February 26, 2024 (Washington, DC) – From reporting on the role nonprofits play in helping refugees and immigrants settle near Richmond, Va., to spotlighting how nonprofits are collaborating to curb gun violence in Kalamazoo, Mich., four new organizations today have been named to receive The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Philanthropy & Nonprofit Accountability Fellowship.
The Chronicle’s program was created to train journalists at local news organizations around the country to improve their coverage of the role of nonprofits, foundations, and others involved in advancing the social good, one of the most under-covered — but crucial — sectors of American life.
Funding supports teams at news organizations that include editors and reporters, with the goal that the journalists will share their learning newsroom wide. The fellowship program is made possible by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.
News outlets that will benefit from the training fellowships are:
- Flatwater Free Press (Omaha, Neb.) is Nebraska’s first independent, statewide nonprofit newsroom, focusing on investigations and feature stories. It will examine some of the underreported aspects of Nebraska philanthropy, including how billionaires are paying for services that taxpayers support elsewhere. And it will show its readers how nonprofits and foundations achieve success with audacious projects.
- Henrico Citizen (Henrico, Va.) is a digital news organization that covers Henrico County, Va., near Richmond. It will explore the efforts and impact of local nonprofit organizations working with the county’s growing refugee and immigrant population.
- NowKalamazoo (Kalamazoo, Mich.) is a program of the Local Journalism Foundation, an independent, nonprofit, community news organization that covers policies, power, and culture across Kalamazoo County. As part of its ongoing Beyond Bullets project, it will focus on philanthropic support for curbing gun violence in Kalamazoo, as well as the problems and solutions that philanthropies could address.
- New York & Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative is a coalition of newsrooms and community partners in southeast Michigan and western New York. It will examine how nonprofits are working to address the maternal and infant health crisis in BIPOC communities.
The local newsrooms selected in this third year of the fellowship will each receive $30,000 to help advance their coverage of nonprofits and philanthropy. Teams will develop coverage that will help local residents, policymakers, donors, and volunteers better understand how nonprofits work and what could help them do even more to solve problems. Journalists at each news organization receive training and mentoring from Chronicle editors and reporters and coaching from national nonprofit and journalism experts.
“This year’s fellowship recipients continue our efforts to grow and diversify coverage of how philanthropy and nonprofits contribute to addressing social challenges as well as what works and what does not,” said Chronicle chief executive Stacy Palmer. “As the social sector grows rapidly and its role in addressing crucial community needs becomes ever more important, it’s heartening to see these local news outlets commit to in-depth reporting and analysis of both solutions and accountability.”
Past participants in the training program have produced essential coverage on a wide range of pressing community priorities, from a look at gender gaps in corporate philanthropy to how a $1.25 billion endowment founded with taxpayer money decided how it could best support the community it serves.
For more than 35 years, the Chronicle has been the premier source of news, information, analysis, and opinion in the nonprofit world. Nearly 350,000 nonprofit professionals, foundation executives, board members, fundraisers, donors, and others working to advance the common good rely on it to stay informed, learn, and broaden their perspective. As part of its bold plan to innovate and expand its coverage of the rapidly growing social sector, the Chronicle last year become an independent nonprofit organization.
Applications for the next round of the fellowship will open in the fall.
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Media contacts:
Sundra Hominik, sundra.hominik@philanthropy.com
Andy Solomon, andy@stratfordcommunications.com