Strengthen your impact locally

The Local News Accelerator supports digital innovation in local news around the world, assisting each media’s medium and long-term viability through editorial innovation, and operational and business development.

Applications are now closed

Deadline

Applications are accepted until August 24, 2025 [23:59, CEST].

Need more info?

Reach out to our team by emailing [email protected].

Read the FAQ

Check out the most frequently asked questions.

The Basics

Are you a local publisher asking yourself how to monetize your content, adapt your news products to changing consumer behavior or keep up with rapidly evolving technology? Then this application is for you. IPI’s Local News Accelerator is a four-month programme where you and your organization will take practical steps towards investing in your local media business’ financial and editorial sustainability. The programme, already in its third edition, offers personalized advisory services, tools and guidance to help you reach audiences, grow into an engaged, responsive media brand and have access to a community of local news practitioners.

We see media innovation and viability as a key pillar of press freedom, essential to growing threats facing the industry. Moreover, this programme is built on IPI’s 4 years of work surveying local news, and designing tailored support systems for local publishers.  Our innovation support equips local organizations with the skills and tools to achieve economic viability, rebuild and strengthen audience relationships, and leverage technology, ensuring that they remain independent, competitive, and responsive to social and political shifts.

Why apply?

The accelerator is designed to support local newsrooms getting started or pivoting their business. From our work with local, regional and niche publishers, we understand the key challenges you’re facing. We provide structure and support to identify and help deliver solutions that will advance their projects toward financial and editorial sustainability. IPI’s in-house experts will conduct a comprehensive one-on-one needs assessment and provide guidance and personalized advisory services to maximize successful applicants’ benefits from the programme. In addition, you will gain access to a community of local news innovators from around the world.

How does it work?

The format is based on IPI’s innovation learning journey, piloted during the  2023 Local News Accelerator, in which publishers from around the world achieved measurable impacts such as growth in readership, doubling of subscribers, building new onboarding tools and engagement channels and launching membership models and crowdfunding campaigns. 

Our cohorts regularly point out peer connections among the cohort as a key benefit, which allows them to build a community with media in similar situations and share ideas. Learn about our previous Local News Accelerator participants and their success stories here and here. 

Key activities

  • One month of direct needs assessments to identify your pain points, problem statements and map solutions. 
  • Intensive training focused on tools and skills that can be transferred to your newsroom well beyond the duration of the accelerator, focused on problem solving and identifying solutions, audience research, strategic planning, journalism formats – audio, video, newsletters – built for user engagement, digital business models and diversifying revenue models.
  • One-on-one personalized advisory services bespoke to the needs of your newsroom, with flexible, on-demand industry experts as coaches during the accelerator.

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

  • You should be a legally registered media organization from anywhere in the world.
  • Demonstrate a clear focus on serving local audiences, with news tailored to the specific needs of the local community. 
  • Your organization should demonstrate a commitment to producing quality original journalism, adherence to ethical journalism practices and commitment to press freedom.
  • Your organization must have a team of at least two individuals who are willing to commit to accelerator activities throughout the four months ( four hours per week, divided between the team of two).
  • Your media should have a solid business case and understanding of your audience, backed up by audience or market research.
  • Your media should demonstrate a willingness to explore and implement new ideas, tools and technologies to enhance storytelling and audience engagement, while learning from experts and each other.
  • Your media should have a clear vision for the future of their media organization, including plans for how they will grow, expand and/or adapt.
  • You must submit a proposal outlining a specific need and solution (Note: it is anticipated that this project will change or evolve during the accelerator period).

Selection process and timeline

Apply by submitting the application form. Applicants can save the application form by clicking “save” and returning to it until they have completed it and are ready to submit. They will be emailed a link to their application, which they can return to until 24 August 2025 [23:59, CEST]. Once the application is submitted, it can no longer be edited.

Only applications in English received via the Jotform platform by the stated date and time will be considered. You will receive an email confirmation of your submission.

A jury comprised of internally appointed experts will select the projects to participate in the accelerator. Applications will be assessed based on the criteria established in the call.

If you’re not sure about your eligibility, contact innovation[a]ipi.media or sign up for our upcoming info sessions on July 28, at 15:00 CEST, and August 11, at 11:00 CEST.

Past experience shows how important it is to build a diverse cohort and we encourage you to reach out if this sounds interesting to you!

Local News Accelerator FAQ

Run by IPI, the Accelerator supports digital transformation in local journalism by providing coaching and training. It will bring newsrooms along a media-first design and innovation journey, focusing on supporting newsrooms’ editorial, technology and business strategies. Over a four-month period, the project team will work closely with each newsroom to coach and provide the necessary resources to implement its transformational business or product strategy. The Local News Accelerator will provide training and coaching for two types of projects:

  • The development of audience-centric products or services, with a focus on news gathering, crowd-sourcing revenues, and the creating or distribution of an outlet’s reporting with the goal of revenue diversification and building deeper engagement with target audiences. 
  • Strategy for digital transformation in an existing newsroom or other organizational plans, leveraging innovation for sustainability and increased competitiveness that ultimately grow the quality of independent news ecosystems worldwide. 

Local news is journalism that reflects, engages, and serves a geographically defined community by addressing its specific information needs. It empowers people within that community to tell their own stories, hold local power to account, and connect with one another and the world. It can be hyperlocal outlets deeply embedded in municipalities, to regional and city-based media, to national platforms delivering local perspectives through networks of correspondents.

The Accelerator consists of five main activities:

  • An introductory meeting: Here, all selected participants of the accelerator will exchange information in a video conference about their projects, set and share audience, newsroom and business goals, and meet the accelerator trainers, coaches and other experts.
  • Structured learning phase: A series of training sessions, consisting of pre-recorded online lectures by prominent media experts and subsequent  “Ask-Me-Anything” sessions with the trainers. The lectures will cover:
    • Human-centered design for local journalism
    • Practical audience research methods for local news
    • Product management skills and methods for local journalism
    • How to diversify revenue: identify and build philanthropy, sponsorships, events, programmatic advertising, branded content, digital subscriptions, advertising to businesses, nonprofits and governments, and more
    • Reader revenue: how to successfully implement a membership, subscription and/or donation mode
    • The latest in storytelling formats
    • Audience engagement – from surveys and comments to subscribers and CRM management 
    • How to pitch your media to partners, funders and investors
  • One-on-one coaching: Accelerator participants will be offered one-on-one coaching sessions with experienced newsroom practitioners and trainers. Each participant will be paired with coaches who are able to provide the most value in terms of skills and knowledge gaps identified in the needs assessment. The participants are expected to attend coaching sessions biweekly.  
  • Guest speakers: Throughout the accelerator, participants will be exposed to the latest innovations in journalism delivery and business diversification from experienced leaders in the industry. 

Additionally, accelerator participants will be expected to produce and publish an impact story that describes lessons learnt, achievements and ideas gained in their innovation journey. This can be in the form of an individual or series of stories, podcasts, videos, newsletters or other journalistic formats. The journalistic product can be related to the accelerator in one of two ways:

  • It highlights how the organization applied the learning on innovation in their newsroom;  
  • An editorial informing readers about the changes the organization went through in the accelerator, explaining how these changes will better serve its audiences.

The Local News Accelerator is open to small to mid-sized local newsrooms seeking to transform their journalism, products or business by investing in audience research, experimenting with new revenue models, deepening audience engagement, or investing in new content and distribution products based on user needs, among other strategies. Newsrooms are welcome to apply if they have:       

  • a clearly identified challenge or problem they want to solve; 
  • a plan on how to address the challenge or problem they face;
  • recently conducted audience research or other market testing activities;
  • willingness and a plan to reach out to new audiences with quality content. 

To apply, you must have a team of two staff members declared that will participate throughout the accelerator’s four months. 

The Local News Accelerator takes place for four months. Participants will have the opportunity to extend mentorship and will remain involved in the network.

10 newsrooms will be selected to participate in the Local News Accelerator.

Applications are now closed

The Local News Accelerator is made possible with support from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.