Sunlight Research Center expands support for local news investigations with catalytic investment

New York, NY, May 2, 2025

The Sunlight Research Center is pleased to announce that it is expanding its capacity to support high-impact investigative reporting in local newsrooms across the United States.

This increased effort will allow for growth in newsroom partnerships, additional workshop opportunities, and access to Sunlight’s research help desk — a service designed to assist local journalists with investigative and accountability reporting and research.

In 2024, with support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation and the Knight Foundation’s Knight Election Hub, and in partnership with MuckRock, Sunlight provided in-depth candidate backgrounding training to more than 200 journalists from nearly 90 newsrooms. Recognizing newsroom interest and demand, the Knight Election Hub also funded Sunlight’s research help desk, allowing newsrooms to request and receive in-depth research support. This included tracking campaign finance data, analyzing expenditures and mapping connections that helped newsrooms publish election stories that would have otherwise gone untold.  

Building on those successes, Sunlight launched a membership program to serve 14 nonprofit local newsrooms in 2025. Each newsroom receives customized investigative assistance from the Sunlight Research Desk, monthly hands-on workshops from industry experts, access to Sunlight’s online library of reporting tools and real-time assistance through its growing online community of practice. 

In addition to support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation and the Knight Foundation, Sunlight has secured a two-year grant from Arnold Ventures, which will support a deeper impact on local investigative journalism through expanded membership offerings. This will provide more local newsrooms with the critical capacity to produce in-depth, accountability-driven reporting that builds community trust and inspires change. 

"This funding arrives at a critical moment for local journalism," said Brandi Swicegood, co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Research Center. "As local newsrooms continue to face resource constraints, our work helps ensure they can still deliver investigative reporting that holds power to account and serves their communities at this vital point in our country’s history."

Sunlight’s mission is to ensure that local newsrooms have access to the investigative research support they need to hold power to account.

Newsrooms and other organizations interested in partnering with Sunlight should contact Brandi Swicegood at brandi@sunlightresearch.net.

About Sunlight Research Center:

Sunlight Research Center is a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan journalism support organization that equips newsrooms to provide their communities with fact-based, transparent investigative journalism that holds power to account. It provides a research help desk, reporting workshops and resources, and nurtures peer-to-peer support.

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