Door County Knock is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) and the INN Network, an association of more than 400 independent, nonpartisan news organizations that are dedicated to high standards in journalism provided as a public service.
Nonprofit news offers a promising future for journalism: it focuses on high-quality, civic journalism that provides a public service, on new, innovative ways of reporting and presenting the news, and on covering underreported stories and creating a new kind of journalism, after the loss of half the nation’s newspaper jobs in recent decades.
The nonprofit news business model will be recognizable to viewers of PBS and listeners of NPR; nonprofit news organizations are funded by a combination of reader membership, major donors and foundation funding. Nonprofit news does not depend on advertising as a major funding source; this can allow journalists more freedom to report stories in the public interest.
INN members are 501c(3) organizations or similarly structured to provide news as a charitable service or public good. They set and meet membership standards that demonstrate journalistic quality, editorial independence and public transparency around the sources of their funding and their control.
The nonprofit news field is growing. Annual revenue across the field topped $500 million in 2021, and INN has seen more than 200 percent membership growth since 2017—driven by new, local organizations such as Knock. Ninety-three percent of INN startups make it through their first five years.
We believe in the nonprofit future of journalism, and we’re working to grow Knock as a source of high-quality, public service journalism for Door County.