Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. At a time when traditional news outlets are shedding reporters and chasing clicks, Mongabay is bucking the trend: it’s growing. One key, says David Martin, our director of philanthropy, is that Mongabay isn’t selling ads or stoking outrage — it’s cultivating trust. “Our currency,” he told Mike DiGirolamo in a recent conversation, “is really impact.” Martin, who joined Mongabay in 2015 after a stint hawking rainforest tea, describes himself as a “Mongabay fanboy” who once asked to serve guayusa at a gala just to stay close to the mission. These days, he’s helping raise money for independent environmental journalism — a task he approaches less like a salesman and more like a matchmaker between serious funders and serious storytelling. Nonprofit journalism, Martin argues, is uniquely positioned to cover stories that wouldn’t survive in the metrics-obsessed world of commercial news. A deep investigation might only be read by a few hundred people. But if one of them is a policymaker, conservationist or donor, the result can ripple far beyond the page. “We’re looking at more of a qualitative audience than a quantitative one,” Martin says. The key, he emphasizes, is maintaining a firm editorial firewall. Mongabay, not its funders, identifies the underreported issues it wants to cover and then seeks philanthropic support to make that reporting possible. Through its special reporting projects, donors can choose to support a theme, such as illegal wildlife trade…This article was originally published on Mongabay
The currency of impact: Why nonprofit models might be the future of serious journalism
