2021 was a year of experiments and rapid growth for LION: We more than doubled the size of our revenue and our staff, gave out nearly $600K in direct funding to LION members through our programs, and now serve more than 400 members, an all-time high for LION.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This growth, which our annual report chronicles in more detail<\/a>, is a testament to aspiring entrepreneurs\u2019 growing interest in launching news businesses; existing publishers\u2019 early success in sustaining or growing their news businesses; and funders\u2019 interest in financially supporting independently-owned publications as a key part of the future of local news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2022 will be about us strengthening our team and maximizing impact for our members based on everything we\u2019ve learned. Because we value transparency<\/a>, we\u2019re sharing our five most ambitious goals, and some questions we\u2019re curious to explore over the next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A successful local news business is a sustainable one, and our hypothesis is that a sustainable business is operationally resilient, financially healthy and journalistically impactful. \u201cFoundational weaknesses in any one of these areas can cause the entire operation to (at best) underperform or (at worst) fall apart,\u201d as my colleagues wrote in this post<\/a> about how we think about sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year, we performed 50 Sustainability Audits, which used an intensive survey and interview process to dig into a business\u2019s operations, finances and journalism and help us better understand the path to sustainability for these organizations and the metrics we can use to measure their progress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This year, after learning from the data we collected, we\u2019ve simplified the data and process to focus on the most key components of sustainability. Our goal this year? To do 100 Sustainability Audits so we can identify who is building a sustainable local news business<\/a>. By doing that, we hope to answer other questions, like, \u201cHow might we set a new industry standard for what it means to be a sustainable independent news business and help our members get there?\u201d and \u201cHow might we make starting a news business an attractive and realistic opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every day, LION members are in the trenches running their businesses. And while some can make time to join a weeks-long cohort training program or an hour-long live webinar, many can\u2019t. Even for those who do, cohort burnout is real<\/a>. That\u2019s why we want to experiment with other ways of getting valuable training and professional development to our members on their time<\/em>. One way we plan to make trainings more accessible is through our soon-to-launch News Entrepreneur Academy, a members-only site that will offer asynchronous videos and resources on evergreen topics that members can access any time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ll also experiment with making our professional development more actionable by providing resources beyond written content and training videos. Those who participated in our programs last year repeatedly told us the biggest value was one-on-one time with business coaches and subject-area experts alongside funding. We want to build our network of coaches and consultants this year (reach out if you\u2019re interested<\/a>!), and we\u2019re fundraising to be able to offer modest but catalyzing funds for orgs that complete our training programs so they can effectively act on what they\u2019ve learned. This all points back to our hypothesis, as we wrote here<\/a>, that \u201csustainability is achieved through a series of small but impactful steps rather than big leaps.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do we mean by operational resilience? As my colleagues wrote<\/a>: \u201cWithout a company culture and systems, processes and policies designed to support staff and manage growth, news businesses will experience burnout among the very people whose talent and buy-in are critical to their success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While we\u2019ll continue to run programs that focus on revenue generation, our biggest learning from last year is that news organizations need a strong operational foundation before they can generate or spend revenue and become sustainable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s why we\u2019re launching a new Operational Readiness Series, which contains three programs: setting and tracking goals; managing risk and money; and growing and supporting a team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ll provide this resource asynchronously through our forthcoming News Entrepreneur Academy, which any of our 400+ members can access whenever they need it. And for organizations that want to more deeply engage with the content, we\u2019ll have a time-bound option for each program over the course of the year in which a limited number of participants will participate in synchronous kickoff and wrap-up sessions and receive one-on-one coaching and direct funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we wrote<\/a> in our recently revised values, \u201cWhile legacy newsrooms often haven\u2019t been welcoming or supportive to people from marginalized or underrepresented backgrounds, we believe it\u2019s our job to ensure the independent news industry is creating space for these leaders and voices to thrive.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our membership team is kicking off the year by scheduling time with LION members who identify as BIPOC or primarily serve BIPOC audiences so that we can better understand their specific challenges, areas of success, and critical needs as a news business or entrepreneur; what membership benefits they\u2019d find most valuable; and most importantly, how they\u2019d feel most welcome within the LION community. Reach out to our membership director Stephanie Snyder<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in being a part of those listening sessions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our goal this year is to find concrete, practical ways to incorporate our values into our high-level strategies and day-to-day operations. We wrote about how we plan to do this with our \u201cexpected behaviors<\/a>,\u201d and we\u2019ll be asking our staff, board members and LION members soon to tell us where we\u2019re excelling and where we can improve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n LION has evolved dramatically since we incorporated as a nonprofit, grew our team and expanded our membership. While we strive to center our members in our decision making, we know not everyone will like the direction we\u2019re taking LION. That\u2019s one reason these values are so important for us to articulate \u2013 we hope they give our stakeholders, especially our members, a clear sense of the standard we\u2019re using to build LION into the most useful organization it can be. It\u2019s our goal this year that staff, board members and LION members clearly understand what we stand for, and feel comfortable reaching out to us when we aren\u2019t meeting our values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The throughline of all these goals is one big question we\u2019re asking ourselves this year<\/strong>: How can we translate existing best practices for small businesses to a local, independent news context? That could include how small business associations function, financial tools and resources at their disposal, and best practices on how to run a small business. I\u2019m eager to learn from others inside and outside the journalism industry on this question, so reach out any time to chat<\/a>; I\u2019d love to hear from you. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2022 will be about us strengthening our team and maximizing impact for our members based on everything we\u2019ve learned. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":215600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[132,110,133],"coauthors":[175],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022-Post-Image.png",725,580,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022-Post-Image-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022-Post-Image-300x240.png",300,240,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022-Post-Image.png",725,580,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022-Post-Image.png",725,580,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022-Post-Image.png",725,580,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/2022-Post-Image.png",725,580,false]},"post_excerpt_stackable":"1. We want to be able to tell you who\u2019s built a successful local news business and how we can tell<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
2. We want professional development for independent news publishers to be easily accessible and actionable<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
3. We want every LION member to have the guidance they need to run an operationally resilient business.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
4. We want LION member organizations led by or primarily serving BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities to feel welcomed and supported in their specific needs by LION.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
5. We want a majority of LION staff, board members and members to believe LION is living up to its values as an organization<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n