MacArthur and Knight anchor a $21 million fund that will invest in local news outlets, not give them grants

Social Finance, a national nonprofit that is also a registered investment adviser, has launched a fund that will put investment capital, rather than grants, into local news organizations. The Local News Impact Investment Fund starts with $21 million, anchored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, with further money from Press Forward and from Social Finance itself. It was announced on October 27, 2026.

Most investments will range from $500,000 to $2 million. Independent for-profit and nonprofit news organizations are both eligible, but they must be building sustainable business models, understand their market and audience, and show a credible path to revenue growth and profitability. Social Finance says the money can help newsrooms modernize their platforms, test business models that raise revenue, and expand into new places and topics. It plans to grow the fund by bringing in more investors, and its investment adviser, SF Advisers, will manage it.

Why foundations are trying investments

The announcement argues that donations alone cannot sustain local news, and it presents the fund as a complement to grantmaking, not a replacement. Amalie Nash, vice president for journalism at Knight, said "philanthropy alone cannot meet the scale of the challenge facing local news organizations." John Balbach, director of impact investments at MacArthur, called it "the first fund built to connect local news organizations with the capital they need to develop sustainable business models." Both foundations are investors in the fund, the release says.

For a private foundation, an investment of this kind can count toward its required giving. Under IRS rules, the qualifying distributions that a private foundation must make include program-related investments: investments whose primary purpose is to accomplish the foundation's exempt purposes, and for which producing income or capital gains is not a significant purpose. The IRS says such program-related investments can include loans to for-profit organizations and equity stakes in them. The announcement does not say whether MacArthur and Knight are treating their commitments as program-related investments or as investments from their endowments. Our explainer on private foundations sets out the payout rules.

The gap the fund is aimed at

The announcement cites research from Northwestern University's Medill Local News Initiative. Its 2026 State of Local News report, published on October 13, counts 238 counties that are news deserts, with no locally based source of reliable local news. That is 26 more than a year earlier, the largest one-year rise in Medill's research, after six new deserts the year before. In more than 1,400 other counties only one local news source remains. The report puts the number of Americans with limited or no access to local news at nearly 47 million; the fund's announcement uses a figure of 50 million.

The report also points to nearly 300 new outlets in five years, acquisitions that kept papers from closing and a surge in philanthropy that has helped public broadcasters. Press Forward, the funder coalition that is putting money into the new fund, says it has invested more than $400 million in local news and has more than 130 funders and 48 local chapters.

What comes next

Social Finance says it will track the finances of the news organizations it invests in, along with their reach and engagement, with a focus on communities that have the least access to local news. Organizations interested in investment or partnership can find out more at localnewsinvestmentfund.org. The release's legal notice says any offering of interests in the fund would be made only to accredited investors, through confidential offering documents.