What happens when you give independent news publishers direct funding to help them build more sustainable businesses? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At LION, we awarded $1.8 million in operational funding to news publishers last year through programs like the LION-Meta Revenue Growth Fellowship<\/a>, the LION-GNI Sustainability Audits & Funding<\/a> program and the 2022 GNI Startups Labs<\/a>, and we can say at least two things with confidence:<\/p>\n\n\n\n To balance these distinct needs, LION provided direct funding to 160 publishers across our programs while also<\/em> delivering personalized coaching and training to help them learn the skills and implement the systems that would make their investments stick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s what we heard from participants in our GNI Startups Lab program on Managing Money and Risk about the value of the program, beyond the dollars themselves: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another insight from our 2022 programs is that publishers often make progress toward sustainability in small, incremental steps, with plenty of false starts and missteps along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As my colleague Lisa Heyamoto wrote in her Nieman Lab prediction<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s tempting to think that the growth path for an independent news organization is consistent and linear. But after analyzing nearly 150 organizations over the last two years through LION Publishers\u2019 Sustainability Audit<\/a> process, we\u2019ve seen this kind of \u201cif\/then\u201d thinking doesn\u2019t apply to the relative Wild West that is the independent news landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The goal of our programming in 2022 was to help our members navigate this \u201cWild West\u201d landscape and make strategic investments to put their businesses on more sustainable footing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are a few examples of what that journey looked like for participants in our LION-Meta Revenue Growth Fellowship<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nuestro Estado<\/a> founder Fernando Soto launched his Spanish-language publication in South Carolina like many LION members \u2013 as a solo founder trying to do everything at once. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He built the brand, reported the news, edited stories from freelancers, and posted on social, and when he could find the time, pitched to advertisers. But it was too much for one person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was overwhelmed,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought \u2018if only I could hire somebody, things would be different.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Revenue Growth Fellowship gave Soto that opportunity. The program helped Nuestro Estado and eleven other independent publishers<\/a> cover the cost of a revenue-focused hire for two years, and Soto used that funding to hire a business development manager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The hope was that adding a business lead would help Nuestro Estado pitch more sponsors and close more deals, while also freeing up Soto to spend more time on editorial work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But that plan didn\u2019t pan out. Despite the extra staffing, business leads never took off, and prospective sponsors that did enter the pipeline often wanted to deal with Soto directly, causing him to be stretched just as thin as before the hire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTelling our story just hits differently coming from me as the founder,\u201d Soto said. \u201cMy \u2018aha moment\u2019 was realizing that maybe I should take on that business work myself, even though it\u2019s outside my comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After hiring and parting ways with two business development managers in 10 months, Soto has realized that the path to a sustainable workload isn\u2019t just adding more capacity; it\u2019s adding the right<\/em> capacity \u2013 in this case, someone to help manage the editorial product so that he can focus on revenue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n RANGE Media<\/a> used its fellowship funding to hire an audience and membership editor in May 2022 \u2013 and when it launched its first membership drive a few months later, the early returns were modest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn all, we were shooting for 50 members,\u201d RANGE founder Luke Baumgarten. \u201cWe only had nine new members after five days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What happened next is why LION talks so much about these three pillars of news business sustainability<\/a> \u2013 and how they intersect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the span of two weeks, RANGE published some of its most impactful reporting of the year, including breaking news about anti-abortion laws<\/a> and election interference<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That enterprising journalism combined<\/em> with the work RANGE had already done to market its membership program and strengthen its conversion funnel led to big results. By the end of the campaign, RANGE had added 80 new members, beating its goal by more than 50 percent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe stories were the seeds, the marketing was the plough,\u201d Baumgarten said. \u201cWithout both, nothing is going to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, figuring out the right combination of investments to produce results is as much a strategic problem as it is a resources problem, and we heard from RGF participants that the personalized coaching they received helped them navigate these big decisions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s really good to have someone who\u2019s done this work before and can help identify what RANGE is uniquely good at, and what we\u2019re uniquely well positioned for,\u201d Baumgarten said. \u201cThat support has been really, really helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dallas Free Press<\/a> founder Keri Mitchell says she cried when she found out her newsroom had been selected for the LION-Meta Revenue Growth Fellowship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was scared shitless when we launched, I was so afraid,\u201d she says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t until we got the RGF invitation that I thought, \u2018OK, this is going to work out.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like other founders in the program, Mitchell hoped the new hire would help get most business work off her plate so she could focus on leading the editorial strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But like Soto, she learned that the organization\u2019s fundraising work wasn\u2019t something she could simply hand off, even to the most capable colleague. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy coach told me, \u2018You are not looking for the person who\u2019s going to sell, you\u2019re looking for the person who\u2019s going to provide structure and organization around the sales process \u2013 but you\u2019re still going to have to be the person making the sale,\u2019\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cThat was really bad news for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite Mitchell\u2019s reservations, she continued to play a large role in fundraising even after hiring a development director, and this new staffing model has already shown signs of success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2022, Dallas Free Press quadrupled its fundraising haul on North Texas Giving Day \u2013 from $5,000 to $21,000 \u2013 and Mitchell now expects to be able to pay herself a salary next year for the first time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, the challenge with this rapid growth is that Mitchell now has a much more complex organization to run, with multiple staff members and contributors to manage and a growing list of projects and deliverables to execute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mitchell recognized that she needed help keeping the organization on track, and she credits her decision to hire a fourth full-time employee<\/a> \u2013 an operations and programming manager \u2013 to the lessons she learned from the RGF program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe cohort helped me realize that we won\u2019t do our work well unless we have the right systems in place,\u201d she said. \u201cThe program\u2019s handbook and coaching gave us the guidance to know what we need to do [from an operations perspective], but we still needed a person to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking ahead, we believe LION\u2019s role in the local news ecosystem is to help independent publishers build and run stronger small businesses. Our challenge next year is figuring out how to do this work at scale, so that more LION members can succeed in and serve even more communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ll have more details to share about our 2023 programming soon, but in the meantime, you can get updates on our work and what we\u2019re learning by subscribing to LION\u2019s weekly industry newsletter<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Want to learn how to support our members next year?<\/strong> Drop us a note at hello@lionpublishers.com<\/a>, or email our executive director Chris Krewson<\/a> to learn more about funding opportunities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Money is important, but it’s not the only type of support our members tell us they need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":673,"featured_media":217065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[141,142,2],"tags":[],"coauthors":[176],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jamie-templeton-6gQjPGx1uQw-unsplash.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jamie-templeton-6gQjPGx1uQw-unsplash-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jamie-templeton-6gQjPGx1uQw-unsplash-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jamie-templeton-6gQjPGx1uQw-unsplash-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jamie-templeton-6gQjPGx1uQw-unsplash-1024x683.jpg",1024,683,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jamie-templeton-6gQjPGx1uQw-unsplash.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jamie-templeton-6gQjPGx1uQw-unsplash.jpg",1200,800,false]},"post_excerpt_stackable":" Money is important, but it’s not the only type of support our members tell us they need.<\/p>\n","category_list":"Announcements<\/a>, Member Spotlight<\/a>, News<\/a>","author_info":{"name":"Ben DeJarnette","url":"https:\/\/www.lionpublishers.com\/author\/bdejarnette\/"},"comments_num":"0 comments","yoast_head":"\n\n
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A solo founder finally gets to make their first hire <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A big investment in reader revenue pays off with a holistic approach<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A team grows faster than the operational foundation to support it<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s ahead for LION in 2023<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n