About ELi

East Lansing Info, known as ELi, provides free, local, non-partisan, accurate news and information about East Lansing, Michigan, including reports on our city government, local public schools, businesses, economic and development initiatives, arts and culture events, sports, and more.

ELi is a non-profit, citizen-run, nonpartisan, local news cooperative of the people, by the people, and for the people of East Lansing, Michigan. We run on our readers’ financial support, and we are recognized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit by the IRS, which means that financial contributions to ELi are tax-deductible.

Who works for ELi?

You can read about ELi’s core staff at our “Meet the Staff” page, and you can read about the people who make up our Board of Directors at our “Meet the Board” page.

ELi’s team members are always working to promote communication among members of the greater East Lansing community, including across generations, across neighborhoods, and between long-term and short-term residents of our community.

We also seek to support local educational institutions, including the East Lansing Public Schools and Michigan State University, by providing paying, mentored opportunities for students to become reporters of local news and information. ELi treats all reporters equally regardless of age, educational background, or professional status.

How can you get news from ELi?

Our news is provided online free to all at this website. You never need to subscribe or give up personal information to us to read our news.

There are lots of ways to get updates from ELi when new reporting is published, and you can learn more about how to do that here.

How can you support ELi?

You can help us by telling people you know about our work and encouraging them to read our reporting and support us financially. To help us keep doing this work with a contribution, click here.

If you are not able to help us financially, keep reading anyway! Our service is centered on the ideal that those who can give more will do so, enabling all of us to get the news and information we all need, regardless of ability to pay.

What does it mean when we say ELi is independent?

ELi (East Lansing Info) is unaffiliated with local government, is non-profit, and is overseen by a volunteer Board of Directors. We retain full authority over what we publish, and we take very seriously our duty to the community to provide accurate, nonpartisan, factual news.

In keeping with the standards of the Institute for Nonprofit News, of which we are a proud member, our organization makes public which donors give a total of $5,000 or more per year on our Sponsors page. We will accept anonymous donations for general support only if it is clear that sufficient safeguards have been put into place that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization and in compliance with INN’s Membership Standards. No donations are anonymous to the Board of Directors (the Board of Directors can see all of our financial information, including all donors and donations). Unless a donor specifically requests to be anonymous and donates less than $500 per year, his or her name will be listed on our sponsors page.

We do not take donations from individuals seated on or running for East Lansing City Council, East Lansing Public Schools Board of Trustees, or a judgeship on the bench of the 54B District Court. We reserve the right to refuse donations from other individuals if we believe the donations could detract from our reputation as an independent, trustworthy, and reliable news source.

The Board reviews possible corporate sponsorships and will decline any that might cause us editorial or reputational difficulties. We do not publish any “sponsored content” or “native advertising.” We acknowledge our gratitude to our corporate sponsors by presenting their logos in certain parts of our productions. We do not accept any conventional advertisements.

We add conflict of interest disclosures to articles where there might be a perceived financial conflict of interest, and if a perceived financial conflict of interest might cause doubt about our legitimacy, we will not publish an article that involves such a conflict. We strive to not make news decisions on the basis of donor support, because we see our duty as being to the community as a whole.

ELi may consider donations to support the coverage of particular subject areas or topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.