ELi Obtains $5,000 Bonus from NewsMatch

Regular readers of East Lansing Info (ELi) are aware that we were selected to be eligible for NewsMatch in 2018, and that ELi secured $25,000 from NewsMatch when our local supporters came together and committed more than the equivalent support level at the end of last year. Now NewsMatch has notified ELi that, in addition to that $25,000, we have also qualified for an additional $5,000 in bonuses.

According to Keira Rebustillo of The Miami Foundation, the organization that leads NewsMatch, ELi qualified for the additional $5,000 because we met two additional fundraising goals. Over one hundred new individual donors signed up during the NewsMatch campaign, and we increased our total number of donors between 2017 and 2018.

ELi’s Publisher Alice Dreger is delighted to be able to put that money to work for this community in bringing more local news.

“ELi’s readership really came through for us during NewsMatch, showing the national funders that this is not just a viable organization, but one that is truly valued by this community. We are so excited to now be bringing the ELi model out nationally, to show other communities how they can come together to bring forward the news of their cities.”

East Lansing Info is a registered non-profit 501c-3 corporation and in 2018 ran a budget of a little less than $90,000, entirely funded by donations from individuals and local businesses.

The NewsMatch funds are distributed through the Fund for Nonprofit News at The Miami Foundation. Donors to the project include the Democracy Fund, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, the Facebook Journalism Project, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, and the Present Progressive Fund at Schwab Charitable.

Says Dreger, “The ELi team feels so empowered by this local and national support!”