About PINF's capacity-building
We aim to enhance the sustainability of indie news providers through funding, training and networking. We build financial capacity through Local News Funds, the Indie News Fund and Fiscal Sponsorship, and social and intellectual capacity through the Indie News Forum and our Skillshare programme.
These activities are inform and are guided by our Research projects, which in turn feed into our Advocacy work.
The Projects
Local News Funds
Local news isn't just about headlines; it's the pulse of our communities. From social change to everyday occurrences, local journalism keeps us informed, engaged, and connected. However, in recent years, economic pressures and digital transformations have threatened the existence of local news outlets worldwide, leaving communities underserved and disconnected.
The Local News Fund is our response to this crisis, informed by the work carried out in our Local News Plans. Co-designed with input from community members, businesses, and organisations, this initiative aims to bolster local news ecosystems in UK communities by providing financial support to diverse local news outlets and aspiring journalists.
We launched the first fund in 2024, in Newry, Northern Ireland. Over the next few years, we hope to secure funding to expand this work and support communities across the UK with their own funds.
We will develop shared guidelines to ensure that each fund helps news providers create public interest news and build sustainable revenue streams. At the same time, we will put real decision-making power in the hands of communities, to ensure that local news meets their needs.
Indie News Fund
Running in tandem with Indie News Week 2024, PINF launched the first ever Indie News Fund to support the financial sustainability of participating news providers across the UK,
27 news providers participated in this initiative. Each was able to unlock a portion of the central £50k fund by raising an agreed amount of new funding from their communities. Ultimately, the campaign led to a £127k investment in the sector, with providers raising more than £77k of new income from readers.
Three donors contributed to the fund in 2024: Struan Bartlett, the Cobalt Trust and the Tinsley Charitable Trust.
Indie News Network & Forum
Indie news providers tend to be highly motivated professionals, working in isolation from each other but facing similar challenges. In 2023, PINF established the Indie News Network as a space for more than 100 providers to connect with each other. Members of the vibrant community collaborate, commiserate, and regularly support each other on big ethical questions as well as minute, technical issues.
PINF also regularly invites discussions within the WhatsApp community that inform our work and ensure it is grounded in the real needs of the indie sector.
Through the annual Indie News Forum, held each autumn in a different UK city, we bring providers together to share their experiences, build morale and make plans. We also invite guest speakers to discuss salient topics, including press regulation, public notice spending, and the Local Democracy Reporting Service, with attending providers.
Indie Skillshare
We have identified a number of core skills that indie news providers need in order to develop sustainable operations. In many cases, it is other news providers who can share best practice in these areas, so we are developing our Skillshare programme, to facilitate and structure this exchange.
The programme consists of webinars and an online toolkit for new and experienced indie news providers, which will evolve as we cover more skills.
Fiscal Sponsorship
Through our fiscal sponsorship function, we act as an intermediary between charitable donors and news organisations that provide charitable journalism but are not registered charities. We can direct funds to such organisations and support their organisational development. Having received an ‘equivalency determination’ to show that we have the same standards as a US 501.c.3 organisation, we can work with donors in both the UK and the US.