Skip to content
Plinth

· Public charity

Local Media Association

LOCAL MEDIA ASSOCIATION is intensely focused on helping media companies discover new and sustainable business models.

$226k
Granted FY2024still arriving
15
Grants FY2024still arriving
11
States reached
$39k
Largest
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20212024.

Arts & Culture$2.8MEducation$678kPublic Benefit$241kReligion$159kPhilanthropy$50kEnvironment$50kHuman Services$50kSocial Science$32kOther$0
02FY2024 · 15 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k9 grants · $58k
  • $10k–50k6 grants · $168k
$6,500
Median grant
11
States reached
$2.1M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
HOUSTON DEFENDER NEWSPAPER INC$39,334
THE SEATTLE MEDIUM$27,668
THE ATLANTA VOICE NEWSPAPER$27,668
NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS$27,668
AFRO AMERICAN COMPANY OF BALTIMORE CITY$27,668
MICHIGAN CHRONICLE$18,000
WORD IN BLACK PBC$9,880
MASCO COMMUNICATIONS$6,500
BTOWNSEND SOCIAL ENTERPRISES LLC$6,000
THE DALLAS WEEKLY$6,000
BROWN PUBLISHING COMPANY LLC$6,000
THE CHARLOTTE POST PUBLISHING COMPANY$6,000
THE WASHINGTON INFORMER$6,000
AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY DBA ST LOUIS AMERICAN NEWSPAPER$6,000
LEE PUBLISHING INC THE OBSERVER NEWSPAPER$6,000
02The need
03

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY21–22, $100k) land where the poverty rate runs at 18%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%ACCELERATE ACTION: $50k → 16%DOCUMENTED LTD: $50k → 20%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.

Which US states your grants reach

WA
ID
MT
IL
WI
MI
NY
MA
OR
SD
IA
OH
PA
NJ
CT
RI
CA
MO
VA
MD
NM
KS
NC
SC
DC
LA
MS
GA
TX

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

03Your edge
repeat funding

Who you back again

Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.

36%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$1.5M · 11 repeat orgs$2.6M to everyone else

11 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

11
61

Total granted

$1.5M
$2.6M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+1%
+29%

Still filing today

9%
33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k went to new ones.

50%100%’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’21’22’23’24
Arts & CultureEducationPublic BenefitHuman ServicesCivil RightsEnvironmentOther

First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.

Backed again, and grew

  • HD
    HOUSTON DEFENDER NETWORK
    3× · 2022–2024 · $251k
  • AC
    AMNEWS CORPDBA NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS
    3× · 2022–2024 · $191k
  • LP
    LEE PUBLISHING COMPANY INC
    4× · 2021–2024 · $156k

Funded once

  • BC
    BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO NFP
    one grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue -3%
  • DM
    DORSEY MEDIA LLC
    one grant, 2021 · $50k
  • RN
    RESTORATION NEWSMEDIA
    one grant, 2022 · $50k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
Press Watch

To educate journalists and the public, and foster public debate, about improving political journalism to reflect public needs and hold the powerful accountable.

2
Texas Tribune Inc

The texas tribune promotes civic engagement and public education across the state by producing and sharing for free public data interactives, statewide events and intensive and daily reporting on texas public policy, politics and current…

Education
3
Nc Local Inc

Expands local news across North Carolina

Civil Rights
4
City Report Inc

CITY REPORT, INC. serves the people of New York through independent journalism that answers their information needs and holds the powerful to account.

Arts & Culture
5
Springfield Daily Citizen Inc

The mission of the springfield daily citizen is to inform our community and be a catalyst for good.

Arts & Culture
6
The Conversationalist
7
Citizens News Guild Inc

Citizens news guild educates the public by publishing non-partisan state and local news.

Community Improvement
8
San Antonio Report

Publishing a local online news source. We believe a well informed and connected community is essential to making San Antonio a better place to live, work and play.

Arts & Culture
9
Borderless Magazine Nfp

Borderless magazine nfp is a chicago-based nonprofit news outlet that is reimagining local immigration journalism for a more just and equitable future. we provide free, local and state news coverage to english and spanish speakers.

Arts & Culture
10
North Dakota News Cooperative
Arts & Culture
11
America's Newspapers

Providing research, education and practical information all aimed at optimizing newspapers' business operations, deepening their community engagement and enhancing the quality of their journalism.

Employment
12
Journalism New England

The organization is non-profit organization working to build and sustain local news and ensure that local news organizations across new england are supported with the kinds of tailored problem-solving, training and partnerships they need…

Civil Rights

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New Bedford Light and the most unlike its peers is Voice News Network. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.

← shrinkinggrowing →↓ leaning in → pulling backsteadyCommunity FoundationsCommunity FoundationsImmigrant Worker SupportMilitary Veterans SupportEnvironmental Conservation …Policy Research and Advocacy
the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side
Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.

04the grantee network

22 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 22 of the 77 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
9
Early backer (in before they grew)
22/22
Grantees still filing
15/22
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

HOUSTON DEFENDER NETWORK — $251,000 · OtherHOUSTON DEFENDER NETWORKAMNEWS CORPDBA NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS — $191,000 · OtherAMNEWS CORPDBA NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWSLEE PUBLISHING COMPANY INC — $156,000 · OtherAFRO AMERICAN COMPANY OF BALTIMORE CITY — $151,000 · OtherVOICE NEWS NETWORK — $141,000 · OtherTILOBEN PUBLISHING COMPANY INC — $141,000 · OtherMICHIGAN CHRONICLE PUBLISHING CO — $128,000 · Other+53 more — $2,084,880 · Other+53 moreMONTANA FREE PRESS — $50,000 · Arts & CultureNEW BEDFORD LIGHT — $50,000 · Arts & CultureThe Land Cle — $50,000 · Arts & CultureDEEP SOUTH TODAY — $50,000 · Arts & CultureREADER INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY JOURNALISM INC — $50,000 · Arts & CultureENLACE LATINO NC INC — $50,000 · Arts & CultureBLOCK CLUB CHICAGO NFP — $50,000 · EducationINVESTIGATIVE NEWSOURCE — $50,000 · EducationCanopy Atlanta — $50,000 · EducationEL PASO MATTERS INC — $50,000 · Public BenefitCARDINAL PRODUCTIONS INC — $50,000 · Public BenefitTHE WAR HORSE NEWS INC — $50,000 · Public BenefitDocumented LTD — $50,000 · Human ServicesACCELERATE ACTION INC — $50,000 · Human ServicesMUCKROCK FOUNDATION INC — $50,000 · Civil Rights365 Media Foundation Inc — $50,000 · Civil RightsGrist Magazine Inc — $50,000 · Environment
Other$3,243,880Arts & Culture$300,000Education$150,000Public Benefit$150,000Human Services$100,000Civil Rights$100,000Environment$50,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetVOICE NEWS NETWORK — $141,000 over 3y, 26% of budgetBLOCK CLUB CHICAGO NFP — $50,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetDocumented LTD — $50,000 over 1y, 7.6% of budgetACCELERATE ACTION INC — $50,000 over 1y, 1.7% of budgetINVESTIGATIVE NEWSOURCE — $50,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetMONTANA FREE PRESS — $50,000 over 1y, 5.4% of budgetSEARCHLIGHT NEW MEXICO NEWS — $50,000 over 1y, 4.2% of budgetEL PASO MATTERS INC — $50,000 over 1y, 3.4% of budgetGrist Magazine Inc — $50,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetCARDINAL PRODUCTIONS INC — $50,000 over 1y, 3.8% of budgetTHE WAR HORSE NEWS INC — $50,000 over 1y, 6.8% of budgetNEW BEDFORD LIGHT — $50,000 over 1y, 3.2% of budgetMUCKROCK FOUNDATION INC — $50,000 over 1y, 1.5% of budgetThe Land Cle — $50,000 over 1y, 14% of budget365 Media Foundation Inc — $50,000 over 1y, 7.7% of budgetDEEP SOUTH TODAY — $50,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetCHARLOTTESVILLE TOMORROW — $50,000 over 1y, 7.2% of budgetREADER INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY JOURNALISM INC — $50,000 over 1y, 4.6% of budgetCOMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR MISSISSIPPI — $50,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetCanopy Atlanta — $50,000 over 1y, 7.3% of budgetENLACE LATINO NC INC — $50,000 over 1y, 6.0% of budgetNext City Inc — $50,000 over 1y, 3.5% of budget
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them

A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds VOICE NEWS NETWORK
  • Who funds BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO NFP
  • Who funds Documented LTD
  • Who funds ACCELERATE ACTION INC
  • Who funds INVESTIGATIVE NEWSOURCE
  • Who funds MONTANA FREE PRESS
  • Who funds SEARCHLIGHT NEW MEXICO NEWS
  • Who funds EL PASO MATTERS INC
  • Who funds Grist Magazine Inc
  • Who funds CARDINAL PRODUCTIONS INC
  • Who funds THE WAR HORSE NEWS INC
  • Who funds NEW BEDFORD LIGHT
  • Who funds MUCKROCK FOUNDATION INC
  • Who funds The Land Cle

The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Local Media FoundationMI53.4× affinity23 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Local Media Foundation · The Miami Foundation Inc · Local Independent Online News Publishers Inc · The Groundtruth Project Inc · Institute for Nonprofit News · Alternative Newsweekly Foundation · The Lenfest Institute for Journalism Special Asset Fund of Tpf · Borealis Philanthropy · American Journalism Project Inc · Inasmuch Foundation · American Press Institute Inc · Pro Publica Inc

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Government reliance of your grantees

Every dot is one organization Local Media Association funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 30%2%8%17%30%your share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    3get no government money at all
    3report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY2025

    Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 77 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph