An interesting trend emerged in U.S. journalism in 2016: concerned citizens began sending unsolicited donations to newsrooms to support journalism outlets. We wondered if we could harness that community support to help make journalism more successful and sustainable in local communities. That’s what inspired Knight Foundation to launch NewsMatch, a national network that creates a pool of matching funds to help nonprofit newsrooms double donations from their audiences. In less than a week, this experiment went from idea, to investment, to formal program — an aggressive timeline not common in philanthropy.
