Mission Local wins $1.5 million American Journalism Project grant

Read Mission Local often?

Help grow our newsroom, joining the 3,250 readers who support us by giving below.

Donate today!

I think we can all agree that “You Can Get It If You Really Want” is a really good song.

Still, it’s somewhat inexplicable that Jimmy Cliff put it on the soundtrack to “The Harder They Come” twice. The 1970s were a strange time. 

This is a very relevant song, though. Because I have very good news: Mission Local has received a $1.5 million grant from the American Journalism Project, one of the largest funders of nonprofit journalism in the country. 

You can get it if you really want. You can get it if you really want. But you must try. Try and Try. Try and try.

This day was a long time coming. There was, indeed, much trying and trying. Years’ worth. But it has paid off: If Mission Local were a young ballplayer, we’d be buying mama a house now. 

Alas, our days on the ballfield have passed. A house, though, is a good thing and a good investment. And so is what Mission Local is planning to do with this grant. We’re putting the money into bolstering our business side and increasing our audience.

The skills that make one a great journalist do not necessarily translate into other elements of running a successful business. So it’s an unmitigated good to allow journalists to do journalism — while hiring people who are good at those things. 

This, in the end, will bring in more revenue which, you guessed it, will soon go to more journalists doing more journalism.

You may already have noticed that Mission Local has beefed up its City Hall team and has expanded to several more San Francisco neighborhoods: Bayview, the Tenderloin, SoMa, the Excelsior, the Richmond and the Sunset. And that’s just for starters.  

So, this is a big deal. And, as noted, a long time coming. 

We here at Mission Local thank you for all the readership and support going back to 2008. The news never ends, there’s no plateau and there is no finish line. We’ll keep writing the stories that matter to you. But we’ve never been in a stronger position to do more good for more readers. 

We’re in the news business. And this — this is good news. 

You succeed at last.

— Joe Eskenazi

The American Journalism Project is a venture philanthropy fund for journalism, and their investments are meant to turbocharge nonprofit newsrooms that produce high-quality journalism and have a roadmap for keeping that journalism going.

Our roadmap is simple: We are doubling down on in-depth neighborhood reporting.

Since the outset, we’ve focused on hyperlocal reporting. But from 2014, when we split from the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, until 2022, our editorial team has done it all: Fundraising, selling ads, putting on events.

At one point, the executive editor and a reporter even shared the task of cleaning the office on weekends. (It was a small office.)

We plowed your donations and grants back into journalism, expanding from four journalists in 2020 to 15 today, all with language and cultural skills that meet readers where they are. We hired our first donor lead in 2024, a sea change.

This investment from AJP will let us continue building our infrastructure, adding staff in development, advertising, events, human resources, outreach and office operations. The expectation is that the return on investment on the business side will mean more Mission Local reporters across all San Francisco. 

Here’s what you can expect in the coming months and years:

• We will double our staff size in the coming years, bringing our style of on-the-ground, street reporting to even more neighborhoods. Be on the lookout for a more detailed announcement on those plans soon.
• Our reporters will serve as ambassadors to their neighborhoods. Expect to see them meeting with residents for coffees, attending community meetings, writing neighborhood-specific newsletters, and ensuring Mission Local is covering all aspects of your area, responsibly. They want to hear from you; drop them a line.
• We will expand our reporting on power and politics in San Francisco, one of the wealthiest, most influential cities in the country.
• We have always been a teaching hospital for young reporters, and that too will grow: We will train even more interns and early-career journalists who reflect the diversity of San Francisco, and who go on to staff newsrooms across the country.

It will take all of us to build San Francisco’s best nonprofit news site — one that is free, fierce and focused entirely on San Francisco. 

You made all of this possible. We would love to meet with you to listen, to brainstorm about our plans, and to build Mission Local’s future together.

—Lydia Chávez and Joe Rivano Barros