Eight state and local independent journalism projects are seeking financial support through a coordinated package of crowdfunding campaigns launched recently by INN.

As of this writing (March 11), here is the status of each campaign.

• WyoFile: Health Care and Wind River's Children. Goal: $4000 (already exceeded, $4485 raised so far), ends April 1.
• InvestigateWest: Olympia Environmental News. Goal: $2500 (already exceeded, $2800 raised so far), ends March 17.
• Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation: Fixed Income. Goal: $5000, 41% raised so far, ends March 17.
• Florida Center for Investigative Reporting: In Florida, Climate Change Denial a State Policy. Goal: $1500, 10% funded so far, ends March 23.
• Oakland Local: Underground Economy: Investigating Survival. Goal: $5000, 3% funded so far, ends April 1.
• IowaWatch.org: Iowa's Brain Drain Problem. Goal: $800, 42% raised so far, ends April 1.
• TucsonSentinel.com: Checking the Checkpoints: Arizona's Border Patrol Sites. Goal: $1000, 5% raised so far, ends April 1.
• Tom Tresser (investigative journalist): Let's Illuminate Tax Increment Financing Districts. Goal: $2000, 1% raised so far, ends April 3.

Note that progress on the INN spotlight package varies widely. Two campaigns have already exceeded their goals, while others have gained little traction so far. This may reflect differences in how the individual campaigns are being promoted.

To aggregate these projects (with the intent to enhance visibility and cross-promotion to donors), INN is the first organization to use the new "Spotlight page" feature of Beacon Reader, a journalism-focused crowdfunding and publishing platform. While the projects in this Spotlight package are fairly small, last summer Beacon Reader raised a total of more than $100,000 for 10 climate and environment reporting projects.

According to Through the Cracks, Beacon's Spotlight pages "give organizations and advocacy groups the ability to showcase campaigns by members of their organization or projects they support." This option may be especially useful to a single news outlet crowdfunding several projects, or funders/supporters who wish to coordinate crowdfunding across several news outlets.

If you're unfamiliar with journalism crowdfunding, a good way to learn more is to participate as a donor for one or more projects, to experience how donor updates and other further engagement efforts work.

Beacon Reader builds on the conceptual legacy of Spot.us, a crowdfunding platform that helped many community news startups (such as Oakland Local.) Founded in 2008 with Knight support, Spot.us was purchased by America Public Media in 2011. Later, APM placed the platform on hiatus, and Spot.us closed last month.

Crowdfunding can be a viable source of revenue for news and community projects -- but success requires far more than merely tossing the collection hat onto a public platform. For best practices, see Fundable's Crowdfunding Guide.

Also this week, INN announced a name change. Formerly the Investigative News Network, INN is now the Institute for Nonprofit News reflects INN's commitment to "supporting and fostering the growing world of nonprofit journalism -- which includes but is not limited to investigative journalism."