The Guardian pushes hard to find profitable model for online news

The U.K. publisher of The Guardian announced that they have launched a new non-profit, at theguardian.org, to raise money from people and foundations to support its journalism. The non-profit has raised $1 million in grants since it was quietly founded late last year, from groups including the Skoll Foundation to support coverage of climate change, Humanity United to cover slavery and Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to support reporting on early childhood development. That’s part of $6 million the non-profit has raised in the past year in multiyear commitments.

The Guardian has an unusual structure in that it’s owned by the non-profit Scott Trust, whose investments help fund The Guardian’s journalism, but as advertising revenue growth has been challenged, the newspaper has looked to other sources of revenue, such as individual memberships, reader contributions and philanthropy. The Guardian’s philanthropic fundraising arm is a team of four that has doubled in the past year and is looking to add another full-time fundraiser.