Pondering who gets to control what happens on stage, and in our work. (Image credit: At Sewards: a puppet show by John Nixon, CC BY-SA 2.0, via ArtUK)

For a few years now, there’s been discussion about mergers of nonprofit news organizations. The volume of that recently increased coming off of a study that many interpreted as suggesting philanthropic foundations should move (even more) into a mode of picking “winners and losers” and missed opportunities to do direct support in aid of sustainability instead.

It appears the pressure is growing for nonprofits to opt for a merger if they want to keep funders happy.

As anyone who has done fundraising knows, though, “keeping funders happy” is a Sisyphean task. To start, it always bears repeating that fundraising is never about “funders” and instead is a constellation of relationships between people and organizations. “Funders’ needs” can disguise all manner of sins and projections. That said, sometimes trends do crop up across a range of funders. For example, for several years multiple funders encouraged OpenNews to become its own 501c3 instead of remaining a fiscally sponsored entity. (Not all funders did this though! Democracy Fund was a notable outlier in this regard and was extremely pragmatic with helping us understand the real and perceived limitations of how being fiscally sponsored affected their grants to us.) But generally, it was accepted that to appeal to certain funders you had to take on the time, expense, and ongoing overhead necessary to be your own nonprofit.

And now, just a few years later, some of those same funders want those same organizations they pressured to become independent to now merge. Huh.

So if it’s clear that, even if it is well meaning and “research backed,” foundations are going to continue to attempt to pull some strings and push organizations to make certain decisions, how can these organizations respond?

For funders and organizations alike, it might be helpful to remember that organizations do still have agency here (even when the purse strings are being tightened). As with any other organizational decision, it is critical to act in a way that first centers the needs of the community you serve and (as much as possible) resists the fear about consequences of making “funders” unhappy.

Some questions it might be useful for organizations to reflect on:

Have you served your purpose?

This might seem like a strange place to start! But intentionally sunsetting projects is important to regard as an option. One way of framing it can be, what would success look like if your organization were no longer needed? We had these conversations several times when I was at OpenNews, sometimes because of scary budgetary outlooks, yes, but also sometimes because of transition points or once we had achieved a part of our work. To me, it felt powerful to be able to actively engage with this question and not treat it as off limits or too scary to consider. It meant that when we did decide to continue, it was an active decision and not just passive inertia. It meant that we looked to community feedback for the answer to this question and the encouragement to continue.

It also sometimes meant shifting purpose. For example, a lot of the early work of OpenNews revolved around encouraging organizations to “show their work” and open source projects. This ecosystem flourished for many years. Now the pendulum has sort of swung back, so now community members are renewing this push. Actively asking even these type of exisitential questions can be part of building the openness and resilience to being able to respond as things change.

How do you already collaborate?

One of the weirdest things for me with filling out grant applications was the inevitable “tell us about how you collaborate with other groups” question. (This actually was universal across any funders we worked with. Happily!) It was weird because … collaboration was at the heart of everything we did? Even just starting with the fellowship program, it placed fellows into newsrooms. Source documented work happening in newsrooms. We supported events around the world. Everything was always about sharing insights, learning, and resources. It was just fundamental.

I think this one of the biggest things this push for mergers misses: lots of organizations already work this way. Lots of organizations already seek out ways to connect and support the work of others, not duplicate it. It’s true, not all organizations act this way. But treating all orgs the same here very much reminds me of say, reminding everyone at the fast food joint how important it is to be on time for work when really it’s just two people who are late every day. Why treat organizations this way? It’s ineffective and infantilizing.

For (most) organizations, this question is a way to begin rebalancing the power here. Even without a merger, I bet there are a ton of ways you are contributing to the health and flourishing and the efficiency and lack of duplication of the journalism ecosystem. Celebrate those! Own them. Recognize them. Even if it’s as weirdly obvious to you as it was to me, it is not obvious to everyone else.

Are there ways you could serve your purpose through collaboration, documentation, or other similar means?

If everyone is going to be in this “ahhhh what comes next??” headspace, it can be a chance to embrace it. Are there ideas you’ve had on the back burner about how to band together with another organization? Or ways you’ve seen someone else work that you’d like to pull into your own processes? Or do you know there’s similar questions you’re wrestling with that you’d like to work on together? (Way way back in the Knight-Mozilla Fellowship days I reallllly wanted to convene a fellowship manager meetup. Oh my gosh all the ways we could have learned from each other!)

I bet there are a million and one proposals you can come up with that would result in meaningful outcomes for your communities, and that do not require a full merger. (Side note for the funders, just gonna guess they are dramatically cheaper ideas also! Plus, and this is maybe not as much of a pipe dream as it seems, but these are the kind of ideas that may also be longterm sustainable and bring in their own money.)

Organizations are powerful players in this ecosystem

Bottom line: I really hope organizations can remember they do have some power here, even when it seems like foundations hold it all. Reflecting on the purpose and impact of community service can help to calibrate reactions to funders’ requests and find other potential options. And while these questions are directed at how individual organizations can strategize about their own responses, those reactions take place in a rich ecosystem of support, as documented by Commoner Company.

If you are thinking about these questions and would like someone to talk to about them, please reach out or find a time to chat.

Last modified on June 16, 2026