If you’ve never run a 5k, would you skip straight to a marathon? No? The same is true for philanthropic funding for journalism. That’s one lesson from the recently completed Pennsylvania state cohort of the LMA Lab for Journalism Funding, in partnership with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association.
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” as the saying goes. It can feel daunting at first, but you can learn strategies over time for how to achieve your big-picture goals and create long-term sustainability with fundraising for your news organization.
Jennie Liska, Public Source’s co-executive director for revenue operations, said the organization has raised more than $11 million since becoming an independent nonprofit in 2015.
“We’re at the 10k. You have to keep going year-to-year, set yourself up for future success,” she said.
Public Source, an independent nonprofit covering Western Pennsylvania, was created to address the growing gap in in-depth reporting in the region. It was one of 12 news organizations in the first Pennsylvania statewide cohort of the LMA Lab for Journalism Funding in partnership with PNA. The cohort completed six months of curriculum with a Pitch Day at LMA Fest in September. The lab was a mix of organizations that were new to fundraising as well as those who’ve had experience like Public Source.
Public Source shared some of its successful fundraising strategies during a session at LMA Fest that are valuable to all news organizations:
Lesson No. 1: It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time to build a sustainable model. Think big and have a vision. You will build momentum over time.
Don’t be afraid to think big and long-term. Think multiyear and multiple resources. Funders will appreciate your vision and commitment.
“Think big, but accept a small first step [from a funder]. Then you build on that. You have to have the big vision in order to take the first step,” said Liska.
And you’ll get “nos” and “not-right-nows” along the way.
“You need to be mentally resilient to that. You might not meet your goal right out of the gate, but you are working on building on that momentum,” she said.
Lesson No. 2: Getting to ‘yes’ from funders requires communication, stewardship, trust and relationship building over time. Use your journalistic skills too.
Relationships with funders take time to develop over months and years. Liska emphasized that funders need to trust the leaders of the organization. When Liska and her fellow co-executive director assumed their new roles in 2023, they had to get to know the funders and earn their trust, even if the funders were already familiar with the organization.
Liska recommended using your journalistic skills to “ask in a polite and transparent way. Be as communicative as you can be. Ask: how do you want to be engaged and communicate with us? Check in to ask: Are you getting what you want from us?”
For communication, a combination of regular updates and grant reports works well for Public Source. In-person and zoom meetings, email newsletters and mailing out their annual impact report are example regular updates to funders.
Lesson No. 3: Being creative is key for crafting solutions to partner with funders while staying aligned with your editorial strategy.
Liska suggested that when talking with a funder, ask yourself: Is there a creative solution to partner with this funder within our overall editorial strategy?
Public Source’s The Red Zone journalism project received funding from the FISA Foundation. The Red Zone is the timeframe between the beginning of the school year through Thanksgiving when more than half of sexual assaults on college campuses happen. The FISA Foundation’s focus is on “championing equity, justice, safety and inclusion for women, girls and people with disabilities,” according to their website. Liska said this type of coverage aligns with Public Source’s editorial strategy so they’ve worked creatively together on editorial project ideas over the years based on community needs, and this is one of several projects this foundation has funded to support Public Source’s journalism.
Liska’s advice: “You can tell it’s a great partner when they have values that are aligned with what you want to cover, but they’re not dictating what you are covering, so you’re maintaining your editorial independence. Knowing the difference between this and someone who is trying to tell you to cover a specific story is important so that everyone is on the same page.”
Lesson No. 4: Collaborate across departments so your whole team is working together on your fundraising strategy.
First, Public Source has a core grantmaking portion of its team that includes the two co-executive directors and the membership and development director. Other team members get involved as needed. Large, long-term grants are a leadership responsibility, said Liska.
Second, the managing editor and other news team members work on smaller editorial grant opportunities.
Third, for individual donor campaigns, all departments support the effort. For example, they send emails in various voices of team members throughout the organization.
“We ask them to write their story about the theme of that appeal, but not the portion where we directly ask for money,” Liska said. Below is an example of an email appeal. Sometimes they use videos for the appeals as well.
Lesson No. 5: Passion in your pitch can make all the difference.
“This, for me, was one of the most helpful parts of this lab — putting my thoughts together and getting feedback to help develop that passionate pitch,” said Liska. “It takes repetition and trial-and-error to get your pitch right to make sure it’s landing with other people. You get feedback and you do better the next time. Honestly, I’m so grateful.”
Lesson No. 6: Use a customer relationship management tool to track your contacts and touchpoints with potential and current funders
Public Source uses a combination of Salesforce and Airtable, but the specific tool used is less important than just making sure you pick one and use it, said Liska.
“It’s a workflow that you need to be able to track. It should be a systematic tracking process,” Liska said.
As the first statewide cohort of the Lab for Journalism Funding, more collaboration within the state was an added bonus. “I made such good connections with Pennsylvania publishers that I think will carry forward well beyond this Lab. It makes sense to break down the walls between regions. It’s been incredibly helpful,” Liska said.
This first statewide cohort of the LMA Lab for Journalism Funding was created in partnership with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, with support from PNA Foundation, Knight Foundation and Lenfest Institute. The Lab for Journalism Funding is made possible with sustained support from Google News Initiative.