You’re Probably Funding More News + Information Work Than You Realize
by Cierra Brown Hinton
Have you ever watched the light bulb come on for someone?
That’s what happened earlier this month at the North Carolina Network of Grantmakers Promising Practices gathering, where our team led a session on how trusted messengers help advance the work funders care about. As we invited the room to look at their own grantmaking, I watched fellow funders connect the dots between their goals and what news and information make possible.
One funder realized they were already supporting a trusted messenger in their community. They just hadn’t thought of them that way before. They shared:
“This grantee partner is ‘the hub of the wheel’ for our community, and they are who our community turns to for answers. We need to be more intentional about funding the civic information aspect of their work.”
There’s a good chance you’re already funding more news and information work than you realize, too.
As I wrote earlier this fall, trusted messengers come in all forms, from newsrooms to community organizations. What they share are the deep community relationships they’ve built and the work they do to help people get the information they need to act.
A trusted messenger might be a housing nonprofit that explains rental notices and answers residents’ questions. It might be an organization that translates updates about government services for Spanish-speaking community members. Or it might be an organization that brings people together to discuss pressing local issues. You can find all three of these organizations among the Fund’s grant partners.
Recognizing this work gives you a place to start bringing news and information into your grantmaking strategy. It can help you:
Support current grantee partners in sustaining and growing the information work they already do.
Identify new grantee partners whose news and information work advances the goals you fund.
Connect with peer funders who also see how news and information can help communities make progress on the issues they care about.
A Framework for Identifying Trusted Messengers
To help you identify trusted messengers in your community and grantmaking portfolio, we’ve developed a framework with a few straightforward questions.
Just as we did in the room at NCNG, I’ll invite you to think of a current or potential grantee partner that helps people understand what’s happening in their community or figure out what to do next. You might know this work as outreach or community engagement.
With that partner in mind, here are some of the questions you’ll find in the framework:
Information work: Does this organization help people find, make sense of, or use news and information about their community while there is still time to act?
Reliance: Do people turn to this organization when they need information?
Accountability: Does this organization answer to those same people when they have questions or point out mistakes?
If you answered yes to all three, it’s time for a conversation about how you can more intentionally support their role as a trusted messenger. The framework can help you take that next step.
How We Move From Knowing to Doing
This work is about what local news, information, and trusted messengers make possible in our communities.
When people know and understand what’s happening around them, they can make decisions about their lives and take action together to shape their communities. And when we as funders better understand what’s happening in the communities we serve, we can make more informed choices about where our support is needed and what we can do together.
We need that fuller picture at the North Carolina Local News Lab Fund, too. That’s why we’re asking you to help us map the trusted messengers across our state. After you spend some time with the framework, let us know which trusted messengers we should know about.
Whether you’ve been supporting local news and information for years or you’re just beginning to see this part of your grantmaking differently, our team is here to help. Together, we can work through what this could look like in your strategy. And as a pooled fund, we can connect you with other funders supporting civic information.
Did something click for you? Did a grantee come to mind? I’d love to hear. Email me at cierra@nclocalnews.org, and let’s keep the conversation going.
