About Us
Our mission
The Pivot Fund empowers independent, community-rooted news outlets serving under-resourced urban and rural areas. Through funding, technical assistance, and strategic guidance, we help these outlets grow, innovate, and deliver local news and civic information that strengthens their communities and builds a more inclusive, multicultural democracy.
Why does this matter?
$4.1M
grants disbursed and services provided to grantees FY22-24
17
grantee news organizations supported with meaningful, multi-year grants and services FY22-24
87%
of Pivot Fund grants are unrestricted and large enough to be transformational for each grantee
100%
of our grantees are community-driven news outlets in underserved communities
Our Strengths
Our CEO, Tracie Powell, came up on the business side of journalism and earned a law degree from Georgetown University. Our managing director, Susan Richardson, led the Center for Public Integrity and Guardian US. Our research director, Jean Marie Brown, is a journalism professor at TCU, with more than 25 years of newsroom experience working with Knight-Ridder/McClatchy.
The future of local news and with it, inclusive democracy, is playing out at the grassroots. Funders who want to help build inclusive news ecosystems need a partner to help them identify, connect with and support the news entrepreneurs serving communities of color.
Our landscape surveys help funders translate high-level strategies to fund journalism or advance issues into ground-level impact. In the course of our research, we build relationships of trust with prospective grantees.
Community publishers often can’t afford the time needed to chase small grants conditioned on attending accelerators or boot camps. We disburse grants big enough to hire at least one staffer who can help transform a business.
Our trainers have firsthand experience with the challenges and the opportunities of publishers serving underserved and historically marginalized communities, where the standard playbook doesn’t apply. We provide customized support for revenue, technology and audience strategies.