""From 2022 through 2024, 357 LION Publishers members participated in a program that aimed to help local news outlets at any stage of growth "move the needle on sustainability." The process included assessments, coaching, recommendations, and funding. LION has since transitioned it to a self-service assessment, but between hundreds of audits, thousands of hours of coaching, hundreds of funding requests, nearly 100 follow-up reports, and feedback from program participants over the first three years, LION had a rich set of data to mine for a sense of what interventions and metrics matter most to newsroom sustainability.""
""Having dedicated staff to generate revenue was transformational to an organization's chances of sustainability." The report's authors found that organizations with revenue generation staff had median revenue "700% higher than those without." In early-stage startups, "having the founder/leader dedicating a significant amount of time to revenue efforts creates the foundation for this caliber of success.""
""What separates a "developing" from a "stable" organization"? There's a strong correlation with "the milestone of having three or greater established revenue streams.""
From 2022 through 2024, 357 LION Publishers members joined a program offering assessments, coaching, recommendations, and funding to improve newsroom sustainability. LION collected hundreds of audits, thousands of coaching hours, hundreds of funding requests, nearly 100 follow-up reports, and participant feedback, then analyzed the data with Impact Architects to produce a roadmap for local news sustainability with concrete steps for different growth stages. Organizations with dedicated revenue staff showed median revenue roughly 700% higher, and founder-led revenue work in startups established strong foundations. Achieving three or more established revenue streams strongly correlates with organizational stability. Sustainability is measured by operational resilience, financial health, and journalistic impact via 21 key indicators.
Read at Nieman Lab
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