A coalition of 22 foundations and journalism groups has announced a five-year, $500 million commitment to enhance local news reporting, close long-standing inequities in journalism coverage and practice, and bolster democracy and trust in American institutions.

The Press Forward initiative aims to strengthen communities by reversing the dramatic decline in local journalism and news reporting that has coincided with an increasingly divided America and weakening trust in institutions. According to initiative partner John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, since 2005, approximately 2,200 local newspapers have closed, resulting in 20 percent of Americans living in so-called “news deserts,” with little to no reliable coverage of important local events.

The initiative’s other partners include the Archewell, Ford, Mary W. Graham, Heising-Simons, Henry Luce, William and Flora Hewlett, John S. and James L. Knight, Joyce, Lumina, McKnight, Outrider, Rita Allen, Robert Wood Johnson, Skyline, and Alfred P. Sloan foundations, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln, Democracy Fund, Glen Nelson Center at American Public Media Group, KFF (formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation), and the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. The Miami Foundation will serve as the fiscal sponsor for Press Forward, manage a pooled fund, and coordinate aligned grantmaking on behalf of participating funders.

Press Forward eventually intends to raise and invest $1 billion for the effort, MacArthur Foundation president John Palfrey told the New York Times. The MacArthur and Knight foundations have each committed $150 million to the initiative, the Times reports. Carnegie announced it was contributing $5 million to the initiative. MacArthur will also invest $25 million in for-profit news-related businesses, and Knight has announced $15 million in additional funding that includes $7.2 million to the Tech Sustainability Initiative and $2 million each to CatchLight and the Tiny News Collective.

Press Forward’s partners will deploy resources to the field of local journalism and news reporting with greater coordination, moving beyond individual grantmaking strategies and aligning future support with a set of shared values that include: prioritizing transformation and expanding access to shared services and tools; centering community needs and strengthening community trust in local newsrooms; closing long-standing inequalities in coverage and practice and improving diversity of experience in staffing; ensuring accessibility to local news and civic information; and preserving the editorial independence of news-gathering organizations.

“We are prepared to support the strongest ideas and seed new ones; build powerful networks; and invest in people, organizations, and networks with substantial resources,” said Palfrey in a press release. “The philanthropic sector recognizes the need to strengthen American democracy and is beginning to see that progress on every other issue, from education and health care to criminal justice reform and climate change, is dependent on the public’s understanding of the facts.”

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