As an independent, civic news organization, we rely on the generous support of individual donors and foundations to power our journalism for West Virginians. When you make a gift to Mountain State Spotlight, your money goes toward paying our Charleston-based staff and ensuring our reporters have the support they need to do in-depth reporting about issues in our state.

To date, we’re proud to have raised money from more than 900 supporters — both in West Virginia and around the U.S. and world — who champion our mission and believe in the power of local accountability journalism. 

As an organization, we are committed to transparency regarding disclosing our major donors, corporate sponsors, and foundation support. Here are our 990 tax returns for 2020 and 2021. Below is a list of our major funders from March 1, 2020 through Dec. 31, 2022.

Foundations/Institutional supporters  

American Journalism Project

Arnold Ventures 

Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation 

A donation sent anonymously from the Community Foundation of Louisville

Emerson Collective

The Ford Foundation

Galloway Family Foundation

The Henry Kimelman Family Foundation 

Inasmuch Foundation

Miller-Wehrle Family Foundation 

The Paul J. Nyden Family Fund for Social Justice

ProPublica

Report for America

States Newsroom

Major individual donors

Sarah and Ben Bailey Family Fund

Stuart Calwell

Martha and Will Carter

Brian Glasser

Bill Bishop & Julia Ardery

Greg Moore

Appalachian Mountain Advocates, in memory of Sean McGinley

Alexis Pugh

Katy White

A view near Seneca Rocks, West Virginia. Photo by Quenton King.

We also offer our work for free to media outlets around West Virginia, and we’re thrilled to count these organizations among our publishing partners:

100 Days in Appalachia

The Barbour Democrat

Beckley Register-Herald

The Doddridge Independent

Grant County Press

Hinton News

The Journal

The Mineral Daily News-Tribune

The Monroe Watchman

My Buckhannon

The Observer

Point Pleasant Register

The Pocahontas Times

The Record Delta

Ritchie Gazette

Spencer News-Record

The Spirit of Jefferson

The Times West Virginian

WDTV

The Welch News

The West Virginian

West Virginia Daily News

West Virginia Public Broadcasting