Insight into the Texas Tribune's success, from Nieman Lab

The Texas Tribune stands out in the nonprofit digital media landscape, continuing to expand with help from multiple funding resources. This organization has raised almost $27 million between a mix of grants, crowdfunding, and other sources.

In recent Nieman Lab profile of the Texas Tribune, Justin Ellis painted a picture of a site that warrants study for its ability to become sustainable.

Help for local open data, open government: Code for America

Gaining real perspective on local issues requires digging for that gritty, raw data. When gathering information to cover local beats or issues, access to government data helps -- but it's not always easy.

A breakdown of the Publishers' Toolbox from Knight Lab

Knight Project Lab's Publishers' Toolbox offers five different, swift assets for telling multimedia stories. A site editor can access the toolbox to create interactive story timelines and maps, inline audio and content comparisons, and also offers a new way to search Twitter.

You don't need a deep understanding of code to use these tools. The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, and many other major media outlets are already using them as part of their web packages, and they're just as accessible to independent digital publishers.

Journalism education in the digital age: new edition of Knight resource

Last week at the Online News Association conference, the Knight Foundation debuted the second edition of Searchlights and Sunglasses, a free digital resource for journalism education education in the digital age.

Comment platforms: How to choose one for your news site

Audience engagement is vital to keeping any community news site alive and well, and comments on stories are an immediate way to collect the reactions from your readers and meet them on issues they care about. These platforms can create strategy roadblocks for some news organizations for a number of reasons.

Localizing the police militarization story

How many assault rifles does your local police force have? What about night vision equipment? One interactive graphic from the NYTimes answers these questions by letting you peer into the extensive military gear catalog of police in almost every U.S. county. 

Tools for mobile community engagement

In July, media consultant Amy Gahran spoke to local funders in Portland, Ore. about engaging local communities via mobile devices. Below are the tools she recommended for such efforts.

Mobile-friendly e-mail advice from Mailchimp

E-mail newsletters and alerts are one of the most common communication tools used by local funders, local nonprofits, and community news venues. An estimated 50-70% of e-mails are opened on mobile devices. Making your e-mails mobile friendly is an easy way to enhance engagement and improve open rates.Mailchimp, a popular service for sending and managing e-mail newsletters and e-mail lists, offers a guide to e-mail on mobile devices.

Motivating, measuring civic engagement: Archived webinar

A recording of this week's KDMC webinar on civic engagement is now available online. Joy Mayer, associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, explained how to measure the impact of mission-driven community work.

How Storyful connects social media users to news orgs

A big hurdle facing news organizations that want to source content from social media users is the ability to verify information. Storyful attempts to override digital mistrust.