Sunday begins an annual fundraising drive for nonprofit online local public-interest news outlets — including the New Haven Independent and Valley Independent Sentinel.
The drive is called “News Match.” It appeals to people concerned about the future of local news to support nonprofit sites like ours with donations. Then it matches the donations dollar for dollar up to $1,000.
When the Independent started in 2005, we were one of the first two nonprofit news sites that fit that description. Now there are … 300 nationwide, represented by an organization called the Institute for Nonprofit News. The growth of these sites — with business models that make serving the public the core mission rather than generating profits to distribute to corporate owners — has been a beacon of hope in an otherwise bleak journalistic landscape. Not just continuing old-fashioned shoe-leather local news reporting and civic discussion. But using new tools to do the job in new ways. (Here’s a great new one that started up in Oakland.)
Like NPR, our sites run on charitable donations. This is the time of year when we all jointly pass the hat to our readers.
As we face a resurgence of Covid-19 in our community, we know many of our neighbors are suffering. So many organizations need our donations to keep people fed, housed, clothed, healthy, and employed. We do not see this News Match drive as competition to those essential efforts. Rather, we see the drive as a complement. We see our role as supporting those efforts, as informing and connecting and supporting our community, in conjunction with our readers. We ask for your donations not instead of donations you plan to give for basic needs, but in addition.
This year we have felt the value of that mission more than ever. We have worked harder than ever to play our part, and felt rewarded by opportunity to play our role . Any donations you can send our way will help us continue that mission. Here’s the link to do it. It takes you to a page for the Online Journalism Project; that’s the nonprofit that publishes the New Haven Independent and the Valley Independent Sentinel and operates WNHH FM community radio.
And thank you for 15 years, and counting, of community support!