Seattle philanthropists give $250,000 to propel investigative reporting across the Pacific Northwest

At a moment when local news faces enormous challenges, two Seattle philanthropists, Lisa Mennet and Paul Joseph Brown, have stepped up to support hard-hitting investigative journalism that holds power to account, uplifts marginalized voices and sparks change across the Northwest.

The crisis confronting local news is impossible to overstate. Newspaper staffing has dropped 70 percent since 2005, with 2,500 papers disappearing altogether. Most of the outlets that remain are so-called ghost newsrooms, with bare-bones staff barely able to keep the lights on — let alone pursue expensive, time-consuming investigative projects.

The Seattle couple’s donation of $250,000 is their largest gift ever to InvestigateWest. In the previous four years, they have donated $100,000 or more annually to the nonprofit newsroom.

Meanwhile, InvestigateWest has grown rapidly — from one staff member in late 2021 to a dozen full-time employees (including eight reporters) today, with additional hires planned for 2025. The newsroom’s investigations have directly sparked more than a dozen new state laws in Washington, Oregon and Idaho and helped shape numerous other pieces of legislation.

“Lisa and I firmly believe that independent, watchdog journalism is essential to democracy, and mission-driven news organizations like InvestigateWest have a critical role to play,” said Paul Joseph Brown, a retired photojournalist. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for America, and we need all the hard-hitting investigative reporters we can get.”

InvestigateWest was founded in 2009, part of a pioneering group of news organizations created at that time to preserve public-service journalism through a nonprofit model relying on direct support from readers, charitable foundations and, crucially, local philanthropists like Mennet and Brown. There are now more than 400 news nonprofits across the country, building on the groundbreaking work of early trendsetters like InvestigateWest.

“Our work is only possible because of incredible supporters like Lisa and Paul, who believe in the power of the press to spotlight injustice and spur change,” said Jacob Fries, executive director of InvestigateWest. “Their generosity is fueling our ability to respond and to collaborate with news outlets across the region.”

InvestigateWest actively partners with newsrooms across the Northwest to expose important stories that would otherwise go untold. The organization hired a dedicated “collaborative investigative reporter” for Washington in 2024 and will be adding another role in Oregon in summer 2025.

To bolster InvestigateWest’s revelatory, community-centered reporting, donations can be made through its secure online portal. For more information, please contact Executive Director Jacob Fries at jacob@investigatewest.org or (509) 251-4500.