Late last year, journalists at The New Bedford Light, a community news outlet in Massachusetts, covered plans for $1 billion in renovations at the city's aging school buildings. Because of the nonprofit news outlet’s reporting, the next school committee meeting was packed with citizens, says Lean Camara, chief executive officer of the Light.

That’s just one of the examples Camara can point to that show how the Light’s reporting has directly led to more civic engagement in the coastal city.

“It’s giving people the info they need to be engaged, however they want to be engaged, and we hear that a lot,” she says. The news outlet covers several issues of concern to the community — including immigration, the offshore wind industry and the city’s arts and culture — and has raised $6.4 million s

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