Lenfest Institute awards over $800K to support publisher-creator partnerships at 10 news organizations

The Lenfest News Creator Collaborative is made possible by the support of the Google News Initiative and the Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund.

April 30, 2026

Ten news organizations are joining The Lenfest News Creator Collaborative to develop and test strategies to partner with independent news creators, The Lenfest Institute for Journalism announced today.  

A total of $818,000 in funding will support the 10 organizations and their projects, which will emphasize the engagement of new audiences and new approaches to both revenue generation and brand marketing over one year. Funding will compensate news organizations partnering with news creators and the creators themselves.  

In addition to receiving grants, each participating organization will receive ongoing guidance and resources, opportunities to join in-person convenings, and through the Lenfest Expert Network, free one-on-one consulting to help them navigate challenges, accelerate their learning, and ensure their projects break new ground.  

The Lenfest News Creator Collaborative is supported by the Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund and the Google News Initiative. GNI will provide active training resources and access to its expertise, as well as co-host convenings with The Lenfest News Creator Network.  

The selected news organizations and their projects are as follows:  

• CalMatters — The CalMatters Creators’ Circle: CalMatters will recruit and compensate California-based news creators focused on news and community topics such as mental health, parenting, and voting, forming a statewide creator-journalist network to reach Californians beyond CalMatters’ current audience. 
• The Haitian Times — Ayiti Amplified: The Times will co-create multiple content series with established Haitian influencers on YouTube and TikTok on topics including news, civics, culture, immigration, and history. It will also use A/B testing to identify and pursue the most profitable product formats.  
• Houston Defender Network — Houston Explained: The Defender will partner with five Houston-based creators to produce short-form civic, cultural, and solutions-focused videos on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts to reach younger audiences and grow newsletter subscribers within Houston’s Black communities. 
• The Philadelphia Inquirer — The Philadelphia Inquirer Creator Network: The Inquirer will establish partnerships with trusted Philadelphia creators to produce original social media content that blends their creativity with Inquirer journalism, building trust with younger, digitally-native audiences while expanding sponsorship revenue. 
• Pittsburgh’s PublicSource — Creator-fueled lifestyle products: PublicSource will co-create a lifestyle-oriented newsletter with local Pittsburgh food and culture creators to attract new, younger audiences and convert them into email subscribers — and later, into donors. 
• The Sacramento Observer — Building community through creators: The Observer will utilize external creator partnerships while also training staff journalists as on-platform creators, driving audience growth and newsletter conversions across Sacramento and Stockton. 
• The Salt Lake Tribune — Creating a “face of the newsroom:” The Tribune will hire and develop an on-camera personality to serve as the face of the newsroom while also expanding its existing creator partnerships through recurring, video-first formats anchored by creator-hosts.  
• The San Francisco Standard — External creator partnerships: The Standard will partner with established local creators across food, culture, comedy, and neighborhood coverage while also developing internal staff as on-platform personalities, with the goal of driving paid subscriptions and sponsorship revenue. 
• Smiley Pete Publishing, LLC — Training for local news creators: The Lexington, Kentucky-based publisher of Chevy Chaser Magazine, Southsider Magazine, and Business Lexington will provide editorial training and assign beats to local news creators, so they can translate complex local reporting into accessible, short-form video and audio journalism. This grant is supported by The Lenfest Institute and the Blue Grass Community Foundation, a member of the Institute’s Knight Communities Network. 
• Spotlight PA — Spotlight PA Creator Project: SpotlightPA will develop creator projects led by existing staff reporters — including a paid newsletter and social-first coverage of the 2026 Pennsylvania governor’s race — while also experimenting with external creator partnerships to diversify both audience and revenue. 

“Like many local news media owners, The Lenfest Institute has been impressed by the audience growth, the creativity, and the vibrancy of the news creator sector,” said Lenfest Institute Executive Director and CEO Jim Friedlich. “We are seeking to help create win-win news creator partnerships. By investing in equitable collaboration between established news organizations and gifted news creators we hope to help creators build viable businesses and well-established local news enterprises reach new, younger audiences, develop new revenue streams, and best serve their communities.” 

The Lenfest News Creator Collaborative is part of a broader, $1.5 million investment in news creators, including the Philadelphia News Creators Network and the Google-Lenfest News Creator Summit Series, which is supported by the Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund, the Google News Initiative, and Comcast NBCUniversal.  

The ten participating news organizations were chosen from more than 120 applications. Every applicant will be invited to join the News Creator Summit Series and other programming.  

The News Creator Summit Series will host events throughout 2026, and it will culminate this fall with the inaugural National News Creator Summit hosted at Google’s New York City headquarters, focusing on learnings from the grant program. We will soon announce the Summit’s dates. Sign up here to receive updates about how you can join the Summit.