, this diversity is not evenly distributed across all organizations in our survey. Newsrooms that focus primarily on communities of color tend to have a much higher proportion of staffers of color than organizations without that focus.

Among organizations that say their primary focus is communities of color, a median of 75% of staff are people of color, compared to 11% of staffers at organizations that do not prioritize these communities. More than one-fourth (28%) of all organizations have no people of color on staff.

We saw a similar pattern in previous surveys of the top executives of INN member organizations. In 2024, people of color made up 27% of top three executives across INN membership, with that representation concentrated largely in organizations that primarily serve communities of color. About one-fifth of all organizations employed 53% of all executives of color.

Women continue to lead in gender representation on nonprofit news staffs. In 2025, 56% of staff members were women, similar to 54% in 2022, the last time INN members reported the gender of all staff.  About 46% of journalists were women, according to the 2022 Pew study. 

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1. The 5,000 FTE figure combines direct survey responses from nonpublic media member outlets (4,621 FTE across 412 outlets), estimates for five outlets that completed the Index but did not provide staffing data (62 FTE, derived from prior-year Index responses and website audits), and estimates for 26 INN members that did not participate in the Index ↩︎