This three-month, tuition-free, online program seeks to equip Asian, Black and Latine newsroom leaders with the skills and competencies needed to develop business strategies and sustainable revenue streams around fundraising. The Fundraising for Community Media program is the result of a collaboration between the Center for Community Media and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism’s News Philanthropy Network.

Philanthropy has become an important revenue stream for news organizations and journalists in the U.S. since the 2008 recession. It gained higher relevance when the industry saw its business strategies severely affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also true that these philanthropic funds have not been distributed equitably among industry players, whether they are for-profit or nonprofit newsrooms.

As philanthropic spending continues to grow in the journalism industry, the Center for Community Media has partnered with The Lenfest Institute for Journalism’s News Philanthropy Network to train teams from Asian, Black and Latino newsrooms across the U.S., and its territories and freely associated states, to develop business strategies and new revenue streams around fundraising.

The Fundraising for Community Media program will train teams from both for-profit and nonprofit newsrooms in the skills of fundraising, models and strategies, grant writing and the philanthropic landscape as a whole. Participants will also participate in a workshop on examining their relationships with money and philanthropic institutional cultures as leaders of color, and will receive coaching and mentorship from other community media leaders of color who have successfully built fundraising strategies.

This program is designed for journalists and media professionals working in newsrooms in the U.S. that serve audiences on the mainland and its territories and freely associated states, and is based on the expertise and curricula created by The Lenfest Institute’s News Philanthropy Network. Participants will meet biweekly, be mentored and coached by other community news media publishers in the industry and obtain practical experience over the course of three months in late spring.

Meet the inaugural cohort