D.C.-based Homicide Watch is one of the often pointed to examples of how a hyperlocal journalism start-up can plug coverage holes and make a difference, even in big cities with plenty of journalists already there. It covers murder in D.C. in a unique and ambitious way, from the ground up, which takes time to collect data and eyes to watch for mentions in social media.

But, the creators can’t sustain the project (founder Laura Amico is taking a one-year, out-of-area fellowship), and there’s no other local news partner that stepped up yet to take over. So they’re soliciting $40,000 in donations via Kickstarter to keep it alive. But right now, they’re just shy of $25,000, with only about a week to go.

Unless the public picks up the tick on donations — which will go to fund students who could do the work (and learn a lot) — the two-year-old start-up covering homicides in the U.S. Capital could itself die — or at the least go on a hiatus while Amico’s gone.

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“I believe in justice,” reads today’s top comment on the “community-driven reporting project” Homicide Watch D.C. The comment, featured prominently on the front page of the site, comes from a woman whose mother is one of the many homicide victims found each year in Washington D.C. Those four words are especially poignant, and speak to the thesis of the entire Homicide Watch project: giving a voice to the families of victims whose murders may otherwise go unreported and unsolved.

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