Nonprofit journalism has expanded its financial and organizational footprint while continuing to rely heavily on philanthropy. The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) estimated nearly $600 million in 2023 revenue among its digital-first members, while recent INN surveys show a field balancing foundation grants, individual giving, earned income, and lean staffing models.
Contents
- Fieldwide revenue and funding
- How nonprofit newsrooms earn money
- Donors, grants, and operating support
- Where expenses and staff time go
- Local nonprofit journalism
- State, regional, national, and global reach
- Growth and contraction across the field
Fieldwide revenue and funding
INN’s 2024 Revenue & Expenses report estimated that its digital-first members generated just under $600 million in fieldwide revenue in 2023. That total represented a 22% increase from the prior year. The same report recorded an 11% increase in membership by number of mostly digital news outlets between 2022 and 2023. These figures describe INN’s digital-first membership, rather than every nonprofit newsroom in the United States or worldwide.
The later INN 2025 Revenue & Expenses report places the field’s 2024 revenue mix in clearer perspective. Foundation grants were the largest category at 49% of fieldwide nonprofit news revenue. Individual giving contributed 32%, while earned revenue—including sponsorships and events—accounted for 18%. Other ancillary charitable revenue supplied the remaining 1%.
| Revenue source | Share of fieldwide nonprofit news revenue, 2024 |
|---|---|
| Foundation grants | 49% |
| Individual giving | 32% |
| Earned revenue | 18% |
| Other ancillary charitable revenue | 1% |
The figures show why nonprofit journalism statistics need both a fieldwide view and an outlet-level view. A large aggregate can grow while individual organizations still face very different funding conditions. The revenue categories also indicate that philanthropy remained central in 2024, even as earned income represented a larger share than it had in earlier reporting.
How nonprofit newsrooms earn money
INN’s 2025 survey measured how widely organizations diversified their income. Forty-three percent of INN outlets reported using at least four different revenue streams. At the other end of the distribution, 11% relied on a single revenue stream. The contrast captures two distinct operating patterns: a broad portfolio of income sources for many outlets and substantial concentration risk for a smaller but meaningful group.
Earned income has become more prominent over time in the INN data. Earned revenue rose from 10% of fieldwide revenue in 2018 to 18% in the 2025 report’s comparison of fieldwide revenue. The reported categories include activities such as sponsorships and events; the statistic describes the share of revenue, not profitability or financial sustainability.
The 25 fastest-growing nonprofit news outlets by revenue each generated at least $2 million in total revenue during calendar year 2024. Their revenue growth over the three-year trend period ranged from $1.6 million to $13 million. Twelve of the 25 were national or global in scope, seven were state or regionally focused, and six were local.
The age of these organizations is also notable. Ten of the 25 fastest-growing outlets launched between 2017 and 2021. Among the outlets with the fastest percentage growth, 19 of 25 launched during that same period. The available figures therefore point to a concentration of strong growth among comparatively young organizations, while not establishing that launch date itself caused the growth.
Donors, grants, and operating support
Individual giving was 32% of fieldwide nonprofit news revenue in 2024, according to INN 2025 Revenue & Expenses. Within that category, major donors supplied 64% of individual giving revenue. Small-dollar donors supplied 28%, and mid-level donors supplied 8%.
The average major donor gift was about $33,000 in 2024, up from about $26,000 in 2021. Those are reported average gift amounts for the stated years; they should not be read as a median or as a measure of what a typical individual donor contributed.
Foundation support was the largest fieldwide revenue category at 49%. Seventy percent of outlets in the 2025 survey said at least half of their foundation funding was available for general operating expenses. That measure concerns the flexibility of foundation funding, not the total amount of grant support received.
Local outlets show how foundation dependence can look at a smaller organizational scale. INN’s 2023 INN Index Fact Sheet: Local News reported that local nonprofit news outlets derived 45% of total revenue from foundation grants. Among 132 local outlets with 2022 revenue data, nearly two-thirds reported grants from community or local foundations. Six in 10 of those community or local foundation recipients said that source represented at least 50% of their total foundation revenue. The median community or local foundation contribution to a local outlet was $50,000.
These local figures use a 2022 revenue measurement and a specific group of 132 outlets, while the fieldwide funding figures refer to 2024. Keeping those periods and populations separate is essential when comparing nonprofit journalism statistics.
Where expenses and staff time go
Nonprofit newsrooms devoted 61% of operating expenses to editorial costs in 2024, according to INN 2025 Revenue & Expenses. Revenue-generation expenses grew from 10% of all expenses in 2019 to 15% in 2024. The two measures describe different parts of the operating picture: editorial costs as a share of 2024 operating expenses, and revenue-generation costs as a share of all expenses across a five-year comparison.
INN estimated that its digital-first members employed more than 4,500 people in core digital operations in 2024. In the 2024 staffing sample, 69% of nonprofit news staff were editorial personnel. Seven percent of total personnel were devoted to charitable fundraising, 4% to generating earned revenue, and 20% to administration, audience development, and technology.
| Staffing area | Share of total personnel, 2024 sample |
|---|---|
| Editorial | 69% |
| Charitable fundraising | 7% |
| Earned-revenue generation | 4% |
| Administration, audience development, and technology | 20% |
The median staff size was 5.5 full-time-equivalent employees per nonprofit news outlet. Overall staffing grew 17% year over year. Because a median describes the middle outlet rather than the total workforce, it complements—but cannot be substituted for—the estimate of more than 4,500 people across digital-first members.
Local nonprofit journalism
Local nonprofit outlets had a median staff size of four people in the 2023 INN Index Fact Sheet: Local News. Paid staff counts ranged from zero to 35 employees. Their median revenue was $271,000 in 2022, compared with $245,000 in 2021. Nearly half of local outlets generated less than $250,000 in annual revenue, and more than half of those smaller local outlets earned less than $100,000 annually.
These values describe a field with a low central revenue level and a wide staffing range. A local outlet can therefore be a zero-person or very small operation in the paid-staff measure, while another local organization can employ as many as 35 people. The reported median revenue increase from 2021 to 2022 is a comparison of the stated annual medians; it does not provide an inflation-adjusted change or establish that every outlet grew.
Local foundation funding remains a defining part of the picture. The 45% share of revenue from foundation grants, the nearly two-thirds reporting community or local foundation grants, and the $50,000 median contribution all come from the local-news fact sheet and its stated data groups. They should be interpreted alongside—not merged mathematically with—the 2024 fieldwide revenue mix.
State, regional, national, and global reach
The 2023 INN Index Fact Sheet: State and Regional News covered 62 state outlets and 24 regional outlets. Together, those outlets collectively covered at least 48 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
The same fact sheet gives a historical view of the sector’s expansion. Fewer than a dozen state and regional nonprofit news organizations existed when the 2008 recession hit. Nineteen state and regional outlets launched in the two years after that recession. During the seven-year growth spurt beginning in 2015, 45 state and regional outlets launched; one state outlet and one regional outlet launched in 2022.
Scale also differs by geographic focus. National and global nonprofit outlets had a median staff size of 10 people in the 2023 INN Index Fact Sheet: National and Global News, compared with four people for local outlets. National and global outlets had paid staff counts ranging from zero to 144 employees, whereas local outlets ranged from zero to 35.
The staffing ranges emphasize the limits of broad labels. “National and global” includes organizations at very different points within a range that reaches 144 paid employees, while “local” includes outlets with no paid staff and others with 35. The median values are useful for comparison, but they do not describe the full distribution.
Growth and contraction across the field
The fastest-growing-outlet figures sit alongside evidence of contraction. INN’s 2025 Revenue & Expenses report identified 26 outlets whose revenue declined by more than 10%. Ten of those 26 declining outlets were small-budget operations.
This does not mean that every small-budget outlet declined, nor that every fast-growing outlet was large. It does show that the reported groups contained different organizational profiles: the 25 fastest-growing outlets each had at least $2 million in 2024 revenue, while 10 of the 26 outlets in the revenue-decline group were identified as small-budget operations.
Taken together, the available statistics describe a nonprofit journalism sector that is larger and more staffed than in earlier reporting, but still uneven. Fieldwide revenue approached $600 million in 2023 among INN’s digital-first members, staffing exceeded 4,500 people in core digital operations in 2024, and overall staffing grew 17% year over year. At the same time, local outlets had a median 2022 revenue of $271,000, the median nonprofit news outlet had 5.5 FTE, and foundation grants remained the leading fieldwide revenue source at 49% in 2024.