PRESS FORWARD CENTRAL APPALACHIA LAUNCHES RURAL NEWS FUND
As Central Appalachian communities continue to focus local and national attention on the long, hard, work rebuilding from Hurricane Helene, and rural America marks another year of losses in civic infrastructure and local news sources, the Appalachia Funders Network is proud to announce a partnership with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Press Forward initiative to support news organizations and information infrastructure in the region’s rural counties.
The MacArthur Foundation today announced a grant of $750,000 to seed the establishment of a Rural News Fund, building on Appalachia Funders Network local member initiatives to provide flexible working capital, technology and expertise for the restoration of local news within the nation’s largest concentration of news deserts.
According to the Medill 2024 State of Local News report, 200 out of the 257 counties that make up the Central Appalachian regions of North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia are now designated as “News Deserts.”
The Rural News Fund is a program of the Press Forward Central Appalachia Chapter, launching in 2025 through a partnership between Appalachia Funders Network members, fund manager Invest Appalachia, and news technology and business model consultancy Media Growth Partners.
“The MacArthur Foundation’s lead grant to the Rural News Fund is a transformational investment in Appalachia’s news infrastructure, signaling a new era of opportunity for the region to reclaim our narratives and strengthen civic life. This foundational commitment sets the stage for other national funders to join us in building on proven rural market models to restore and innovate the local news and information ecosystem,” says Appalachia Funders Network Executive Director, Rev. Ryan M. Eller, a tenth-generation Appalachian. "For too long, stories about Appalachia have been crafted without our voices. This initiative holds immense promise for amplifying authentic Appalachian perspectives while driving vital improvements in community discourse and engagement."
Invest Appalachia CEO Andrew Crosson explains the foundational work already underway. “We know place-based journalism is essential for the local business economy, community engagement, and civic health. Invest Appalachia has already supported local news businesses like the Athens County Independent in Ohio and Black By God - The West Virginian, providing flexible capital for them to refine business models and diversify revenue streams, and we know there are many emerging and existing local news outfits worthy of similar support. As a Western North Carolina resident who lived and witnessed first-hand the impacts of Hurricane Helene, I've observed the critical role that local and community news plays in keeping residents safe, informed, and empowered as they respond, recover, and rebuild from disasters. I'm excited for the Rural News Fund to help grow this critical piece of Appalachia's economy and civic infrastructure.”
“We must have permanent, factual, and sustained information infrastructure at a hyper-local level to maintain effective emergency communications within communities, and connected to state and national information networks,” says Media Growth Partners Managing Editor and Press Forward Central Appalachia Co-chair Eli Flournoy. “Expanding trusted local news publishers is critical to being prepared for the next disaster, as well as for maintaining an informed and engaged civil society, with healthy business advertising ecosystems.”
To join the Rural News Fund and Press Forward Central Appalachia partnerships, please contact Jess Mullins Fullen jfullen@appalachiafunders.org and Eli Flournoy eli@mediagrowthteam.com.
Press Forward Central Appalachia Chapter Partners
The Appalachia Funders Network (AFN) formed the Press Forward Central Appalachia Chapter in 2024 to accelerate an equitable Appalachian transition by revitalizing local news in rural Central Appalachia. Recognizing the growing national understanding of the need to invest deeply in media, journalism, and information sharing—especially in areas where infrastructure like broadband has been slow or non-existent, and where polarization is taking root—we strive to ensure our rural communities have a significant presence and voice at the table.
By leveraging regional and national partnerships, the economic development funders who make up the six-state Appalachia Funders Network aim to reduce news deserts, foster community-led narrative change, and bolster the economic viability of our communities through strong local news and information ecosystems.
Our mission is to enhance civic engagement, stimulate economic growth, and empower communities to shape their own narratives and thrive through sustained investment in local journalism.
Invest Appalachia (IA) serves as catalytic capital fund manager for the Rural News Fund and financial programs of the Press Forward Central Appalachia Chapter. IA is a collaborative impact investment platform created by and for the people of Central Appalachia.
We operate across the Appalachian counties of Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, and Tennessee with the aim of making our region's collective potential greater than the sum of its parts. We are a regionally representative fund that leverages deep relationships and investments from our partners in philanthropy community finance, and community economic development.
Central Appalachia has a long history of chronic underinvestment. Invest Appalachia emerged from a conversation about what it will take to change this narrative – building on existing capacity, filling critical capital gaps, and increasing coordination across the region’s investment ecosystem. Our investment strategy, pipeline, impact goals, and governance are guided and grounded by place-based community stakeholders. And we are committed to outcomes and processes that embody our values: Participatory, Accessible, Transparent & Democratic, Equitable, Self-Reliant.
Media Growth Partners (MGP) serves the Appalachia Funders Network and communities of Central Appalachia as project and program manager of the Rural News Fund and Press Forward Central Appalachia Chapter initiatives. It’s our mission to provide local news businesses with the media technology and expertise they need to grow audience, revenue and impact.
Media Growth Partners manages programs designed to support cohorts of small news organizations as they implement their growth strategies and access the recurring shared services they need to thrive. We work with vetted media tech companies and service providers supporting the news industry.
At Media Growth Partners, we dedicate our expertise and decades of experience in journalism, news operations, media tech, startups, finance and partnerships to making the business of local news not just sustainable, but a growth industry. MGP combines hands-on audience and revenue growth services with an innovative approach to impact measurement by taking news organizations through the "last mile" of implementation and walking with them over the long term.