About Us
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InvestigateWest offers a new nonprofit model for journalism that enriches our community.
We invest in original reporting — on public health, the environment, and government accountability — and produce powerful stories with a clear bearing on public policy.
By partnering with commercial media and public broadcasters, we create new opportunities for individuals and teams of journalists to take on ambitious reporting assignments and learn new skills.
As a mission-driven organization, we strengthen communities, engage citizens in civic life, and help set the policy agenda in the Northwest by producing powerful, independent investigative and explanatory journalism.
How we work
InvestigateWest was founded in 2009 after the close of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. Ever since, we have worked to establish a nonprofit model for public-service journalism where none existed before, publishing dozens of stories every year that reach an audience of millions.
We publish original reporting and tools here on our website that equip the public to participate in our democracy and allow other news outlets to pursue consequential journalism. Our partner network includes The New York Times, KING 5 Television, KUOW Public Radio, The Portland Tribune, Seattle Weekly, KCTS Television, and many, many more.
The case for support
For a century, nearly all the original reporting in the U.S. happened at newspapers. Then starting in 2008, an estimated $4 billion disappeared from newsroom payrolls — including more than 1,500 newspaper jobs in the Pacific Northwest.
Against that backdrop InvestigateWest is pioneering a powerful new studio model to educate and equip the public on consequential issues. We participate in bold ideas, like crowdfunding statehouse reporting, to create a new market for investigative journalism and we are asking for public investment to help us grow.
InvestigateWest’s revenue comes from foundation grants, news partners, and individual philanthropy. Over 120 members provide essential financial support for our journalism each year.
Impact and awards
Since 2009, InvestigateWest's journalism has directly led to a healthier, safer and more transparent Pacific Northwest, including two first-in-the-nation state laws to protect the environment and workers' health.
See some of the ways our journalism has made an impact »
Our journalism has also won dozens state, regional and national journalism awards since we began publishing. Our work and our staff have been honored for exceptional reporting, technical innovation, and creative storytelling.
Forests and the Economy | May 2015
After the Wars, Common Ground
Environmentalists and the timber industry — once bitter adversaries — are working as allies on forest restoration. Collaborative forest thinning projects aim to fight megafires before they start — but money is scarce and tens of thousands of acres acres in Oregon now face an elevated risk of catastrophic fire. Ben DeJarnette reports for InvestigateWest.
Equity | April 2015
Home Sweet Portland?
Cash reigns in the Portland housing market. The city faces pressure from a new kind of speculation, as investors buy thousands of homes with cash and long-established protections for bank-financed homebuyers are ignored. Lee van der Voo and James Gordon report for InvestigateWest.
Wealth and Poverty | March 2015
After 10-Year Plan, more homeless than ever in Seattle
March 2015 marks the anniversary of a bold promise: King County's 10-year plan to end homelessness. Now that the 10-year plan is ending and local homelessness is worse than ever, talk of ending homelessness is being replaced with less-lofty aspirations: making homelessness rare and brief when it does occur.
In collaboration with KUOW this week, we examine the roots of the plan, the challenges it faced, and where community and city leaders think we go from here.
Equal Justice | December 2014
Grand jury reform propelled by Ferguson
With grand jury reform elsewhere focused on eliminating racial bias and curbing police use of force, Oregon is an outlier: It is one of just 14 states that do not regularly record the citizen grand juries that charge people with felonies.
Almost five years after police killed an unarmed black man in Portland and the Multnomah Co. district attorney petitioned for that grand jury to be recorded, lawmakers in Salem are lining up behind a reform bill to mandate recording statewide, InvestigateWest has learned.
Seafood | December 2014
Food fight pits iconic halibut against exports, fast food
A struggle in Alaska over shrinking supplies of halibut is threatening the iconic centerpiece fish in favor of cheaper exports, fast-food fillets and fish sticks.
At risk is most of the frozen supply that sustains restaurants, food-service companies and retail stores nationwide, such as Costco and Whole Foods. Lee van der Voo investigates.
Photo: Peter Haley / The News Tribune
Environment | November 2014
How government and Boeing fought to curtail Duwamish River cleanup
It will take hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up the Duwamish River. But how clean is clean? And who decides?
Robert McClure looks at how lobbyists and community groups have squared off over the health of the waterway and its neighborhoods.
Photo: Paul Joseph Brown/ecosystemphoto.com
Trafficking | October 2014
Gangs taking over Northwest child sex trade, say authorities
Authorities say organized gangs increasingly are trafficking children for sex in the Northwest, and even cooperating with each other to stymie police.
Meanwhile in Portland, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has become the third most prolific nationally in securing indictments for trafficking children and adults for sex.
Photo: Oregon DOT/Flickr
Minimum Wage | August 2014
Washington struggles to help workers collect millions in stolen wages
"Everyone is aware that passing a $15 an hour minimum wage was historic," an advisor to Mayor Ed Murray and the Seattle City Council told InvestigateWest. "But if we cannot enforce that, we haven't accomplished much."
Based on a review of more than 20,000 wage theft complaints, hundreds of pages of reports and more than a dozen interviews, "Stolen Wages" shines a light on the dark world of pay violations in Seattle and across Washington.
Infrastructure | May 2014
Inside the Box: The Price of Portable Classrooms
Portable, modular or relocatable classrooms — whatever you call them — are a necessity for cash-strapped schools.
But many portables become permanent fixtures, in place for decades at a time. Costly and insufficient, these aging structures burden the grid, frustrate teachers and administrators and compromise student health.
Environment | April 2014
Smoke and Numbers: Inside Green Claims for Burning Wood
Energizing our world with wood sounds so natural. And it has quickly become a multibillion-dollar industry as governments including British Columbia and the European Union turn to biomass to replace dirty old coal. Yet what we found when we dug into the coal-vs.-wood debate will surprise you.
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Acknowledgements
In our work, we rely on the generosity of many others who make their services available for free or at a discount to nonprofits, including Tableau and the Texas A&M GeoServices Team.