BANGOR, MAINE — MAY 8, 2024 — The Maine Independent News Collaborative (MINC) is excited to announce $25,000 in Infrastructure Fund planning grants to five independent Maine newsrooms, which will lay the groundwork for future project investments in 2024 and 2025.
MINC formed in Summer 2023 as a grassroots effort to sustain and grow independent local journalism in support of Maine communities. MINC funds shared-reporting resources, improvements to digital technologies that deliver journalism to readers and a collaborative inter-newsroom structure to facilitate statewide accountability and enterprise reporting.
Only MINC member newsrooms are eligible for MINC grants at this time. MINC created the Infrastructure Fund to increase capacity in core audience and revenue-enablement functions to help Maine’s trusted community newsrooms grow collaborative and back office capacity, address pressing technology needs and improve skills.
The MINC Steering Committee makes decisions about MINC grant awards. Steering Committee members representing applicant newsrooms recused themselves from voting on funding for their respective organizations.
Partners that receive funding are expected to launch or upgrade a digital toolset in line with industry-best practices, simplify digital production workflows, and take advantage of training opportunities offered by MINC. Projects must have a clear benefit to digital product quality, revenue or cost savings.
The planning grant term will run through July 2024, at which point all grantees will be eligible to apply for project grants.
The 2024 MINC Infrastructure Fund planning grantees and their projects are:
- Amjambo Africa (Portland, ME) – Planning for the development of a multilingual mobile app that would make it easy for first and second generation Americans in Maine to access Amjambo Africa’s print and podcast content in a language chosen by the individual, making it easier for them to seek and access information about social, economic and community life.
- Bangor Daily News (Bangor, ME) – To support digital reader revenue strategy planning and rapid improvements to reader revenue products, including “quick wins” across newsletters, subscriber checkout and the paywall.
- The Lincoln County News (Newcastle, ME) – To pilot improved reader engagement systems to create a deeper and more meaningful connection with readers.
- Penobscot Bay Press (Stonington, ME) – To build philanthropy infrastructure, launch and learn from a pilot fundraising campaign using new tools and processes.
- The Quoddy Tides (Eastport, ME) – To research and plan for website improvements and the capacity to offer digital subscriptions, including any hardware and software upgrades needed, staff training and contractor support.
MINC’s steering committee will now shift its focus to providing project grants of up to $25,000 in the fourth quarter of 2024. Project funding will enable publishing partners to implement ideas developed during this initial planning phase.
Initial funding for the MINC Infrastructure Fund has been provided by the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation and the Stephen & Tabitha King Foundation.
Learn more about the Collaborative at maineindependentnewscollaborative.org.
Contact: Jo Easton
jeaston@bangordailynews.com
(207) 990-8256