Building Stronger, More Sustainable Local News

From August 2025 through May 2026, participating news outlets combined group learning and peer support with intensive, one-on-one coaching tailored to their organizations. Each identified specific challenges and opportunities, set measurable goals and got hands-on help making progress.

From ideas to action

Local news leaders rarely lack ideas. What they often lack is the time, expertise and capacity to test those ideas and turn them into sustainable strategies.

That’s where the Accelerator came in.

Participants worked on the issues that mattered most to their businesses — from revenue and cash flow to audience growth, products, technology, websites, newsletters and internal systems. The goal wasn’t to prescribe a single formula for sustainability. It was to help each organization figure out what could work for its community and build the capacity to make it happen.

And they didn’t have to figure it out alone.

“We’re good at identifying problems; we really struggle with implementing solutions, “ said Shana Goldberg of Intermountain Jewish News. “It’s so hard in our business. We can never stop because the news has to be produced. This (the Accelerator) gave me the confidence to try what I had wanted to try for a couple years.”

The Accelerator brought news leaders together to learn from one another while working with experienced coaches on their own organizations. That’s central to COLab’s approach: when one newsroom finds something that works, we want others across Colorado to be able to learn from it.

Strong local journalism requires strong local news organizations. The Sustainability Accelerator helped give a dozen of them more tools, expertise and capacity to build for the future.