News Match is back! The team at INN Labs is gearing up to help participating organizations take advantage of this unique and impactful opportunity.

Thanks to an investment from Knight Foundation, INN Labs is developing two WordPress plugins to help INN members strengthen their audience engagement efforts and improve their donation campaigns to take advantage of News Match, a fundraising campaign designed to strengthen nonprofit journalism across the United States.

The two plugins we're developing will implement best practices recommended by the News Revenue Hub.

The first plugin, an add-on for the popular Popup Maker, automatically generates a popup that follows the Hub’s recommendations for user-friendly newsletter sign-up forms. These popups are minimal, responsive, and effective for growing your newsletter subscribers. Once the plugin is installed, you can then edit the popup with campaign messaging and branding elements for your organization.

The second plugin creates a donation form compatible with the Hub’s Salesforce-Stripe connector, similar to the donation form on Oklahoma Watch or the Rivard Report. The donation form allows for either button or drop-down styled membership level selections, and you can use it multiple times on a single page, which is great for explaining membership levels to your donors. On the back-end, the plugin allows you to define the membership levels and associated messaging for your organization.

We are expecting to release initial versions of both plugins in the next week and will continue to add additional features and improvements throughout the coming months. Additionally, our team will be publishing a series of blog posts dedicated to providing important technology-related News Match information. Be on the lookout for plugin release announcements, how-tos for configuring donation forms, best practices for user experience design, and advice on maximizing Google Analytics for donation campaigns.

Get in Touch

We understand that every organization’s needs are different. If you're part of a participating organization and could use some help getting started with News Match, send us an email or join us for Office Hours, and we’ll be happy to provide individual recommendations for maximizing your campaign.

And as always, make sure to keep an eye on Nerd Alert, our weekly newsletter, for events, tips, and other resources to help you get the most out of News Match. (You can sign up here if you're not subscribed already!)