Great River Local News Coalition formed to expand resources for local journalism

The Iowa Newspaper Foundation has joined the Mississippi Press Foundation and Arkansas Newspaper Foundation to form the Great River Local News Coalition, a new partnership to identify funding opportunities and develop initiatives that expand resources and strengthen local news across all three states.

For Iowa, the coalition arrives at a critical moment. As a growing number of the state’s independently owned newspapers look ahead to who will carry them into the future, Iowa newspapers have an opportunity to build more sustainable funding models for the community journalism they provide. By pooling resources with Mississippi and Arkansas, the Iowa Newspaper Foundation gains access to dedicated grant-writing capacity and a broader network of philanthropic relationships that would be difficult to build alone, strengthening its ability to support Iowa’s local newsrooms for the long term.

“Iowa’s local newspapers have been trusted voices in their communities for generations, and this coalition gives us a real opportunity to make sure they can keep telling those stories well into the future,” said Debbie Anselm, executive director of the Iowa Newspaper Association. “This coalition lets us combine our fundraising efforts with two other states facing similar challenges, so our foundation can spend less time chasing grants on its own and more time getting resources directly to Iowa’s newsrooms. It’s exactly the kind of collaboration local news in our state needs right now.”

The coalition will work with Susan Wilder, director of development for The Commercial Dispatch in Columbus, Miss., as a grant writer. Wilder will seek funding opportunities from philanthropic, public and private sources to support the foundations’ existing programs and future initiatives.

The coalition’s initial fundraising efforts will focus on supporting each state’s existing internship and scholarship programs, which provide financial assistance and professional opportunities to students pursuing careers in journalism. Over time, the Great River Local News Coalition plans to pursue larger projects aimed at strengthening the capacity of local news organizations.

“Nonprofit digital news startups have seen remarkable success attracting philanthropic and donor support over the past decade,” said Layne Bruce, executive director of the Mississippi Press Foundation. “But many of those organizations are concentrated in higher-population areas. There is a dire need to strengthen local news at the community level, particularly in rural America. As the business models of traditional media — both print and broadcast — continue to come under immense stress, we hope the Coalition can help lead the way toward a sustainable future for these legacy news franchises.”