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How local and community based outlets can collectively raise funds to support sustainability within the media ecosystem.

What is the Chicago Independent Media Alliance?

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• The Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA) is a project of the Reader Institute for Community Journalism.
• Assembled Summer of 2019, officially launched February, 2020
• It is a partnership of independent, local, and community-driven media entities coming together in the spirit of collaboration, especially in creating new revenue streams and heightening independent media’s visibility.

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What does CIMA do in a nutshell?

• Advocate for Chicago’s local media in state or national media efforts
• Host annual joint media fundraisers
• Assemble member-to-member trainings focused on development
• Host group advertisement buys between members and clients
• Build campaigns to increase visibility of members and reach new audiences

Who are CIMA members?

• CIMA is made up of 69 outlets representing 81 media entities
• Media partners in the alliance include nonprofit newsrooms, independently owned and operated local news outlets, traditional print newspapers, independently produced podcasts, and video production studios.
• Members in our alliance report for Chicago’s African American, Latinx, Asian American, Polish, immigrant, LGBTQ, and others

What does involvement look like?

• Membership participation/ engagement ranges depending on current projects
• CIMA hosts committees during our fundraising season
• We are in the process of building an internal steering committee to make collective decisions alongside CIMA leadership.

Why was CIMA created?

• CIMA launched in 2019 as a response to the industry’s revenue decline.

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• Many outlets share similar goals, therefore CIMA’s mission values collaboration over competition in the media ecosystem.

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• CIMA believes in business and editorial partnerships to secure the overall independence of independent media.

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• We aim to create a successful path to a self-sustaining media ecosystem.

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CIMA Fundraiser 2020

• Average of $160,000 total raised
• $60,000 in matching donations from 5 foundations
• $101,108 raised in public donations
• 972 donors
• 43 CIMA members involved
• 1 month long campaign (May 8 - June 5, 2020)
• Slogan: “Journalism for the people, by the people”
• #SaveChicagoMedia
• ⅔ of donors decided to donate to all

• Support from nearly 1,000 donors and a half dozen foundations.
• Collaboration not only works, it also brings new people and new support to the table.
• Donors and institutions are more attracted to efforts that mobilize a larger group of participants. It does not take away from individual fundraising efforts, it complements them.
• The biggest learning in this pilot is that a significant number of people, even if they were directed to the fundraiser by their favorite media outlet, actually opted to have their donation split evenly among all 43 outlets.

Takeaways

CIMA Fundraiser 2021

• Average of $172,795 total raised
• $77,500 in matching donations from 5 foundations
• $95,295 raised in public donations
• 931 donors
• 43 CIMA members involved
• 1 month long campaign (May 12 - June 14, 2021)
• Slogan: “Investing in local media = Funding your community”
• #SaveChicagoMedia
• #Local media are Essential
• Triple match incentive (new)
• Extended campaign by 1 more day (resulted in 200 more last minute donations)

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• Triple match announcement the final week led to surplus of donors (500) in the final week of campaign.
• Little less in public donations
• More in matching funds
• Similar results to last year

Takeaways

Key Action Items Before Launch

1. Build donation website

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• Implement a fundraising committee

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• Create branding, messaging, and promotion for campaign

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• Develop marketing strategy

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• Coordinated a ‘Best Fundraising Strategies’ training for members before fundraiser

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CIMA’s Marketing Strategy

To market the campaign, we leveraged the power of the 43 media outlets who participated to promote within their channels and to their audience.

Social media was the main vehicle our campaign utilized to drive donations to savechicagomedia.org. We utilized our Facebook and Twitter accounts to promote the campaign daily.

- Every week we shared our most up-to-date fundraising amount to encourage people to donate.

-During the last week of our campaign, we shared daily dollar updates and created special messaging announcing the triple match the last 4 days of the campaign.

-Our announcement led to an influx of donations during the extension period of the campaign.

Creation of CIMA MailChimp newsletter sending weekly campaign updates to 2020 and new donors.

Announcement of individual donations would be triple matched in last five days. June 7 - 11

Monday, June 14 announced extended by 1 final day, which led to another influx of donations.

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Flow of donations throughout campaign

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Campaign wrap

• Member reports

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• Donor trends

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• Collect member feedback via survey

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• Assess overall campaign strengths and weaknesses

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• Set goals for next year & send thank you’s

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Thank you

Follow us on Twitter at @IndieMediaChi

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Like us on Facebook at @IndieMediaChi

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Contact us at cima@chicagoreader.com

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Contact CIMA Coordinator directly at ydominguez@chicagoreader.com

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Donate to CIMA’s media partners at www.savechicagomedia.org

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