“There’s a lot of great national world coverage, The Times included,” he added, “but sometimes what matters is: What’s the deal with the local dog park? How do you get a pothole fixed? And I’ve spent more than half my life in customer services, and the journalism equivalent of customer service is grass-roots journalism.”

Philanthropy has become a more common means of funding journalism in recent years, with outlets like The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news website that covers education in seven cities, all benefiting from the practice. And some of those outlets have made local journalism a priority.

In August, ProPublica announced that it was expanding its local reporting network, looking to fund projects on government accountability. Civil Media, a blockchain technology company that aims to help start 100 journalism outlets by the end of the year, has provided grants to newsrooms in Chicago, Denver and the Hudson Valley.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Lenfest Institute for Journalism recently announced a $20 million local media transformation fund, expanding the Table Stakes project, which helps accelerate the digital transformation of major metro newsrooms around the country.

The Knight Foundation and the Democracy Fund are contributing funding to the American Journalism Project, which aims to act as a venture philanthropy firm by providing grants and consulting to local news outlets throughout the country. The venture, still in its early stages, is run by John Thornton, founder of The Texas Tribune and a successful venture capitalist who also donated to The City and will sit on the board of directors, and Elizabeth Green, the founder of Chalkbeat.

“We want to mobilize a movement to support the local news our democracy deserves,” Ms. Green, who is on the advisory board for The City, said. “If we’re really going to give democracy the news it needs, many more local newsrooms need to be able to look like newsrooms.”

Ms. Green said she was excited to see a renewed interest in investing in local journalism. But rather than a return to the days when beat reporters competed for daily scoops, she expects to see more collaborative projects between nonprofit news organizations, she said.