The grant will be used for a direct mailing to residents to bolster membership
By the TRT Staff
RED BANK – The Two River Times recently received a Lenfest Institute for Journalism Catalyst Grant, its first grant since becoming a nonprofit. The money will allow the Red Bank-based weekly newspaper, which covers 14 towns in eastern Monmouth County, to reach a broader audience, helping the publication grow.
The paper is among 11 news organizations that received support from the Lenfest News Philanthropy Network. The grant helps organizations experiment with their year-end fundraising efforts. The grant is part of The Lenfest Institute for Journalism’s News Catalyst Grant program.
Thanks to the grant, The Two River Times can kickstart its membership model with a direct mailing campaign to potential subscribers in the newspaper’s 14-town footprint, which has more than 168,000 residents.
Since The Two River Times owner Domenic DiPiero’s announcement in May that he was gifting the 30-plus-year-old newspaper to the community, the new nonprofit has been working to reach a broader readership base. The newly formed and approved 501(c)(3) is in the early stages of educating its readership on the importance of moving to nonprofit status.
“In the expansive landscape of news and information, local news can easily be eclipsed,” said DiPiero, who will continue to serve the paper as a member of the new nonprofit’s board. “The Two River Times provides valuable local news and information, and it remains a crucial resource for readers to know more about their community to become actively involved citizens.”
Catalyst grants are made possible through the generous support of the Google News Initiative and the Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund. The recipients, including nonprofit and for-profit media, received up to $20,000 for their innovative approaches to end-of-year fundraising, including direct mail fundraising.
The Two River Times postcards will arrive in homes in early December. The mailing will invite households to learn about the nonprofit transition and encourage them to become members (subscribers) of The Two River Times. As a follow-up to the postcards, an email campaign to the more than 13,000 current email newsletter subscribers will further explain the nonprofit transition and ask readers to actively engage and support their local newspaper.
The Two River Times is in good company. The 10 other grant recipients were: Ashland.news, a digital news site serving Ashland, Oregon, which will mail a year-end print edition to attract new readers, sponsors and donors; Borderless Magazine, which covers immigrant communities in Chicago, will expand its field canvassing strategy to include fundraising efforts; Documented, which covers immigrant communities in New York, plans to grow its year-end fundraising efforts through events, multilingual campaigns targeting small-dollar donors, and campaigns targeting advisory board members and their networks; El Tímpano, which serves Latino and Mayan immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area, will host intimate house parties for current and prospective major donors to learn more about the organization’s work; QCity Metro, a hyperlocal news site serving the Black community in Charlotte, North Carolina, plans to expand its existing year-end campaign strategy, which typically centered on print appeals, to include video content showcasing its impact over the past 16 years; inewsource, which serves the San Diego area, will use new tools to better understand reader habits and create email segmentations and messaging based on these analytics; Louisville Public Media in Louisville, Kentucky, will use marketing and analytics tools to send direct mail solicitations to the homes of loyal online readers; Mountain Xpress, which covers Asheville and western North Carolina, is embarking on a multimedia fundraising campaign, including direct mail, print and radio ads, and newsletters; Public Media Network, a community media organization in Kalamazoo, Michigan, plans to leverage both digital platforms and SMS messaging to segment viewers and encourage them to donate based on their engagement; and Richland Source, which covers Mansfield and Richland County, Ohio, will use analytics to target engaged readers who have not yet become members and send them direct mail solicitations for membership.
The projects were chosen from a pool of applications from across The Lenfest News Philanthropy Network, a community of more than 2,600 members led by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism to support and build capacity for fundraising and development professionals in journalism.
The Lenfest Institute works to strengthen local news in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and around the United States. H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest donated his ownership of The Philadelphia Inquirer and gifted to The Lenfest Institute an initial endowment of $20 million, which has since been supplemented by other donors, for investment in innovative news initiatives, new technology, and new models for sustainable journalism.
The article originally appeared in the November 28 – December 4, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
