A new report from Carnegie UK Trust is encouraging funders to focus on hyper-local news projects

Funders should encourage local news projects to apply for development grants in a bid to promote community engagement and local democracy.

The Carnegie UK Trust has made the recommendation in a report into its £50,000 Neighbourhood News project, which supported five community news projects across the UK, including the Digital Sentinel in Edinburgh’s Westerhailes.

The report, The Future’s Bright – The Future’s Local, also calls on funders to make clear that community support schemes, such as the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All, can support communities that want to invest in hyper-local websites as a community asset.

The report examines the success of the five projects, which each received £10,000 to develop local news outlets.

It found that motivating and inspiring volunteer input from the local community was key to each of the Neighbourhood News projects. Each project had volunteers contributing at least as much time and expertise as paid staff.

The report also found that the “substantial personal efforts” made to the projects were motived by altruism, philanthropy and a desire to either deliver professional journalism expertise in their local neighbourhood or to suppler local news as a form of community work.

However, the overall success of the projects often did depend on professional input.

“Throughout Neighbourhood News, we found that people with the trade craft of journalism or publishing or with years of informal publishing experience added a huge amount to each partner,” said Douglas White, head of advocacy at Carnegie UK Trust.

“Funders looking to support future projects should give due precedent to initiatives where there someone with these skills is close to the heart of the project – the presence of someone with relevant professional experience, whether pro bono or paid, will generally add a substantial amount and contribute to a more successful project.”

The Digital Sentinel in Westerhailes was the only Scottish project. The website was set up to replace the old print Westerhailes Sentinel, which folded several years ago.

Between June and August this year the Sentinel saw 2,200 visits to its site and 5,836 page views.

The report stated: “In recent months, the Digital Sentinel has delivered some exemplary local civic reporting on proposals to redevelop a local park using video, obtaining quotes from local representatives, links to local campaign groups and the establishment of an evidence trail.”

The project has now secured funding for a new community reporter post.