Founded in 2022 by a group of Afghan women, ZanTimes is an award-winning investigative newsroom dedicated to delivering reliable, first-hand reporting on the rights of women and LGBTQI+ individuals in Afghanistan. Reporting on the Taliban’s silencing of women, gender-based violence and resistance, ZanTimes aims to be a catalyst for change by raising awareness about the most severe women’s rights crisis of our time.
The newsroom consists of a network of Afghan journalists both in exile and inside Afghanistan, making the newsroom’s blend of reporting, on-the-ground investigations, opinion pieces and trauma-informed interviews possible. Through ZanTimes’ advocacy and collaboration with international media organisations and public figures, the outlet’s mission is to encourage global solidarity, foster empathy, and inspire action.
From a loss of funding to a reader-supported newsroom
In early 2025, ZanTimes faced a significant challenge: the newsroom lost funding for their online journalism training for women in Afghanistan, meant to both resist the ban on women’s education and an exploitative environment for journalists in Afghanistan. Not willing to give up on this project and the women taking part in it, ZanTimes launched a community crowdfunding campaign and raised CA$116,000, fully covering the project costs. This helped them pivot into a reader-supported newsroom and provided flexibility to change their original training plans into a more sustainable, focused fellowship programme for Afghan women waiting to tell their stories. For their 2026 fellowship programme, the team received 860 fellowship applications from 31 out of 34 Afghan provinces.
With new knowledge about the tangible possibilities of community engagement, ZanTimes joined IPI’s 2025 Local News Accelerator with the goal of further building upon their community, growing reader support and decreasing dependence on donor funding.
Newsletter pop-up – small fix with big impact
Building upon IPI’s training programmes, ZanTimes integrated experimentation and a user-centred approach to improve the reach of their newsletter to grow their audience. This included adding a pop-up to their website, prompting visitors to sign up for the newsletter and testing how different types of messaging and design choices for the pop-up perform. Since September 2025, they have gained over 1000 new subscribers – before the pop-up, the newsletter reached 2000 subscribers over two years. Using the newsletter to strengthen fundraising channels, they raised CA$8000 in January 2026.
Building two-way relationships with their audience
After receiving audience donations, the team followed up with a thank-you letter and a request to talk to donors and find out why they chose to support ZanTimes. Maintaining these relationships with supporters has been an important source of empowerment for the team:
“2025 was an empowering year for ZanTimes. We learned that there are so many people who care for Afghanistan, for journalism, and the rights of Afghan women. There are people who are going to support us – our job is now to go find them and bring them to our community,” Zahra Nader, Editor in Chief, ZanTimes
More regular personalised outreach to previous donors is in the plans, keeping them in the loop on how they helped keep the organisation alive and created opportunities for Afghan women on the ground.
Are you interested in ZanTimes’ work? Take a look at their website or let us know if you’d like IPI to connect you.
ZanTimes is one of the participants in IPI’s Local News Accelerator 2025, made possible with support from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
