CONTACT:
Nancy West
Executive Editor
New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism
603-738-5635
nancywestnews@gmail.com
The New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism, which publishes InDepthNH.org, has received a $20,000 grant from the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation to support our Coos County news reporting.
Since InDepthNH.org launched in 2015, we recognized the important need for Coos County to be included in our news coverage. Our reporters – particularly Paula Tracy, Garry Rayno, Nancy West and Damien Fisher along with our columnists, include Coos County, the North Country and other regions of the state that have little or no State House coverage or investigative reporting in all we do.
Most recently Paula Tracy broke the story about the new owners of the 145,000-acre Connecticut Lakes Headwaters tract’s plan to reduce logging to sell carbon credits instead, a shift that may change a way of life for many in Coos County.
Because she also covers the Executive Council and the governor, Tracy was able to question the decision makers in Concord about the project and make sure the voices of people in Coos County are heard in the halls of power. Tracy has already reported more than a dozen stories about the controversial project and will continue to make sure Coos County stories are told by the most experienced reporters in the state.
Tracy, West and Fisher have been honored by the New Hampshire Press Association for investigative reporting. Tracy, West and Rayno have all been awarded Lifetime Achievement Awards.
InDepthNH.org also recently won a national INNY Award from the Institute for Nonprofit News as Community Champion for our in-depth coverage of PFAS, the dangerous forever chemical, which is a potential problem across the state.
The New England First Amendment Coalition honored West with the Michael Donoghue Freedom of Information Award for her work bootstrapping and growing the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism.
Bob Charest, a founder and nine-year volunteer for the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism, said: “Nancy and I have always believed that the area North of the Notches in New Hampshire has seen its share of hardships over the past several decades, including the loss of jobs and population, as well as the closing of the Balsams and threats to its logging heritage, so anything we at InDepthNH.org do to make their issues known is something we take seriously. The North Country has lost many important voices over the years, including representation at the Statehouse, and recently, the closing of a very important newspaper in Colebrook. My hope is that we continue to do the good work of telling their stories.”
Major Collaborations
The New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism’s goal is to help save local news. To that end, we are about to announce our latest project that will allow all news outlets to republish our original reporting for free.
We have been experimenting for several months with the best way to make this happen.
The Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund has always been special to InDepthNH.org as it provided us a $50,000 grant in 2015 that helped get our unbiased nonprofit news off the ground.
That grant helped provide the best coverage in the state of the Northern Pass project and other issues that impacted the whole state and Coos County specifically ever since.
According to its website, philanthropist Neil Tillotson’s philosophy was simple: “Be humble, be creative and be kind.”
“When he passed away in 2001 at 102, he left the bulk of his assets for charitable purposes. His wife Louise established the donor-advised Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund at the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation in 2006. The fund is one of the largest permanent rural philanthropies in the country. It is guided by a local advisory committee and distributes more than $3.5 million annually. Since 2006, more than $41 million has been awarded to organizations in Coös County and surrounding regions.
“It was a bold strike. And it was an act of creativity and kindness for a region that needed both. The vision of the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund is to serve as a resource for the people of Coös County and neighboring communities in New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and southern Québec to forge their own pathways to well-being and cultivate a region that thrives.”
I personally learned a great deal about the Tillotsons from my friend, the late John Harrigan, who was also a great friend of InDepthNH.org. Harrigan wrote a column for the first years we were publishing for free. It was called “The View from Above the Notches.” You can read them here.
We are grateful to the Tillotsons and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, which is also allowing us to use this money as a Local Match during NewsMatch, our annual major fundraiser so any donation up to $1,000 will be matched up to $20,000 during November and December.
This year we are hoping to raise $100,000 in Local Matches so stay tuned to InDepthNH.org for more information about how you can help. Join Friends of InDepthNH.org on Zoom Oct. 22 at 6 p.m. for free. Sign up here.
About the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation
The New Hampshire Charitable Foundation is New Hampshire’s statewide community foundation, founded in 1962 by and for the people of New Hampshire. We are the place where generosity meets the dedication and ingenuity of nonprofits and the potential of New Hampshire students. For six decades, thousands of people have entrusted their charitable resources to the Foundation, creating a perpetual source of philanthropic capital and making it possible for the Foundation to award more than $60 million in grants and scholarships every year. For more information, please visit www.nhcf.org or call 603-225-6641.
