With initial goal met, The Spokesman-Review starts ownership shift from Cowles to nonprofit

May 12-The nonprofit slated to take ownership of The Spokesman-Review announced Wednesday it met its initial fundraising goal, triggering a monthslong transition period that will move the paper's nearly 140-year ownership by the Cowles family to a community-operated news organization.

Rob Curley, founder of the Comma Community Journalism Lab, announced the organization has raised $1 million cash and more than $1 million in committed donations. Curley is also the paper's executive editor, a role he's held for 10 years.

The fundraising benchmark is enough to trigger a transition period, at the end of which the Cowles family will pass along ownership of the 143-year-old newspaper to Comma and match community donations with their own $2 million check. Newspaper publisher Stacey Cowles will sit on the nonprofit's 11-person board of directors, which includes Curley.

"A family has taken care of this newspaper for 140 years, how do we take care of it for the next 140 years?" Curley asked a sold-out audience of event attendees there to see Shelby Van Pelt, the best selling author of "Remarkably Bright Creatures."

The transition period will last at least 90 days, Curley and Cowles estimate, though there's still a list of business issues to work out in that time frame, such as software integration, transfer of employee benefits and onboarding, Cowles said.

"Certainly there's a lot of paperwork to be done, and we want to make sure we're making good on our promise that the transition will be seamless for employees," Cowles said.

While at The Spokesman-Review, Curley has relied in part on philanthropy to fund some operations in the newsroom. By absorbing ownership of the paper, donations and grants become a third funding stream the nonprofit can lean on in addition to traditional newspaper funding mechanisms advertising and subscriptions.

Cowles expects, by becoming a nonprofit, the newspaper could bring in $800,000 to $2 million in additional revenue each year through philanthropy. That's around 10% to 15% of the newspaper's typical revenue, Cowles said.

"It's crucial, because it's money that will pay for special projects and experimentation, that will get us new readers, money that we wouldn't otherwise be able to spend," Cowles said.

Bill Simer, chairman of the Comma board and active member on several other nonprofit boards around Spokane, said he's confident the philanthropic revenue stream can help sustain the paper, eyeing successes with the Spokane Symphony that he said are bigger than one may expect for a midsized city like Spokane. Simer was president of the Spokane Symphony Society from 2003 to 2005.

"We have that because of public support," Simer said. "This community really gets behind things, and I think that is translatable to the nonprofit."

The inclusion of donations from readers effectively transfers The Spokesman-Review from "a community newspaper" to "the community's newspaper," Curley said.

Both Cowles and Curley said they would keep employees and readers updated as the newspaper transitions. Curley implored readers to "start helping us make some decisions" at Tuesday's book club event.

"If this is about to be a community-owned newspaper, what do we want in it? What are the things that we wish we could cover?" he asked the audience.

For donors Ron and Debbie Reed, who've given the nonprofit more than $50,000, it's about preserving the paper for future generations. Debbie Reed grew up in Spokane where she said the newspaper was always an institution. Even now, her family gets excited to see their name printed along with other donors. A thriving local newspaper is vital for documenting government actions and essential in democracy itself, Ron Reed said.

"That's the reason, is because we all need it," he said. "Our democracy needs it. Our nation needs it. Our people need it. Our kids and our grandchildren need it."

"And great grandchildren," Debbie added.

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This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 11:41 PM.