The Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ) cofounder Jason Pramas takes a selfie. Pramas led the creation of the Alliance of Nonprofit News Outlets. (Photo courtesy of Jason Pramas)
Jason Pramas knows a lot about the inner workings of an independent, nonprofit publication. A veteran photojournalist and editor in Boston’s alternative media scene, Pramas is the executive director and cofounder of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ), created in 2015 to provide collaborative opportunities and financial resources to independent reporters, writers, and community publications throughout Massachusetts. Pramas also served as an editor and associate publisher for the alternative weekly newspaper DigBoston from 2017 to 2023.
DigBoston, in debt when Pramas and other investors purchased it in 2017, was on the verge of becoming profitable early in 2020. Then COVID-19 arrived, decimating the publication’s advertising contracts that March and again in April 2022 during the omicron spike, when the newspaper fully transitioned to being a digital-only outlet.
DigBoston received $150,000 in pandemic assistance from the US Small Business Administration (SBA) in 2020 to stay afloat, along with another $50,000 in 2021. But as the SBA ended its pandemic loan program in early 2022, Pramas was running out of options to keep the publication alive. “It was a very, very horrible year,” he says about that time. “Journalism is now in terminal collapse, and by 2022, that was already evident.”
Many nonprofit news outlets rely on foundation grants as a lifeline for their operations. Pramas believed there were inequities in the way grants were awarded, asserting that larger, nationally recognized publications were privileged by funders over smaller, local outlets.
His assertion was right. According to Australian journalist Bill Birnbauer’s 2019 analysis of 60 independent news organizations, three major outlets—ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, and the Center for Investigative Reporting—received approximately 40 percent of total funding from foundations and donors over a seven-year period. Of the 60 organizations Birnbauer analyzed, the top third combined received 90 percent of the funding.
“While the number of nonprofit news organizations has increased over the past decade and the sector’s funding has grown overall, many city- and state-based news organizations that are filling gaps in local reporting have not yet persuaded enough foundations without a tradition of funding media, wealthy philanthropists, and smaller donors to back them,” Birnbauer explained.
In July 2022, Pramas published an essay on BINJ’s website calling on funders to more equitably support news nonprofits. “To at least forestall our terminal funding crises, we clearly need money from major journalism funders,” he wrote. “And we need all outlets to get the same cuts.”
Pramas regularly communicated with others in the nonprofit news world who shared his sentiment that smaller outlets were overlooked by major funders. From those discussions, BINJ and 16 outlets formed the Alliance of Nonprofit News Outlets (ANNO) in August 2023.
Currently standing at 45 members, ANNO advocates for more funding to be distributed directly to nonprofit outlets and grants to be provided for more general, operational purposes rather than on a project basis, the latter of which Pramas contends can result in smaller amounts of financial support. “We need everybody to get some money,” he says. “If that doesn’t happen, most of us are going to be collapsing in the next few years.”
Ultimately, ANNO was not established in time to save DigBoston, which folded in June 2023 after continued financial difficulties. Yet Pramas envisions that ANNO will become a grassroots trade group and a vital industry resource to help other publications avoid DigBoston’s fate. “If we see a general increase in funding in terms of the amount and the number of publications getting it, we would feel that we played a role in it,” he says.
An Egalitarian Structure
ANNO is a volunteer organization without a bank account—it does not require membership dues, and it does not have staff or a board of directors. Prospective members can simply contact ANNO to apply for membership, with the requisite that another ANNO member organization supports their candidacy. Pramas claims that ANNO’s horizontal structure is more conducive to cooperation among its members. “A horizontal structure helps create and sustain a very democratic internal culture,” he says. “That encourages member outlets to speak their minds in ways they feel unable to in foundation-dominated, staff-run, more vertically integrated organizations.
Editor Brian Zayatz (left) and reporter Sarah Robertson of The Shoestring, a founding ANNO member outlet, attend the People’s Science Fair at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in April 2023. (Photo courtesy of Jason Kotoch)
Dana Amihere is the founder and executive director of AfroLA, a data-driven news site focusing on social issues important to Los Angeles’ Black residents. She was originally attracted to ANNO’s egalitarian approach. “On the whole, it’s about having access to people who have the same lived experiences in terms of what it’s like to do local news publishing,” she says. “We may not necessarily cover things the same way, and who I’m working with is not necessarily reflective of who they’re working with. But we do have some of the same shared struggles.”
ANNO’s members are largely concentrated on the US East Coast and vary in news coverage, with some outlets offering general news and others specializing in issues like law, the environment, and food security. “We’re an association of small news publishers who are fighting the good fight and who go about it every day,” says Amos Gelb, the publisher of American Witness, a founding ANNO member outlet that is the parent of data-driven criminal-justice news sites DC Witness and Baltimore Witness.
The organization’s communications infrastructure—which is managed by BINJ—is relatively low-tech, consisting of a free listserv and a website hosted on a platform that annually costs around $300. Website costs are funded by an anonymous ANNO member outlet out of pocket, with meetings and workshops held on Zoom and Google Meet.
A Challenged Industry
A 2024 study by the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University provided a sobering snapshot of the local news landscape. Among other discoveries, it found that 206 US counties lacked a single news organization—be it print, broadcast, or digital—and approximately half of all counties had no more than one.
The increase in news deserts has also come as various local and national outlets have decreased their workforce. According to figures from career-transition firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, in 2023 more than 2,600 employees were let go from their jobs through November—a figure at least one-third higher than workforce cuts made during the same period in each of the prior two years.
Much of the downturn has affected large, corporate-owned outlets, and industry data suggests that smaller publications—particularly nonprofits—could be in a critical position to lead the news industry’s future, thereby maintaining the fourth estate’s importance to the public. The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), an organization representing more than 475 independent outlets, has reported a major increase in nonprofit newsrooms nationwide since 2009. Many nonprofit outlets have benefited from a rise in foundation funding, with a 2023 University of Chicago-led study finding that grants to newsrooms have increased by 15 percent since 2018. Of those funders, 64 percent declared a preference to donate to nonprofits, whereas only 2 percent preferred for-profits. Additionally, a 2024 survey of INN’s members—more than 70 percent of which are primarily digital—found that around three-quarters either grew or sustained revenues in 2023 from the previous year and that smaller members showed stronger growth than larger outlets.
The data potentially bolster arguments that small news nonprofits can play a critical role in the future of the nation’s news industry, if provided the necessary financial backing and resources to do so. Considering the data, there might be no better time than the present for an alliance like ANNO to make itself known and heard.
The Funding Game
Small nonprofit news editors and publishers at ANNO-affiliated outlets do not hold back their criticisms of news funders, who they believe favor larger newsrooms. Their critiques include not only prominent benefactors but also organizations like INN, which helps raise and distribute funds from donors for outlets. Some ANNO-affiliated outlets happen to be members of INN as well as other influential industry organizations, like the Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers, which has more than 575 members across the United States and Canada.
When funding is more competitive, “you have to be stronger. You can’t just do good journalism.”
Pramas suspects that ANNO’s stance makes some small nonprofit outlets wary of any potential consequences of speaking out against industry patrons. “There’s definitely a great fear out there among nonprofit news publishers that if they work with us, they’re going to get punished,” he says. “This is kind of a joke among us, because we’re like, ‘Well, most of us aren’t getting money anyway.’”
Many news nonprofits receive funding through NewsMatch, an initiative coordinated by INN and supported by 22 major funds, foundations, and organizations. The initiative matches individual donations with contributions made by funders, which are then disbursed to participating organizations each year. Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab has called NewsMatch the “single most important fundraiser” annually for many nonprofits.
NewsMatch has raised more than $330 million since its creation in 2017, with 391 members having participated in its 2024 cohort. However, the initiative has been criticized by some at ANNO-affiliated outlets for the disparate levels of matching funds awarded to INN members of various sizes.
Both BINJ and American Witness have participated in NewsMatch, although Gelb has found that the initiative’s largesse “kept getting smaller and smaller” over time for some outlets that are not large in scope, while “INN kept getting bigger and bigger.” Gelb’s sentiments are shared by Joanna Detz, the publisher of ecoRI, a Providence, Rhode Island-based news site focusing on environmental and social justice issues affecting southern New England. Speaking to Nieman Lab in 2024, Detz said that while “[o]verall, NewsMatch is great,” she believes the initiative’s matching funds get “smaller and smaller every year, as more newsrooms join INN.”
Pramas has also taken umbrage with NewsMatch’s application process, claiming that the paperwork involved can be too time-consuming for outlets like BINJ. For 2021 alone, he estimates that it took 25-30 hours for the outlet’s staffers to complete the process. It was those frustrations that Pramas and his colleagues regularly shared with each other that would ultimately lay the groundwork for ANNO’s formation. “We just wanted an open channel to speak amongst ourselves,” he says.
Philanthropy Pays Attention
Karen Rundlet was the director of the journalism program at the Knight Foundation, a NewsMatch funder, before becoming INN’s CEO in 2023. She asserts that INN is transparent with members about NewsMatch’s vetting of applicants and acknowledges that it can be a competitive process. She believes that some criticism of NewsMatch comes from those in the nonprofit news world who perceive the organization as being akin to either a funder or a gatekeeper between newsrooms and donors, rather than an organization with the resources to connect outlets more directly to backers than what might otherwise be possible. “We’re not blocking them,” she says about INN members engaging donors. “They have reached out to funders, and I know they have direct conversations.”
Although ANNO’s membership has grown, several outlets have exited the group due to philosophical differences.
Rundlet contends that some smaller outlets need to demonstrate a scalable business model to funders when seeking financial assistance. “When it’s more competitive, you have to be stronger,” she says. “You can’t just do good journalism. You have to have the business plan behind it as well.”
She previously met with representatives from ANNO-affiliated outlets about their concerns while at Knight and says she welcomes future conversations. By her count, Rundlet has spoken to representatives from at least 50 INN member outlets—including some in the ANNO alliance—since becoming CEO. Rundlet states that overall, INN members have provided her with positive feedback about NewsMatch. “The ones with smaller budget sizes, I really want to hear from them,” she says.
One of the news industry’s most noteworthy benefactors is the MacArthur Foundation, which along with the Knight Foundation is a NewsMatch funder. Silvia Rivera is MacArthur’s director of local news and, like Rundlet, is learning more about ANNO’s mission as she gains experience in her post, which she assumed in February 2024. “Just like with any organization or movement, they were born out of a need, and they’re trying to address it by using their voice,” Rivera says. “There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to advocating for the resources that are needed across the landscape.”
Rivera and her MacArthur colleagues hope that funding concerns among smaller newsrooms can benefit from another iron in the fire through Press Forward, which launched in fall 2023 to provide financial support to small, local news organizations. Consisting of a coalition of more than 60 funders spanning more than 20 US states and regions, Press Forward has committed to investing $500 million in local outlets, including those run by ANNO members.
MacArthur, along with the Knight Foundation, is a leading funder of Press Forward. Grants from the coalition are available to nonprofit and for-profit newsrooms with budgets of $1 million or less. Press Forward put out an open call in spring 2024 to outlets meeting the $1-million-or-less threshold, with recipients announced last fall. For its initial cohort, the coalition awarded a total of $20 million to 205 outlets, the majority of which received $100,000 each in grants.
Dale Anglin, the director of Press Forward, believes the initiative can help stem the tide of closures among local outlets. “We believe that there are multiple solutions to these local journalism issues that we have right now,” she says. Her organization’s strategies include providing outlets with greater resources, supporting equity and diversity efforts, and improving news accessibility for citizens in areas considered to be news deserts. “Small outlets get overlooked, be it for-profit or nonprofit. And we’re starting in places where we know there either are no outlets left, or there is very little bit of an outlet left.”
Press Forward had initially planned to provide grants to 100 newsrooms. Although nonprofit outlets scored less funding (41 percent) than for-profits, Pramas believes ANNO’s public advocacy influenced Press Forward to more than double its initial award target. “[T]here have been some signs and portents that the existence of ANNO has had some positive effect in pushing journalism funders incrementally toward the kind of reform we support,” Pramas wrote on ANNO’s website in December 2024, while noting that he met earlier in the year with Anglin to express his concerns about news industry funding.
ANNO Looks Ahead
Like Rundlet and many leaders in the world of news fundraising, Anglin is still familiarizing herself with ANNO. She welcomes the alliance’s presence but points out that she and her colleagues must be mindful of the needs of many small outlets operating in the vast ecosystem of nonprofit journalism. “ANNO represents one segment of the small nonprofits,” Anglin says. “We want to make sure we are being equal when we are talking with any small group, which is why we did the open call. ANNO will be invited, but others will be invited too.”
Although ANNO’s membership has grown, several outlets have exited the group due to various philosophical differences. One of those is AfroLA, which left in December 2024. “They are trying to really challenge and add to the narrative,” Amihere said prior to the group’s departure. “But what happens when that passes? What are the next steps? I’m very much someone who thinks a couple steps down the road. And I’m wondering, where do we go after that?” Amihere stresses that AfroLA did not end its affiliation with ANNO on bad terms and wishes the group well.
A big believer in ANNO’s future is Alice Dreger, the founder and former publisher of the Michigan investigative news site East Lansing Info, which is an original ANNO member outlet. Dreger, who retired from the publication in 2023, is optimistic that ANNO can mobilize local news nonprofits across the country to address funding issues. She notes that in less than one year’s time, ANNO membership reached approximately one-tenth that of INN.
“I think ANNO is already successful,” says Dreger, who currently runs the site Local News Blues and is an advisor to The Shoestring, an ANNO member outlet covering news in Western Massachusetts. “It is extremely successful in terms of making noise, and the peer support is outstanding. I think you can hear that from all the members who belong to it continue to have conversations with each other.”
While ANNO’s members strongly support its egalitarian ethos, some question whether a group with neither a management structure nor personnel can effectively win over funders for more resources and financial support to small news nonprofits. “I don’t doubt their devotion or their sincerity or their need,” says LION executive director Chris Krewson. “I happen to believe that it takes dedicated staff to make change. To meet this massive need, there needs to be dedicated people attached to it.”
Pramas takes a long view when assessing ANNO’s future, where the organization could conceivably assume some conventional business services. He poses the possibility of ANNO providing bookkeeping assistance for smaller organizations, which might otherwise be time- and cost-prohibitive, and which could be financed by raised funds rather than charged expenses. He also has not ruled out the possibility of staffing if the alliance grows across different regions.
The prospect of ANNO adopting more of a conventional management mindset could materialize if the alliance grows its membership and resources enough to attract major donors to facilitate funding opportunities for other outlets. Such an arrangement would not be entirely dissimilar to what INN and LION currently do for their members. “We recognize the position folks are in,” Pramas says. “We’ve started to appreciate things from the point of view of the people that run these institutions that we’re criticizing.”
Read more stories by Kyle Coward.