Impact Statement
May 2024

What's Possible in Five Years

Celebrating milestones and team contributions

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This May we celebrate with you The Center Square’s fifth anniversary.

Your generosity empowers us to hire and maintain an exceptional team of leaders in nonprofit journalism. Because of you, our staff at Franklin News Foundation has expanded to include not only award-winning reporters and editors, but also team members who have improved our user experience and built new products for our ever-growing audience.

This month, we honor some individuals who’ve played key roles in the past five years’ growth.

Kate Guenther’s eye for detail and design helped relaunch the digital image of The Center Square, Chalkboard News, and many other Franklin brand websites. Focusing on the user experience, Kate coupled her skills in graphic design and troubleshooting to drive the layout, aesthetics, and function of TheCenterSquare.com – putting you the reader at the center through:

  • A mobile-friendly design, easily accessible on any device
  • A new navigational menu to find the news that matters most to you
  • A simplified newsletter signup page
  • A new section with recommended stories, offering related content you might enjoy

These new features on TheCenterSquare.com come in great thanks to Kate, as well as the readers who shared their time and feedback to improve this product.

Chalkboard News began in the summer of 2023 with the goal of bringing clarity to otherwise controversial topics that mainstream news obscures or presents in a partisan light.

Every day, Brendan Clarey and his team produce stories on public K-12 education that answer real families’ and educators’ practical concerns– such as student safety, shifts in curriculum, and transparency.

“These issues matter to real people who are impacted every day by the schools in their area, so shining a light on what’s broken and asking the tough questions always feels worth the work.” - Brendan Clarey

These stories are available at ChalkboardNews.com and delivered weekly to our educationfocused newsletter. Sign up today at chalkboardnews.com/newsletter or listen to the weekly podcast “Education in Focus.”

As the assistant general manager of our audio, Eliana Kernodle not only helps produce audio content like “Education in Focus,” she also helped launch The Center Square Radio Hour: a 50-minute program packaging up the hot-topic issues of the week and delivering them, for free, to readers just like you.

Eliana works with The Center Square editorial team to develop a weekly script and run of show, delivering you an audible roundup of the stories that affect you, your family, and your local community.

The Center Square Radio Hour is available to listeners for free every Friday at noon ET on Spotify. This show is also available for radio, airing in a growing number of states around the country. This expanded programming brings more Americans around the country the news they need, in a digestible, convenient manner.

Download the Impact Statement
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