Guest Essay

Lenfest News Philanthropy Summit: Lighten the load with help from your public media friends

By Carolyn Jewell

August 6, 2025

This essay is part of a series of reflections from the 2025 Lenfest News Philanthropy Summit sharing insights, lessons learned, and key takeaways from the conference, which was hosted in partnership with Press Forward. Access additional Summit resources here. 

We sat in the hotel conference rooms and listened to the presentations, questions, and answers. The rooms were cozy, and the people who filled them were from all over the country. Editors, publishers, reporters, and industry experts had all gathered in Philadelphia for the Lenfest News Philanthropy Summit, and everyone was there to get answers to one question: how to fund journalism now. 

The same themes kept emerging over the two days of the Summit in May— news deserts, small newsrooms, dwindling resources, bare-bones operations. Some editors in attendance were the only fundraisers for their outlet. Others were still struggling to enter the digital age. But no matter what town they came from or the size of their operation, one thing seemed to be true for all of them: everyone is trying to do more with less. 

Time and again, my colleague Sachi Kobayashi and I were surprised that we had to raise our hands in sessions because attendees were unaware that public media stations are also in their communities, doing the same work, and willing to collaborate. 

These conversations typically went something like this:

“I’m the only news outlet in XYZ town.”

“Well, what about WXYZ NPR station? Aren’t they also in XYZ town?”

“Oh, yea, I guess I hadn’t thought about that.”

So, we’re here with a gentle reminder to remember your colleagues in public media! 

It should be natural to make the connection between print community news outlets and public media; yet, there still remains much opportunity in these collaborations. The beauty of these partnerships is that they truly serve to elevate the work of both outlets without worrying about competition. News outlets — whether digital, print, or podcast —  benefit from the reach and reputation of established NPR affiliates, while the stations receive quality, local coverage that they often struggle to provide with fewer resources and federal funding threats looming. 

Wondering where to start? The good news is that there are already models for this type of collaboration all over the country. In Baltimore, WYPR, the city’s NPR news/talk station, and The Baltimore Banner, a new digital news start-up, began a collaboration nearly three years ago, shortly after the Banner launched in 2022. In this partnership, WYPR’s journalists feature their reports on the Banner’s website, and the Banner’s reporters are frequent guests on WYPR’s news/talk shows. Occasionally, the Banner also contributes short reports for the WYPR newscast. When there are opportunities to pool resources and approach a topic from multiple angles, they rely on each other. Another benefit of the partnership is that a fledgling news operation like the  Banner can get its name out there on the airwaves by partnering with an established, trusted brand like an NPR affiliate. 

Another model is the direct shared resources strategy. In Connecticut, the nonprofit digital publication CT Mirror and Connecticut Public Radio saw a niche that no outlets were covering — the impact of federal legislation on the state. So, they joined together to hire a reporter, which neither could afford on their own, and which allowed both outlets to bring varying perspectives and audiences to the project. In this particular example, both outlets also had major donors in common, so it made sense to join together and offer supporters the motivation to keep giving. This partnership was discussed at the Lenfest News Philanthropy Summit during a presentation that we helped lead. 

On the west coast Oregon Public Broadcasting, Underscore Native News, and ICT (formerly Indian Country Today) regularly work together to tackle in-depth reporting such as this piece about indigenous tribes and their relationship with local government. This is just one of many collaborations OPB has with smaller outlets across the state. 

And because it’s public media, there is a precedent for and willingness to help other outlets because the NPR Network has been doing it since its inception more than 50 years ago. So, just pick up the phone or email your local public station. Just be warned — they may ask you to become a member and give you a tote bag. 

Carolyn Jewell is half of NPR’s Collaborative Philanthropy team. Together with her team member, Sachi Kobayashi, they work to support all NPR Member stations in fundraising best practices. They are also former station development directors and survivors of many pledge drives.