Project Optimist

Project Optimist produces trustworthy, local news to serve greater Minnesotans.

We provide a spark of hope in our weekly newsletters and in our solution-focused articles. 

Quadruple your donation today! 

We are members of INN, the Institute for Nonprofit News, which has raised matching funds for our end-of-year fundraiser. 

Your gifts will be matched three times thanks to support from the McKnight Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and the NewsMatch national fund. 

We also get a $1,000 bonus if we reach 50 new donors. Every size gift can help us reach this goal!

Project Optimist takes a different approach

We tell stories with YOUR INPUT. Stories that feature local problem solvers and community innovation. We host events across greater Minnesota to build community.

Join us and be part of the solution. 

$30 trains a volunteer to moderate a community dialogue.

$50 pays for an original photograph to illuminate a story.

$200 covers fact-checking on an original story.

About our journalism

Our articles are independently produced and fact-checked. For each of our original news stories, we go sentence by sentence, sometimes word by word, and check the sources behind our information. This raises the bar for all news outlets. Readers deserve facts that have been double checked. 

We specialize in solutions journalism. That's rigorous and evidence-based reporting on responses to problems. Not just coverage of problems. We also publish explanatory stories and media literacy content. We focus on environmental, business, and social issues. 

Our world needs Project Optimist

You may have noticed that Minnesota lost about a quarter of its newspapers in the last two decades. The number of people in journalism jobs in the state has declined 70%. That's fewer people reporting local news. And local news helps build community, features good news, and sheds light on important problems. 

Project Optimist is working to create a future for journalism directed by you and the rest of our community. 

All of us need information, and we need community cohesion to take on the big challenges of the day. 

Join us with a donation and be a problem solver. 

We hope to raise $12,000 before the end of the year to secure our matching funds and cover three months of solutions stories in 2026.

Your gift, of any size, will help us reach that goal.

And that makes you part of the solution.