Nonprofit news is growing strong — especially local nonprofit news, a new report shows

Nonprofit news outlets of all types are enjoying revenue growth — but those that focus specifically on local news, rather than state, national, or global news, are doing especially well, according to the 2025 Institute of Nonprofit News Index, released Wednesday.

Local nonprofits made up more than half (51%) of INN’s membership in 2024, up from 48% in 2023. The annual report analyzed survey responses from 376 of INN’s 407 member organizations. To capture year-over-year revenue growth, it looked at 236 organizations that provided complete financial data for the years 2021 and 2024.

From there, it found that 83% of local nonprofit news organizations have increased revenue growth by at least 10% over the last three years, compared to 71% of state and regional publications and 76% of national and global outlets. Local outlets were also the least likely to report revenue loss, with just 6% saying they experienced a revenue decline of 10% or more in the past three years. (12% of state or regional publications and 13% of national and global publications saw revenue decline.)

“These organizations often operate with smaller budgets and leaner staff,” the report’s authors (Jesse Holcomb, Michele McLellan, and Ha Ta) note, “yet they distinguish themselves through a close alignment with community needs.”

Revenue growth remains steady across the field, per the report. In 2024, the median annual revenue of INN members was $532,000, up from $477,000 in 2023. The majority of members (80%) reported revenue growth over the past three years, which INN attributes in particular to philanthropic funding and grants. The report also says that 57% of members increased their earned revenue streams (events, sponsorship, and advertising) between 2021 and 2024.

Other findings:

Attention drops aren’t equal.Newsletters are bright spots for audience growth. About 72% of outlets saw their newsletter subscriber lists grow between 2021 and 2024, while 10% saw them shrink.

Older outlets are struggling to keep up. A fifth (21%) of publications that launched in 2009 or earlier reported revenue declines between 2021 and 2024; just 5% of outlets launched between 2016 and 2021 said the same. Younger outlets (87%) were also more likely to report revenue growth in that timeframe compared to older ones (66%).

Nonprofit news executives are mostly white. More than half (53%) of all nonprofit news executives of color lead outlets that primarily serve communities of color, but those outlets only make up about one-fifth of the nonprofit news landscape overall. Less than half (42%) of the outlets in the sample reported having at least one executive of color in their organization’s top three leadership positions.

Nonprofits are increasingly using AI, but mostly for business-side tasks. More than half of the organizations in the sample (63%) reported using AI in 2024, compared to 34% in 2023. The most common use cases were for interview transcriptions (67%), data analysis (38%), and drafting audience-facing social media copy and emails. Of the outlets that reported using AI, 47% said they use it to “draft grant applications, personalize outreach to funders or stakeholders, or identify prospective donors.”

Editorial use of AI was less common. Just 6% reported using it for drafting stories or editorial products and 16% said they used it for editing stories.

Leadership churn is hard and expensive. Eight percent of nonprofit newsrooms experienced at least one leadership change between 2022 and 2024, but only 14% have a succession plan laid out. “Replacing a single staff member can cost more than twice their annual salary, according to Gallup estimates, highlighting the need for not just resilience, but also sustainable strategies for leadership development and retention,” the report’s authors write.

Read the full report here.