Apply: 2021 #newsCOneeds Matching Challenge

▪︎ APPLICATION DEADLINE EXTENDED TO FRIDAY, AUGUST 27 AT 5:00 P.M. ▪︎

The Colorado Media Project will once again offer $5,000 matching grants to selected nonprofit and locally-owned Colorado newsrooms to participate in the 2021 #newsCOneeds matching challenge.

Applications are now due by 5 p.m. MT on Friday, August 27.

In partnership with the Colorado News Collaborative, News Revenue Hub and the national NewsMatch campaign, #newsCOneeds is an ecosystem-wide, public awareness-building opportunity for Colorado newsrooms. Those selected for a matching grant work as a cohort with COLab and News Revenue Hub to co-create messaging, graphics, and collateral and receive coaching to develop their year-end fundraising campaigns.

This year’s public awareness and year-end fundraising campaign will launch on Giving Tuesday, November 30 (a.k.a. #GivingNewsDay). Nonprofit and locally-owned Colorado newsrooms are eligible to apply for the matching grant opportunity.

Want to learn more? Join a virtual information session on Friday, August 13 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., and read the full opportunity details — including new eligibility requirements — on the CMP website.

Since its launch in 2018, #newsCOneeds year-end campaign has served Colorado’s local media ecosystem as an incubator for mission-informed fundraising; finding new ways to build trust and transparency; deepen impact and community connection, and instead of a subscription, offering local communities a motivation to become part of the change they want to see in civil society.

In 2018, seven Colorado newsrooms participated in a first-ever joint appeal to readers – which raised nearly $50,000 for local news from about 300 people in a single day. In 2019, the 18-member cohort, spanning startup news websites, public radio stations, locally-owned newspapers, collectively raised $177,842 from 1,145 individual donors through the campaign and matching grant program. In December 2020, the #newsCOneeds matching challenge helped 24 Colorado newsrooms raise a total of over $578,000 from nearly 5,300 individual donors — nearly half which were first-time contributors — to support their local journalism.

For general questions about the 2021 #newsCOneeds awareness campaign or the matching gift challenge, email Lauren Archuletta, CMP Operations Manager.

Foundations and major donors interested in contributing to the matching fund can contact Melissa Milios Davis, CMP Director and VP for Informed Communities at Gates Family Foundation.