Maynard Institute Ignites 'Fire Up' to Fuel California Local News

OAKLAND, CA – April 09, 2026 – In a significant move to bolster California's struggling local news sector, the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education has launched the Fire Up Entrepreneurship Program. The initiative, part of the broader California Propel Local News Initiative, aims to equip journalism entrepreneurs with the funding, training, and mentorship necessary to build sustainable and resilient news organizations.

Selected organizations will receive a $20,000 grant and participate in a rigorous seven-month accelerator designed to address core business challenges. The program comes at a critical time for the state's media landscape, offering a strategic intervention for outlets striving to serve their communities in an era of economic uncertainty.

A Lifeline in a Challenging Landscape

The Fire Up program enters a field marked by both peril and promise. Since 2005, California has lost approximately one-third of its newsrooms, creating vast "news deserts" where residents lack access to reliable local information. This decline in coverage threatens civic engagement and community cohesion. Yet, amid this erosion, a 2024 study revealed that public trust in local news organizations has surged to 74%, indicating a strong public appetite for credible, community-focused reporting.

It is this gap that the Maynard Institute seeks to fill. The Fire Up program is designed as a direct response to the sustainability crisis, moving beyond temporary fixes to instill long-term business acumen. Participants will work with experts to develop robust strategies across four key pillars: revenue generation, audience growth, product development, and community engagement. By focusing on these fundamentals, the program aims to help news organizations not only survive but thrive, transforming them into viable enterprises that can effectively serve their audiences for years to come.

More Than Money: A Model for Sustainable Business

While the $20,000 grants provide vital seed capital, the heart of the Fire Up program lies in its intensive, hands-on training model. The seven-month curriculum, which begins in July 2026, blends three multi-day in-person workshops with bi-monthly virtual sessions. This hybrid structure ensures deep, immersive learning while allowing entrepreneurs to continue running their day-to-day operations.

Underscoring its focus on profound organizational change, the program mandates a significant commitment. Each participating outlet must send two senior leaders—one with financial decision-making authority and another key decision-maker—to every session. This requirement ensures that the strategic insights gained are immediately integrated into the organization's core leadership and operational planning.

The program is led by a team of distinguished industry veterans. Maynard Institute Co-Executive Director Evelyn Hsu and Deputy Director Doris Truong, a former director at the Poynter Institute and editor at The Washington Post, will steer the initiative. They are joined by seasoned mentors including Fran Scarlett, a business strategist with an MBA from Harvard Business School and extensive experience coaching media accelerators for organizations like the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) and the Google News Initiative. This high-caliber leadership team provides participants with access to an elite level of expertise in media innovation and business strategy, mirroring successful accelerator models that have helped launch and scale new ventures across the country.

Forging an Inclusive and Representative Media

The Fire Up program is a natural extension of the Maynard Institute's 45-year mission to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in American journalism. For decades, the organization has worked to create better representation in newsrooms through pioneering programs like the Maynard 200 Fellowship, which cultivated the next generation of diverse media leaders, and Oakland Voices, which trains community residents in digital storytelling.

With Fire Up, the institute applies its foundational principles to the realm of entrepreneurship. By empowering a new cohort of media owners, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds or those dedicated to serving diverse communities, the program aims to build a more equitable media ecosystem from the ground up. This approach recognizes that true representation is not just about who reports the news, but also about who owns and directs the news organizations themselves. Fostering a new generation of diverse media entrepreneurs is a powerful strategy for ensuring that news coverage accurately reflects the rich complexity of all communities.

A Key Part of a Coordinated Statewide Strategy

Fire Up is not an isolated effort but a crucial component of the California Propel Local News Initiative, a large-scale, state-backed effort to revitalize the local news ecosystem. Bolstered by a $15 million allocation from the California state budget, the Propel Initiative represents one of the most significant public investments in journalism in the nation. It coordinates efforts with key partners including the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, California Black Media, and the Latino Media Collaborative.

This broader initiative also funds the California Local News Fellowship, which has already placed over 70 journalists in newsrooms across 39 counties, many in underserved areas. By providing intensive business training for entrepreneurs, the Fire Up program complements the fellowship's focus on bolstering reporting capacity. Together, these programs form a comprehensive, two-pronged strategy: infusing newsrooms with journalistic talent while simultaneously building the sustainable business models required to support them long-term.

Applications for the inaugural 2026 Fire Up cohort are due by 11:59 p.m. PDT on May 1, 2026. For California's journalism entrepreneurs, the program offers a rare and valuable opportunity to gain the strategic guidance, expert mentorship, and financial support needed to build the future of local news.