The 19th celebrated its fifth birthday yesterday. CEO Emily Ramshaw’s reflective post is quite lovely, but also announces a very bold strategy:

On our fifth anniversary, we’re launching our first-ever endowment campaign, with a goal of raising $20 million over the next three years to protect our financial sustainability indefinitely. We’re getting started with a leadership gift of $2 million from Cindy and Greg Kozmetsky in honor of Greg’s mother, Ronya Kozmetsky, who was a tireless advocate for women in business, for equal access to education and for democracy. In recognition of this gift and her legacy, The 19th is thrilled to establish the Ronya Kozmetsky Legacy Fund for Representative Journalism.

I think that’s pretty neat — a really radical approach to independence — and something that other non-profit newsrooms (like ProPublica, where I currently work) should take note of. It’s also something that I think other non-profits should think about; what would it look like to have a Fediverse endowment, for example?

I was its first-ever CTO, so I’ve also sort of got an inside view, albeit one that is now a year or two out of date. Not only is The 19th’s mission (to report at the intersection of gender, politics, and policy) very obviously more vital than ever before, but I have been very impressed with how the organization itself is run.

Although every organization has its frictions and growing pains (and my view in the senior leadership team was not necessarily the same as the perspective elsewhere in the org chart), it is one of the most intentional cultures I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of. While many organizations have coasted or allowed their culture to organically evolve without much design, I felt like the details at The 19th were connected, nurturing, and leagues above most American workplaces. I’ve often joked that the best American benefits packages just approximate European legal minimums, but this was the closest I’ve ever come in the US to hit that standard. That’s particularly important in a place that seeks to inclusively employ reporters from diverse communities.

All of which is to say: if you get a chance, you should support The 19th. And I dearly hope that more organizations in media, tech, and beyond follow its model.