INN predicts: Nonprofit news in 2024
We all know and love that annual journalism prediction series (and participate in it), but this year we thought: we have our own experts, let’s ask them what’s in store for 2024. So here you have it: six INN program leads on what’s next for nonprofit news.
In 2024, nonprofit news organizations will collaborate to create and use new and alternative means of news distribution. While these outlets will continue to work with brand-name platforms, they will increasingly prioritize their own direct relationships with audiences as well as new shared platforms that advance their values and leverage technology like AI and SMS to bring nonprofit news quality to audiences at scale.
2024 will spur a dramatic leap forward in both the number and collective impact of editorial collaborations. Newsrooms have been building resilient collaboration frameworks for years. The pressure cooker of the presidential election, ongoing crises overseas and events we can’t yet imagine will combine to create the overwhelming need for outlets to deploy their collaborative skills for relevant, meaningful public service reporting.
2024 in many ways will be about moving beyond social media to build audiences. INN will be launching new pilots, funding experiments and releasing new guides on marketing, distribution, earned media and other tactics to adapt to a post-social media world where it is much more challenging to get the news to people that aren’t actively searching for it. With big elections in 2024, it’s more important than ever to find new ways to get reliable information to people that need it and a great chance to experiment with new tactics.
In 2024, artificial intelligence will become a greater part of how nonprofits fundraise. We are already seeing it now, but I expect it to explode in 2024 — with the potential to create a real shift in our field. My task will be to figure out how to leverage this powerful force for INN members and begin to incorporate it into our offerings in bite-sized, manageable chunks.
A growing number of executive directors and founders look toward retirement or moving on to new projects, and succession planning becomes key for our field. As a result of this awareness, more leaders and boards will engage in building succession plans in 2024 as part of regular operations even when no leadership change is on the horizon. Funders, board members and other stakeholders will come to see conversations around succession planning not as a sign that something is wrong with an organization, but that something is very right in terms of an organization’s forward planning and sustainability.
Nonprofit news organizations will harness the power of collaboration to unlock new sponsorship and advertising dollars. With companies seeking more responsible ways to allocate their marketing budgets, INN members will participate in creating solutions for sponsors to efficiently reach nonprofit news readers across the field. At INN, our role will be to help members secure the resources they need, provide support in building an infrastructure, and highlight how they are achieving greater impact.
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