As the ad spending outlook remains dim, the not-for-profit model for news organizations is likely to continue gaining adherents even as established media organs struggle as well. The latest to give the model a try is an as-yet-unnamed initiative starting to take form in San Francisco with a $5 million initial grant from investor F. Warren Hellman, the NYT reports. The work of the Bay Area News Project, as it’s known for the moment, will be done by Northern California public radio KQED-FM’s 28-person news staff alongside 120 students from the University of California, Berkeley’s graduate school of journalism.

On the new project’s FAQ, the founders say that that the region once had 900 reporters covering the news there. That number is now about 500, they claim. While the stated aim of the news project is to reinvigorate the journalistic culture of San Francisco, Hellman, who is one half of the PE firm Hellman & Friedman, tells the NYT that that it might further squeeze the troubled San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News. Hellman: “I think that demise might be inevitable, anyway. This might put journalism, broadly defined, on a much more stable foundation.”

Hellman doesn’t say how many journalists the project plans to hire, but it is currently seeking applications. And once it gets up and running, the backers plan to appeal to other philanthropists to get it past phase two.

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