Welcome to the Local Fix. Each week we look at key debates in journalism sustainability and community engagement through the lens of local news. 

🎉  We’ve got something special to share with you today. 🎉 

This morning we relaunched the Local News Lab website, a testing ground for the future of local journalism, collaboration and community engagement. Just like the Local Fix newsletter the Local News Lab is focused on providing concrete resources, creative ideas and doses of inspiration for anyone who cares about local news, community engagement and a healthy democracy.

The website originated with the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation as part of their pioneering work strengthening the local news ecosystem in New Jersey. That work was supported by the Knight Foundation and Democracy Fund. As we relaunch the site we look forward to continuing to work with Dodge and Knight as well as other partners.

The website has been totally redesigned from the ground up. We can’t wait for you to explore it, and we’d love your help spreading the word about it. Here are three good places to get started:

1. Local News Lab Guides: Launching today along with the site are three guides offering concrete advice to help newsrooms develop new revenue models.
2. Dive into a topic of your choice from community engagement to business models to philanthropy.
3. Lessons from the Local News Lab: Building a More Connected and Collaborative News Ecosystem – A report on the first 18 months of experiments undertaken by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
4. Finally, you can also follow the Local News Lab on Twitter. 

Help us celebrate the relaunch by sharing the site with your networks. 

👀  As you explore the Local News Lab, please let us know what you think. 📢  We are in the early stages of this work and our highest aspiration is for the site to be useful to you.

We welcome you input and invite your partnership as we move forward. 

Have a good weekend,
Josh and Teresa
@jcstearns, @gteresa

The Local Fix is a project of the Democracy Fund’s Public Square Program, which invests in innovations and institutions that are reinventing local media and expanding the public square. Disclosure: Some projects mentioned in this newsletter may be funded by Democracy Fund, you can find a full list of the organizations we support on our website.