Colorado · Nonprofit
NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS
NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS (Colorado) receives grants from 44 organizations whose IRS filings report $30,295,790 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($7,216,000). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $53M
- Funders on record
- 44
- Grants received
- $30M
- Net assets
- $16M
What National Trust for Local News does
Mission
The National Trust for Local News is a non-profit dedicated to conserving, transforming, and sustaining community news organizations.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
The National Trust for Local News (ntln) owns and operates community news organizations in service of their public service mission. Our 215 journalists reach over two million monthly readers in dozens of small communities across colorado, maine, and georgia. Ntln's model is responsive to the needs of local communities, scalable to every state, and a uniquely sustainable way to provide high-quality local journalism where it is most at risk of disappearing altogether.
$58,897,084 spent$47,987,252 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $58,897,084.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2021, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2021, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $4.8M to $41M (+752%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
9% of NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (58% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 4 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro
CEO
Board chair
Marc Hand
Chairman
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2021 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 26 funders, grant income rose $571k → $13M.
15 of 44 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 35% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 44 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 24% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
43% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2021 94% · 2022 67% · 2023 48% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Where its funders are
NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS draws 97% of its grant income from funders outside Colorado, across 13 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $11M arriving through sponsors registered in 10 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS has grown faster than three-quarters of the 772 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 772 arts & culture nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2024
Organizations like NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Colorado
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
97% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 4 related entities
- Maine Trust for Local News L3c · disregarded
- Georgia Trust for Local News LLC · disregarded
- Community News Infrastructure LLC · disregarded
- Colorado Trust for Local News LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS?
- NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS (Colorado) receives grants from 44 organizations whose IRS filings report $30,295,790 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($7,216,000). 21 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS have?
- IRS filings report 44 organizations giving $30,295,790 in grants to NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS, 21 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $7,216,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Colorado. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2021–2024), and the filings of 44 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing