By Deborah Caldwell | CEO & Publisher, Religion News Service
Dear all,
As the new year approaches, we want to give you an overview of the work of Religion News Foundation (RNF) and Religion News Service (RNS) during 2021.
This year has been a time of great growth for us. Our editorial team is working hard every day to bring readers like you important stories about religion from across the globe. Our journalism is regularly cited by such media outlets as The New York Times, The Washington Post, People, USA Today, The Dallas Morning News, The Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, CNN, and far beyond. Our team grew to include new full-time journalists and columnists; we launched a fellowship program with Interfaith Youth Core; and we created a student internship program with Columbia Journalism School and the Institute for Nonprofit News. Our podcast about two young evangelical women living in New York, “Saved by the City,” continues to build an audience and receive positive reviews.
Our business operations are also moving forward. We brought aboard a development director, Karen Paul, and launched a membership program. We relaunched our wire subscription offering and continue to provide a press release service. Our website hosts the “Religion Hub,” a one-stop shop for religion coverage by RNS, the Associated Press, and The Conversation. This year we also began sharing RNS archival images, digitized and owned by the Presbyterian Historical Society, on our new Instagram account (@rns.at.phs), adding to our suite of social media feeds.
We continue to look for more ways to engage with our audience and bring in new readers. For example, we now offer public photo submissions and improved website commenting to allow readers to engage in conversation with us.
And we remain grateful for the continuing support of Lilly Endowment, Inc., the Guru Krupa Foundation, and the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. We are grateful for our many partners, including the Associated Press, The Conversation U.S., News Revenue Hub, the Institute for Nonprofit News, Columbia Journalism School, the Association of Religion Data Archives, the Presbyterian Historical Society, Interfaith Youth Core, Public Religion Research Institute, Sacred Writes, and others.
In the last two months, we have begun an intensive strategic period and are looking ahead at exciting new growth opportunities in the new year. We can’t wait to share these projects with you when they launch!
As always, I remain very grateful to our generous donors. These successes in our nonprofit newsroom wouldn’t be possible without you.
Best,
Deborah Caldwell
CEO & Publisher, Religion News Service
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