NowKalamazoo
A nonprofit community news service for Kalamazoo County that shows up every Monday through Friday by email, built around a simple question: What do people here need to know to take part in local life?
- 1Useful, local, civic information
- 2Residents who know how to take part
- 3More people showing up, participating in civic life
- 4A community that values and supports local news
What it is
NowKalamazoo is a daily, email-first, nonprofit newsroom. It covers local government, civic life and the practical business of living here: what's happening, what's changing, who's deciding and how to have a say.
It's supported by donors and sponsors rather than paywalls, and it's operated by The Local Journalism Foundation of Kalamazoo County.
Why I work on it
More news gets published now than ever, and local news keeps declining anyway. I don't think the fix is only better supply. People also have to feel connected, capable and heard enough to want local information in the first place, and they need to know how to use it.
NowKalamazoo is where we're testing this idea. The goal isn't more stories. It's more residents who know where to show up and what to ask once they get there.
What's different
- A service, not a product. We start from the jobs residents need done (feeling connected to their community and knowing what's on the agenda around our county) and work backward to the journalism.
- Email first. It arrives where people already are, every morning, with no algorithm in between.
- Measured by civic outcomes. Opens and clicks matter less than whether someone found a connection and felt more capable through us. Repeat visits to the school board meeting matter more than repeat visits to our website.
- Neighborly on purpose. Useful and rigorous without being negative, elite or extractive. We're in constant conversation through email replies, text messages, and IRL gathering.
Check it out!
NowKalamazoo lives on its own site. This button takes you there.