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Chicago's Nonprofit Media Tests Community-Run Local Platform

Local media operators weighing community-moderated audience products can watch the chicago.com pilot's growth and costs.

Updated on Nov. 2, 2026 in Media

Bold flat-color vector editorial illustration of five rectilinear neighborhood blocks of varying heights in a shallow arc, joined at their bases by a thin continuous band.
Chicago Public Media soft-launched chicago.com on October 7 in five communities, testing a local platform with paid resident moderators running neighbor forums and weekly newsletters. AI Illustration. Upload story photo >

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Chicago Public Media soft-launched chicago.com, a pilot local-community platform, on October 7, 2026, in five communities: Avondale, Bronzeville, Edgewater/Andersonville, South Shore, and Evanston. The platform offers an events calendar, user-generated guides, neighbor forums, and weekly newsletters, a model that could shape how local media operators approach audience engagement.

Why it matters

The pilot reflects a broader push by Chicago Public Media, which owns the Sun-Times and WBEZ, to build a sustainable local audience after acquiring the Sun-Times and converting it to nonprofit status in 2022. The platform aims to offer a non-toxic alternative to for-profit social media for civic discourse, a stated goal that reflects a bet on community-anchored engagement over ad-driven feeds.

The pilot covers five communities, and more than 4,000 people joined waitlists beforehand. Chicago Public Media has not released user counts or budget figures, so the platform's scale against its investment cannot yet be measured.

The players

Chicago Public Media

Nonprofit media organization that owns the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ and is building chicago.com as a local-engagement platform.

Chicago Community Trust

Philanthropic foundation serving the Chicago region that gifted the inactive chicago.com domain to Chicago Public Media.

New_Public

Tech nonprofit that partnered with Chicago Public Media to pilot the chicago.com launch.

The details

Each pilot community gets an events calendar, user-generated guides, a neighbor forum, and a weekly newsletter curated by a local steward. A paid local resident moderates each forum, a staffing choice that ties platform quality to a named community role rather than unmoderated volume. The platform also curates headlines from the Sun-Times, WBEZ, and other news sources, positioning it as a local aggregation hub as well as a community space.

Timeline

  1. 2022: Chicago Public Media acquired the Sun-Times and converted it to nonprofit status.

  2. 2024: Layoffs largely affecting WBEZ staff and programming took place.

  3. 2025: The Sun-Times cut 20% of its news staff through buyouts.

  4. October 7, 2026: Chicago.com soft-launched as a pilot platform.

  5. Spring or summer 2027: Chicago.com expects to add more communities.

Market Landscape

Chicago Public Media's pilot follows its 2022 acquisition and nonprofit conversion of the Sun-Times, a move that tied its local news operations to philanthropic and membership funding. The platform's stated rejection of for-profit social media models places it in contrast to the ad-driven platforms that have displaced local news audiences over the past decade.

Local media operators should watch how community-moderated platforms and paid stewards perform against ad-driven alternatives, particularly for audience growth and staffing costs. Chicago Public Media's projection of near break-even finances for 2026 is a useful benchmark for nonprofit local-news budgeting.

The takeaway

Local publishers considering community-based products should model staffing, moderation, and membership costs before scaling beyond a pilot. Track whether Chicago.com's planned expansion next spring or summer reaches its projected break-even point, since that outcome will indicate whether the model is viable for other markets.

What happens next

Chicago.com expects to add more communities in spring or summer 2027, and Chicago Public Media plans to hire a permanent general manager for the platform.

Further reading

For context on how local outlets are reshaping their business models, explore the Media coverage on We are Main Street.

Source note: This article includes information reported by Chicago Sun-Times.

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