4 takeaways from Collaborative Journalism Summit 2025

At the 2025 Collaborative Journalism Summit in Denver on May 15 and 16, journalists and other industry experts gathered to learn about creative ways to work together. Industry collaboration is one of LMA’s four pillars, and LMA staff attended and presented at the conference. Here are four takeaways from our team about the state of collaboration.

More resources are on the way for collaboratives

Thanks to additional funding from the Knight Foundation, the Collaborative Resource Hub will be updated and expanded with more resources for news collaboratives. The Center for Cooperative Media is also launching a collaborative sustainability accelerator. The program will provide coaching and training on how to find revenue sustainability for your collaborative. The deadline to apply for the first round is June 5. 

Audience and ecosystem research are key 

Throughout the conference, many sessions and speakers touched on different types of audience research or ecosystem research to fuel projects. In fact, several funders who spoke alluded to that some sort of ecosystem research is key for funders to consider financially supporting a journalism project or collaboration. Examples include the Colorado News Mapping Project, and impact tracking from Bridge Michigan and New Hampshire Public Radio. To better track different types of impact, collaboratives can create forms or Slack channels for reporters to use. It’s clear that for collaboratives to survive, they need to be tracking impact beyond traditional metrics such as pageviews, or also laws being changed. The examples shared point to a lot examples in the middle that may be just as important to funders.  

Good collaboration is like a marriage

Collaboration can be a powerful relationship, but it takes effort to do it right. Laura Frank, executive director of Colorado News Collaborative, said collaboration is “like a marriage.” In the same way that people usually date before jumping into a marriage, Frank said it’s good to build trust through a relationship with a potential partner before committing to a formal collaboration. Also like a healthy marriage, a strong collaboration will emphasize all partners’ strengths. Before agreeing to a collaboration, there should be clear, open and honest conversations about what the goals are and what each party will bring to the table. These conversations should lead to some pre-agreements (which Frank compared to prenuptial agreements) to make sure everyone is ready to hold up their end of the deal, and what will happen if things don’t go as planned. Finally, once you join a collaboration, things might change. Amber Coté, senior director of statewide civic engagement at Rocky Mountain Public Media, reminded the audience that it’s important to be able to let go of what you expected would be the outcome. Being able to evolve within a partnership is an important skill as all parties figure out the best way to reach their goals together.

Think outside the box on who could be your collaborator

When journalists think of collaboration, we often think of direct editorial partnerships – like co-reporting a story or sharing content across platforms. Several presenters at the summit pushed journalists to think even more creatively about who could be their collaborators. Keri Mitchell, founder and executive director of Dallas Free Press inspired the audience with a lightning talk about a collaboration between her newsroom and Verdigris Ensemble, a choral group in Dallas. With shared values of storytelling and uplifting voices, the newsroom and the choral group worked together to create an original performance focused on environmental injustice in their neighborhoods. Later at the summit, Influencer Journalism Founder Adriana Lacy and American Press Institute Director of Journalism Strategy Emily Ristow shared the ways they are helping newsrooms partner with social media influencers to get their work in front of new audiences. As with all collaborations, they spoke about the importance of finding online creators who share values and align with a newsroom’s goals. For organizations interested in exploring these innovative partnerships, the American Press Institute offers a guide to influencer collaborations.