A shared future for Mparntwe Alice Springs
When the Centralian Advocate closed during COVID, Alice Springs lost more than its only local newspaper; it lost one of the vital threads connecting the town’s disparate communities. Crucial local stories were suddenly left untold and undocumented, leaving ‘Alice’ without a unified voice or a platform for civic conversation.
Worried about the impact this was having on the town’s already tenuously connected communities, a small group of locals, led by local businesswoman and social investor, Libby Prell, embarked on the mission to attract a new newspaper – one that would tell local stories and foster a sense of cohesion and connection in the process.
Of course, getting a new newspaper for the town would require money. But that would just be the first hurdle. If you wanted to attract the newspaper, with confidence it would be sustainable, the group knew they needed to also secure something even more elusive: ongoing community support.
After a lot of brainstorming, including talks with independent publishing experts, and very positive discussions with an independent country newspaper operator (The Today Group) that small group of locals came up with an innovative solution: they would establish a community foundation to drive positive change for the community in perpetuity, with the newspaper being a key part of the strategy. The foundation would commit to a page of advertising each week, providing the critical threshold support to the paper. A win-win!
With guidance from Community Foundations Australia, the Mparntwe Alice Springs Community Foundation – the first community foundation in the Northern Territory – was established in May 2023.
After setting up their board and establishing a valuable partnership with the Foundation for Rural Regional Renewal (FRRR), the foundation held its first successful fundraiser. Nine weeks later the Centralian Today was launched. In each weekly edition of the paper, the foundation features positive stories to encourage, support and amplify community action – to ‘build a stronger community for a shared future’.
Establishing a new newspaper obviously comes with its share of challenges – there are editorial visions to establish, journalists to source, and distribution deals to negotiate, all of which are the responsibility of the newspaper operators. However, according to John Huigen, executive director of the Mparntwe Alice Springs Community Foundation (MASCF), setting up the not-for-profit that helped make the paper possible was a smooth process, thanks to the work of Community Foundations Australia.
“They were great,” he says. “I knew of Community Foundations Australia, and I knew they had a structure we could work with. What I didn’t know was just how much love, support and encouragement I would get. But that is what we got.”
Drawing on the resources of the community foundation network, Huigen and co were able to create a robust and legally compliant organisation to attract and distribute funds – both for the newspaper, as well as other community-strengthening projects to create their shared vision.
“Supporting the newspaper is the flagship for the foundation,” Huigen says. “It’s what we will build on and around in terms of community development. And [in the short amount of time since its launch] we’ve already received such positive support and seen local giving spark positivity in the town.”
The anecdotal evidence of the paper’s impact is impressive. But the foundation is determined to get scientific. To accurately measure the paper’s effectiveness, the foundation has enlisted Deakin University’s Professor Kristy Hess to conduct a research project looking at the paper’s effect on the town. It’s just one of the ways the foundation is committed to bringing “trust and transparency to the work we’re doing by measuring its impact.”
While Huigen admits that it’s still early days, he says, “now that the paper is set up, we can turn our attention to other areas of community development required in the town.”
We encourage anyone interested in the Mparntwe Alice Springs Community Foundation’s work to reach out to John via the foundation email ed@mascf.org.
For information or resources about establishing your own foundation, or creating partnerships with others contact info@cfaustralia.org.au.