As mainstream newspapers struggle with decreased circulation and staff cuts, nonprofit news-media outlets are stepping in to fill the void, reports The Christian Science Monitor.

Several nonprofit news efforts have started recently, typically relying on foundations, individuals, and advertising to support their budgets. Perhaps the best financed new effort in nonprofit journalism is ProPublica, in New York, which is led by Paul Steiger, former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal.

The Voice of San Diego, a three-year-old online newspaper, was “created to fill a gap” in media coverage, says Scott Lewis, the Voice’s executive director.

Like many of the nonprofit media outlets, The Voice focuses its coverage on issues that are not covered in mainstream papers that are worried about increasing circulation and revenue. The newspaper provides “the best coverage of city politics that we’ve had in years,” according to Dean Nelson, a journalism professor at San Diego’s Point Loma Nazarene University.

See The Chronicle’s article on the growth of nonprofit news efforts.