How AI Helped Local Newsrooms Save Time and Drive Results in Year-End Fundraising

By Maggie Cogar, Ph.D., consultant for American Journalism Project’s Product & AI Studio and Startups Studio

At the end of 2024, local nonprofit newsrooms faced the same challenge they do at the end of every year – launching effective year-end fundraising campaigns with limited time and resources. For 15 publishers, however, an AI experiment launched by BlueLena led to higher conversion rates and more than a hundred hours of saved time.

BlueLena, a journalism support organization providing audience development and revenue solutions for publishers, introduced an AI-assisted campaign model that combined Large Language Model (LLM) prompting with human editorial oversight. The goal: to generate high-converting, publication-specific email fundraising campaigns — without exhausting newsroom resources.

The result was a 62.5% higher conversion rate compared to generic templated campaigns in the same timeframe the year before, and over 150 hours of saved time across the participating publishers.

A Tailored Approach to AI

Rather than rely solely on generic templates, BlueLena’s team developed detailed prompts based on each publication’s mission, past reporting, staff bios, and goals. They then used AI to produce drafts, which were edited by human experts for accuracy and tone. In total, the process required just three hours per publisher — a fraction of the typical 13-hour workload for custom campaigns.

Amy Duncan, publisher of the Indianola Independent Advocate, said she was initially skeptical of AI’s ability to reflect her newsroom’s voice but was “shocked” by the results. 

“Traditionally, I spend hours rewriting and tweaking our end-of-year campaign, so I had serious reservations about an AI-generated option,” she said. “I was pleasantly shocked. The campaign came back sounding like us, but fresh, and we had by far the best audience response since we started year-end campaigns. I was thrilled with both the campaign and the response.”

The Human-AI Collaboration

BlueLena emphasized that this was not a case of machine replacing human judgment — rather, AI was used as part of the newsroom workflow. The whole process was a collaboration. 

Hayley Roberts, marketing and business development marketer at Issue Media Group, emphasized the need for balance between AI as part of the workflow and human oversight.

“Quality, accurate content still needs a human touch, but AI assistance in getting a large-volume campaign off the ground was invaluable,” she said. “As any professional writer knows, getting to a first draft – or a first sentence – is often the hardest part. While it’s still incumbent upon a knowledgeable, detail-oriented human to bring the effort home, AI lets us start on second or third base.”

That sentiment was echoed by multiple publishers who praised the efficiency and direction the AI drafts provided. 

“It’s almost always better to start by editing content instead of facing a blank screen,” Naomi O’Donnell, former audience engagement specialist at The Beacon, said.

Promising AI-Assisted Results

The AI-assisted campaigns outperformed the expectations of most publishers. Bill Smith, publisher at Evanston Now, said membership increased year over year. 

“We gained roughly four times as many new subscriptions during December 2024 as we’d done during December 2023, when we were also running a year-end campaign,” he said.

Others also pointed out the strategic benefits of freeing up staff time. 

“Our staff is so focused on the day-to-day work… it was helpful to have others read our plans and fundraising material to make sure they were effective,” Joe O’Connor, managing editor of the Mountain Journal, said.

Another positive result of the AI-assisted campaign drafts was how personalized the messaging felt.

“With Blue Lena’s help, the AI-assisted drafts we used in our EOY campaign felt much more localized and ‘personalized’ to the publication than the templates we’d used in the past,” Jimmy Boegle, publisher and executive editor of the Reno News & Review, said.

Room to Grow / Space to Evolve

Despite the overall success, publishers also offered thoughtful critiques. Several noted that AI-generated content, while efficient, sometimes lacked emotional depth or personalization. 

“I think any AI-assisted campaign (for now) needs an injection of human-centered emotion/story, to try to stand apart from the danger of reversion to the mean, such that everyone’s media donation campaigns start to sound the same. I want to be sure we use the personal touches (which we did to some extent by highlighting some specific coverage), but maybe ramp it up even more,” said Jeff Howland of Midcoast Villager.

Tara Kenny, production team leader at The Martha’s Vineyard Times, added “a little more customization” could improve the AI outputs and lead to even more effective campaign messaging.

Looking Ahead

With measurable improvements in efficiency and results, the AI-assisted campaigns signaled a promising shift for resource-strapped newsrooms. As AI tools evolve and newsrooms continue to explore hybrid approaches, the results from the 2024 campaign have inspired further testing and experimentation.

This year, BlueLena has teamed up with the American Journalism Project’s Product & AI Studio to continue this work, hoping to refine the AI process and replicate similar results among AJP’s cohort of newsrooms.

“We continue to test and refine AI assistants to help publishers grow their reader revenue and audience engagement, through nimble experimentation, both small and large scale,” said Christine Holbert, publisher strategist for BlueLena. “We’re looking forward to creating processes that can be translated across news organizations for increased efficiency and capacity.”

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Maggie Cogar is a consultant working with the American Journalism Project’s Product & AI Studio and Startups Studio.

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About BlueLena

BlueLena is a strategy consulting and audience management platform founded in 2020 to support the sustainability of independent local media. By combining cutting-edge technology with expert-driven services, BlueLena helps over 250 news organizations across North America develop and manage subscription, membership, and donation models. Its unique shared-resource management approach provides publishers, regardless of size, with access to enterprise-level tools and personalized support, enabling them to focus on high-quality journalism while building loyal, revenue-generating audiences. 

BlueLena is majority employee-owned, and backed by investors including Automattic (the parent company of WordPress), Local Media Association, and Old Town Media.