Lookout Santa Cruz celebrates its fifth anniversary of service to the people of Santa Cruz County. We've delivered on our promise to revive robust, trustworthy daily local news coverage and now reach almost half of the adults in the county every month. And we’re still growing every week.

But we want to do more as we prepare for what will be a challenging 2026.

Now, we double down on our commitment, with three new programs to extend our impact. We appreciate your support. Membership is the primary way to show that support, and here you can add to it.

Here, we outline three new programs, all of which multiply the impact of our hard-working newsroom team. That team, now 10 full-time, is intended to grow to 12, and your support helps get it there. Seventy percent of our expenses go to paying our people, people who bring you news around the clock.

Please check out our three new programs and donate where you see appropriate.

All contributions are tax-deductible.

Our community-building initiatives:

Lookout for Teachers: We’ve built a well-used Lookout in the Classroom program throughout the county since our beginning. Almost 200 teachers now teach media literacy (and civics) using Lookout’s trustworthy, nonpartisan local news with their students. Now we intend to extend that program, as we are able to fund it, to all high school and middle school teachers in the county. The new Lookout for Teachers initiative does that. Lookout for Teachers does two things: (1) Rolls out Lookout in the Classroom as quickly as possible beginning fall 2025 all across Santa Cruz County’s 10 school districts, giving students the local knowledge they need at this critical time; (2) Provides free, philanthropically paid access for all of Santa Cruz County’s 800 high school and middle school teachers. It’s a two-fer: Students benefit greatly, and overworked, underpaid teachers get full membership access to Lookout’s trustworthy local news – and a thank-you from all of us for their dedicated work.
The Changemaker Fund: The impact of our accountability reporting in Santa Cruz County grows each month, and we’ve captured it here. Help us dedicate more staff and time to our watchdog role in covering power and decision-making at every level in the county, as we plan to add new impact reporting resources in 2026. You can help speed it along.

Lookout en Español: Since early 2025, we’ve begun publishing an increasing number of near-real-time stories in Spanish, as the times demand that everyone gets the news of the day they need and deserve. Now we plan to make as much of Lookout bilingual as soon as we can, as 2026 takes flight.

Please support these vital new programs; your support is tax-deductible.

You may make your gift securely online by hitting the donate button or by sending a check made out to our nonprofit partner, Local Media Foundation. Checks should include “The Lookout Santa Cruz Support Fund” on the memo line. Checks can be mailed to:

Local Media Foundation
P.O. Box 85015
Chicago, IL 60689-5033

For any questions, please contact:

Ken Doctor, Founder & CEO of Lookout Local: ken@lookoutlocal.com

Thank you for getting this essential community initiative up and going strong!