2026 Accelerator Insights: Latine Voices for Democracy

Local news is reshaping how Latine communities access information at a pace few outlets are equipped to navigate. Nearly nine in ten Hispanic adults now get news from digital devices, and 65% prefer digital platforms to television, radio, or print, according to Pew Research. Yet for community-focused newsrooms and creators, earning and keeping attention in this environment demands a level of platform fluency, production capacity, and audience insight that small teams often cannot afford on their own.

The Latine Voices for Democracy Accelerator was built to close that gap. Now in its second iteration, the program is run by New Media Ventures and New Rising Ventures with support from Valiente Fund, the Eva Longoria Foundation, and individual donors. Over seven months, it brought together ten Latine-led newsrooms and content creators from across the South and Southwest, the first program of its kind to place creators and newsrooms together in a single cohort as peers. Two partners were central to that work: the Latino Media Consortium, which focused on sustainability strategy and community-rooted storytelling, and Indiegraf, which brought analytical rigor and taught participants to understand their own data and test what actually worked.

Our analysis of participants' progress reveals a cohort that moved from uncertainty to confidence. At the start of the program, six in ten participants felt overwhelmed by the challenge of securing funding, and only one felt confident in their organization's financial sustainability. By the end, 80% rated their funding confidence a 4 or 5 out of 5, with no participant falling below a 3, and the cohort collectively secured more than $500K in new funding from funders including the MacArthur Foundation, the Eva Longoria Foundation, and the Listening Post Collective. Operational capacity grew as well, if modestly: average contractor support rose from two to three per organization, while 90% of participants adopted AI or analytics tools, 100% implemented new revenue models, and 70% formed new partnerships. Audience growth was strong across platforms, particularly on Facebook (+140%) and Instagram (+89%), but the more significant shift was in mindset, as participants moved beyond follower counts to ask sharper questions about whether their content was driving action, being shared, and reaching the people who needed it most.

Despite operating with limited staff and resources, participants delivered outsized wins. Arizona Luminaria, weighing an acquisition offer from a majority white-led organization, chose to remain independent, crediting the accelerator with the confidence and strategic clarity to make that call. NotiVisión Georgia closed two long-pursued advertiser contracts, a sign of newly built credibility in its local market. Creator Heidy Torres emerged from the program with plans to launch HispanosUnidenses, a Spanish-language digital media venture built in collaboration with two other creators. And across the cohort, every participant launched or expanded civic engagement work, from bilingual voter guides to WhatsApp networks countering misinformation in real time, laying the groundwork for platform-specific strategies ahead of the 2026 midterms.

"Being in a cohort with other Latine-led outlets and creators sharpened our sense of responsibility," said Maritza Felix of Conecta Arizona. "We left more aware of how much misinformation targets our communities and how powerful trusted messengers can be when they explain issues in our own language and cultural context." Heidy Torres reflected on a similar shift: "I no longer question whether a high-impact, progressive, bilingual digital media company for Latino audiences is achievable. I know it is."

The accelerator's results point to a broader opportunity: Latine-led newsrooms and creators are building the trusted, community-rooted infrastructure that democracy depends on, often with minimal resources and without the sustained investment needed to scale. The question is whether funders and partners will meet this moment with the capital and support these leaders need, or allow the gap between well-resourced and under-resourced newsrooms to widen heading into a critical election year.

Read more of our report on our 2026 Latine Voices for Democracy accelerator here. The report is authored by Abigail Leung, Carlos Salinas, Inbar Soffer Sharon, with contributions by Jessica Salinas and Phillip Sanders.