Jacksonville Today sees outsized results with Nextdoor

Jacksonville Today is a nonprofit local news outlet serving Jacksonville, FL and the four surrounding counties. Jacksonville Today joined Nextdoor in mid-March 2025 through its membership in the (Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), a nonprofit, nonpartisan news network. The INN Network includes more than 500 independent publisher members, 70% of which have Nextdoor News accounts. Jacksonville Today helps Northeast Florida residents stay informed and engaged through its nonpartisan, unbiased, audience-driven local reporting, a daily newsletter, and free resources. 

Why Nextdoor News

Jacksonville Today created its News Account to reach new local audiences, drive newsletter subscriptions, and observe local conversations about their news stories. Jacksonville Today wanted a low-lift solution that would be easy for their small team to manage. After just three months on the platform, Jacksonville Today has seen an outsized impact from Nextdoor across the board. Over a 30-day period, Nextdoor was a top 10 referral source for jaxtoday.org site views, the third highest organic source of newsletter signups, and a top source of engaging conversations, with many posts generating 30+ comments. Read on to learn more.

Jacksonville Today’s Nextdoor News Profile Page

Jacksonville Today’s goals

Jacksonville Today’s goals for its Nextdoor News account were to:

• Increase awareness of local news coverage among Nextdoor's hyper-local audience
• Gain meaningful consistent results in newsletter signups from the traffic directed to their website from Nextdoor
• Gather insights from the community dialogue in the story comments 

How Jacksonville Today uses Nextdoor

Jacksonville Today actively utilizes several Nextdoor News features, including:

• RSS feed feature, which automatically distributes news stories to the right communities. Ease of use and simplicity were important to Jacksonville Today as a small publication, and the RSS feed made it easy to keep things running with minimal staff time. 
• Comment threads, which have enabled Jacksonville Today to see direct dialogue between their community members about local stories. Observing these conversations gives Jacksonville Today valuable feedback about their reporting and ideas for potential news stories.  
• Publisher dashboard and UTM tracking, which have both helped Jacksonville Today track their performance metrics and measure the impact of Nextdoor.

Jacksonville Today’s Nextdoor News account publisher dashboard

Jacksonville Today Nextdoor News post 

What Jacksonville Today achieved

In the 30-day period from June 10 - July 10, Nextdoor was responsible for:

• Over 5,000 views as a referral source (making Nextdoor a top ten referral source)
• 143 newsletter subscribers (making Nextdoor the third highest organic source of newsletters signups, just below direct website traffic and search referrals)
• Outsized engagement on posts (compared to other social platforms), including one article with 50+ comments, and eight others with at least 30 comments. 

Jacksonville Today Nextdoor News post detail view with comments

Final thoughts

Pete Havens, Director of Revenue and Business Management for Jacksonville Today attests that “Since joining Nextdoor in March, Jacksonville Today has seen steady growth in followers on the platform, quality community engagement on our posts, as well as a large source of newsletter signups from the clickthrough traffic we receive at jaxtoday.org from Nextdoor. The RSS-feed auto post feature was simple to set up and has been easy to manage. Nextdoor News is a no-brainer.” 

Indeed, “Local news organizations need more pathways to build relationships with the communities they serve, and that means being an active part of the places where people discuss local issues,” said Sam Cholke, Manager of Distribution and Audience Growth at INN. “We're thrilled to see dedicated local outlets like Jacksonville Today find success in ways that we hope others can follow.”

Ready to reach your local community?

Create your free Nextdoor News account and engage with real, verified neighbors not found on other social platforms, drive local traffic to your site, and enjoy big rewards with little effort. Reach out to newshelp@nextdoor.com if you need any support getting started.