Reports to: Executive Director

Location: Remote within USA

Compensation: $130-140K, eligible for benefits (see details below)

Job Summary

Over the past four years, LION has grown its membership by 168 percent and grown our ambitions in how we can best help our members’ news businesses reach sustainability. We recently published a Strategic Growth Plan that outlines these ambitions over the next five years, and the Development Director has an essential role to play in our fourth strategic goal: revenue diversification. 

The Development Director will be responsible for diversifying and growing LION’s revenue streams by designing and executing an individual donor program, in-person events strategy and logistics, overseeing marketing and branding, and providing strategic input on opportunities for mission-aligned earned income. This role will also collaborate with the Executive Director to design and execute strategy for multi-year institutional support, including increasing the number of institutional donors. 

The Development Director will join LION’s executive team, contributing to organizational strategy decisions that will help LION fulfill goals related to the sustainability of LION, including diversifying our revenue streams, making LION a destination for employees to grow as professionals, and building LION’s resilience with a scenario planning strategy.

Our team believes that relevant, accurate and culturally competent local news and information helps people fully engage in civic life, make more informed decisions and better understand the world around them. If you’re interested in helping us make this vision a reality and working in a space of optimism and growth, learn more about the job and how to apply below.

Key Responsibilities

Revenue Strategy and Operations (40%)

• Diversify LION’s revenue streams with a focus on institutional giving and diversifying our existing funders, and with a secondary strategy to increase our other revenue streams
• Support the Executive Director to set institutional donor strategy and manage the organization’s institutional donors, taking over some donor relationships over time
• Steward annual give/get gifts from Board Members
• Document fundraising pipeline and acknowledge gifts

Events Strategy and Operations (20%)

• Design and execute LION’s events strategy in service of LION’s revenue goals, supervising contracted project manager 
• Internally project manage all in-person events with a significant fundraising component
• Fundraise and sell sponsorships for our Independent News Sustainability Summit and explore other revenue-based opportunities that will leverage the event to the benefit of LION, its members and the local independent news industry

Marketing Strategy and Oversight (20%)

• Design and oversee LION’s marketing strategy to ensure external audiences understand what LION does and its impact on its members and the independent news industry
• Ensure consistency of branding across LION’s website, publications and collateral

People Management and Development (10%)

• Delegate workstreams effectively by setting clear, actionable goals for direct report(s) (marketing manager)
• Provide ongoing reinforcing and redirecting feedback to direct report(s)  to ensure that work product meets or exceeds expectations
• Actively monitor direct report(s)’  bandwidth and proactively collaborate with directs to adjust priorities and/or work product expectations to prevent burnout
• Align with direct report(s)  on their professional development goals, and hold directs accountable for making progress towards these goals throughout the year

Contribute to LION’s organizational strategy (10%)

• Collaborate with the executive leadership team to set LION’s vision and direction and organizational culture
• Collaborate with directors to plan for future staffing and capacity needs, while contributing to discussions on that growth and change’s impact on culture, systems and processes
• Attract, develop and retain development and marketing team’s talent by aligning strategy with a positive team culture while upholding the organization’s core values

Other duties as assigned.

LION is an Equal Opportunity Employer

LION believes that a team with diversity of backgrounds and experiences will generate the most innovative ideas and ultimately do the best work in support of our mission. This is why we welcome contractors, vendors, staff and board members who contribute to a diverse, equitable and inclusive work environment. We understand diversity as multi-dimensional and intersectional, encompassing aspects of our identities including race and ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, ability, class, geography, lived experiences and more. We welcome and encourage all qualified candidates to apply to opportunities at LION so that we build a team that reflects the diversity of independent news entrepreneurs we wish to serve.

We know there are great candidates who might not check all the boxes listed below or who possess important skills we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself. 

Skills and Qualifications for The Role

• Fundraising experience: Minimum 3 years’ direct experience with crafting fundraising materials, tracking pipeline status, managing donor relationships, etc. Familiarity with the journalism philanthropy space preferred but not required.
• Communication: Strategically designs and delivers highly impactful multi-mode communications tailored to specific audiences, driving engagement and achieving desired outcomes
• People Leadership:  Demonstrates strength in core leadership and management skills, including setting clear expectations, guiding and providing feedback and ensuring accountability of work deliverables in a constructive and inclusive way
• Planning and Prioritization: Takes a leadership role in managing complex workloads, guiding others in effective workload management and task prioritization, and continually refining work procedures to optimize time management and productivity
• Technical skills: Familiarity with fundraising software and tools to track progress throughout the year (Salesforce NPSP is a plus)

Skills and Expectations for Teamwork at LION

• Work in a way that upholds and reflects our organizational values: Being data-informed, equitable and inclusive, people-centered, systems thinkers, transparent and iterative
• Use digital tools and platforms to stay organized, communicate transparently, and collaborate with team members remotely 
• Collaborate strategically with others, clearly defining processes for decision making
• Give and receive constructive feedback to help the team produce its best work
• Celebrate our wins and learning moments
• Take on an experimental mindset and demonstrate flexibility to iterate on our work, systems, and processes 
• Be willing and able to ask for help when needed, and demonstrate an ability to learn and grow in the role

Physical Requirements and Environmental Conditions

• Must be able to remain in a stationary position, at a desk or similar, 90% of the time. Time spent in stationary location includes operating a computer and relevant peripherals and communicating via phone.

Travel Requirements

• Available to travel for staff retreats 1-2 times per year (approx. 3 days per retreat)
• Available to travel for annual LION member event annually (approx. 3 days)

About LION

Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit professional journalism association for independent news publishers. While most of our 500+ members across the U.S. and Canada run local news businesses, we also have members who serve larger regions and specific identity-based communities across geographies. LION provides teaching, resources and community to independent news entrepreneurs as they build and develop sustainable businesses. One of our core values is being people-centered, and here are some ways we build that culture for our staff. 

90 Day Introductory Period

The first 90 days of employment is a try-out time for the employee and the Company. During this introductory period, the Company will evaluate employees’ suitability for employment and employees can evaluate the Company as well. The purpose of the introductory period is to be intentional about setting clear goals for the employee to accomplish, prompting regular feedback and support from the employee’s manager, and providing structure for a candid conversation about whether either the employee or the manager believes there is a misalignment of the employee’s competencies with and interest in the role.

Benefits

• Medical PPO, Vision & Dental fully paid by employer; 50% paid for dependents
• Short-term disability, long-term disability, life, and worker’s compensation insurance paid by employer
• Flexible Spending Account and Dependent Care HSA
• Paid Time Off (including sick days) is 20 days per year 
• Paid holidays (including week of July 4 and Christmas Eve through New Years Day) is 17 days in 2024
• Up to 12 weeks fully paid family/caregiver leave
• 401K with employer match up to 3.5%
• Flexible working hours
• No-meeting Fridays
• Annual professional development budget
• Monthly work-from-home stipend
• For new hires: Health insurance stipend until eligible for employer medical coverage to begin
• Eligible for year-end, surplus-dependent bonus

Application Materials

Applications are now closed. 

• Your resume
• Online links to examples of marketing materials that you have created/edited (e.g. annual reports, appeals email)
• Answers to the following questions:
• Please review the Strategic Growth Plan linked in the full job description. What is one thing in the plan that excites you? What is one main question you have for us that would inform how you’d approach the Development Director role? 
• Briefly describe a time when you successfully developed an individual major donor relationship or ran an appeal campaign. What challenges did you face? What did you learn? 
• Briefly describe a time when you managed the logistics and execution of a successful in-person event with a significant fundraising component. How did you stay organized and collaborate successfully with your team, prospective audience, contractors and vendors? What challenges did you face? What did you learn?
• LION Publishers has a commitment to building a diverse community that is inclusive and welcoming of all members, particularly those who identify as coming from an underserved community, including publishers who identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a person of color and/or LGBTQIA+. How would you approach understanding the perspectives of LION members from diverse backgrounds in order to tailor messaging to current members, prospective members, and prospective funders?

If you have questions about this role, reach out to chriskrewson@lionpublishers.com to learn more.

The post LION is hiring a Development Director! appeared first on LION Publishers.

“It took me years to learn how to put together financial processes. I really struggled with my first financial audit,” she recalled. “A LION member will resolve this in 45 minutes with (director of finance and operations) Lisa Hunter’s template and by listening to that course in our News Entrepreneur Academy.”

Make no mistake: We at LION absolutely believe there is a role for journalism-support “intermediaries” in this ecosystem. (We also believe this ecosystem is not as effective as it could be.)

It’s very hard and lonely to build and grow a news business from scratch. That’s why I joined LION five years ago: Leveraging shared expertise, experiences, and resources is valuable when done well. And there’s value in engaging with some of the questions raised by consultant and former nonprofit executive Dick Tofel, publishers like those in the new ANNO coalition, and East Lansing Info founder Alice Dreger.

And now we want to hear directly from LION members, because we believe in creating our offerings in constant dialogue with them. This feedback-driven process has shaped our strategy over the last few years, and we’ve learned three things about how best to provide what members need, when they need it most.

1. We can provide more value as strategists than funders.

We heard from members that they needed funding that could give them the runway to hire and train a revenue person, so we launched the Revenue Growth Fellowship in 2021. We gave 12 LION members two years of direct funding to hire someone in a revenue-generating role. We’ve written about one of our greatest learnings from that experiment: A strong operational infrastructure is required to maximize the impact of those dollars. As an organization, we also concluded that we can provide more value by focusing on strategic training rather than leaning into being an intermediary funder.

2. Some support can be broad while some must happen one-on-one.

As we ran the RGF program from 2021 through the end of last year, we developed resources, like our Operational Readiness Handbook, which includes deep dives on budget forecasting and HR policies, to address infrastructure challenges we saw many of our members struggling with. We created eight-week Lab programs to focus on key challenges we identified in unlocking revenue: financial and risk management, building and managing a team, and revenue strategy planning. And based on member feedback, we designed the program curriculum to ensure each organization would walk away with clear deliverables they could immediately implement, rather than being left with a bunch of great advice, resources, and little time to execute when the program ended.

The feedback on this program was overwhelmingly positive, but we also heard from BIPOC leaders and founders that the time-bound, cohort-based approach didn’t work for their limited bandwidth. We heard similar sentiments of cohort burnout, and we pivoted again. Our latest approach is laid out in our strategic plan: offering more asynchronous resources and access to experts for our broader membership while prioritizing more hands-on, intensive help for our Focus Members through a case management approach.

3. Any data collection from members should directly benefit members.

We have done over 350 Sustainability Audits and Progress Reports since 2021, iterating along the way. We started by using the Audit as an application tool to identify who would benefit from our programs most. But we heard from members that they were exhausted by filling out long, data-heavy applications to participate in a program, and if they weren’t accepted, they had nothing to show for their time pulling together all that information. So we evolved the Audit from a program-based application into an assessment and learning tool. And, when we were given the opportunity to attach dollars to our programs, we attached them to the Audits, so that members who participated would be compensated for their time and have some dollars to act on Audit recommendations. The feedback on our Audits has been incredible — many publishers say they hadn’t previously had the opportunity to have this kind of high-level conversation about their business, and it’s helped orient them toward their next steps.

Sandra Hannebohm, Twice As Good Media‘s founder, sums up the Audit experience: “The Audit process inspired me to expand my thinking about what’s possible for my business, while also helping me celebrate my strengths and achievements. I was paired with an analyst who quickly understood the value of what I’m doing. Hearing their feedback was a gift!”

Our hope in sharing these lessons is two-fold: to illustrate just how important member feedback has been in shaping our strategies over the last nearly five years, and that when we say we want to hear from you, we mean it — by acting as immediately as possible to improve the experience for those we serve.

We will continue seeking funding that should ultimately help our members build sustainable businesses. We have heard clearly that some people in our membership are concerned that these dollars won’t benefit them, and so we’re offering members the chance to speak with LION’s leadership over the next few weeks to help inform these asks. Let us be clear: LION needs to make it easier for our members to operate, not harder.

Below, we’ve detailed how to share your feedback with us. As always, we will continue to listen to all thoughtful critiques shared by our members and others in the industry about how journalism-support organizations like ours can best approach this work.

LION members: 

Set up a time to talk with LION leadership during our open office hours:

• Chris Krewson, executive director: book time
• Sarah Gustavus Lim, director of membership: book time
• Anika Anand, deputy director: book time
• Gunita Singh, board chair: book time

And/or fill out this short survey.

The post Three ways our members have driven LION’s work since 2019 appeared first on LION Publishers.

What are the LION Publishers Sustainability Awards?

The 2024 LION Awards will recognize excellence achieved by local independent news businesses in eight independently judged award categories focused on LION’s pillars of sustainability — journalistic impact, financial health, and operational resilience. With categories including the LION Business of the Year Award, Operational Resilience Award, Journalistic Impact Award, Product of the Year Award, and more, these awards aim to highlight the innovative and impactful work being done by independent news organizations across the U.S. and Canada.

Why volunteer as a judge?

Being a judge for the LION Awards will offer you a unique opportunity to:

• Contribute to the recognition of excellence within the independent news community
• Gain insights into innovative practices and initiatives happening across the industry
• Engage with fellow professionals and leaders in the field
• Play a pivotal role in shaping the success of the awards program by providing actionable feedback based on your experience

Don’t just take our word for it — hear from Nicole Mastrangelo, one of last year’s judges: “I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the submissions and was truly uplifted by all the exceptional storytelling. Journalism is more than just reporting on current events; it’s a constructive practice that contributes to the formation of communities and will always be an essential part of our democracy. Thank you, LION, for recognizing this work!”

What does being a judge involve?

As a volunteer judge, you will:

• Be assigned to one award category and work collaboratively with two other judges
• Evaluate entries submitted by LION members within your assigned category and revenue tier (Micro, Small, Medium, or Large)
• Participate in an optional 30-minute onboarding session to understand expectations and ask questions
• Spend approximately eight hours over five weeks between late April and early June completing your judging assignments
• Review entries and collaborate with fellow judges to determine finalists and winners
• Submit your comments for the winner and finalists in your award category

How can you apply?

If you’re interested in volunteering as a judge, please complete this form by April 15, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. PT.

The post Become a judge for the 2024 LION Publishers Sustainability Awards appeared first on LION Publishers.

Whether you’re interested in pitching a session idea, being a speaker or facilitating a small group discussion around shared interests, we want to hear from you. Here are seven ways to get involved with the Summit, and how to find the right avenue for your idea.

• I have a fully baked idea for a conference session related to news entrepreneurship and a clear sense of who might deliver it
  • Propose a session
• I have an area of expertise related to news entrepreneurship that I would like to share with attendees that could be part of a broader session
  • Propose a speaker
• I am a news entrepreneur who has an experience/insight/win/best practice to share that is relevant to other news leaders that could be part of a broader session 
  • Propose a speaker
• I have an idea for a speaker I would love to hear from at the Summit, either because they have an area of expertise related to news entrepreneurship or they are a news entrepreneur who has an experience/insight/win/best practice to share that is relevant to other news leaders
  • Propose a speaker
• I have an idea for a topic related to news entrepreneurship I’d like to discuss in small groups with my fellow conference attendees as a way to share ideas and make connections
  • Propose a table talk topic
• I have an idea for a group of people involved with news entrepreneurship I’d like to connect with who have a shared identity or experience 
  • Propose an affinity group
• I would like to lead a small group discussion to connect with my fellow conference attendees around a shared identity or experience
  • Propose an affinity group leader

Got more than one idea or want to be involved in multiple ways? Feel free to submit multiple proposals! 

We’ll ask for some guiding information in your proposal to help us evaluate whether your idea is a fit and where it might fit best. And we’ll select proposals that are most aligned with our conference goals, attendee interests and those that represent a diversity of viewpoints and voices. Please indicate the following in your proposal:

Which conference track does your proposal best align with?

We’ll organize sessions into four areas of interest to news entrepreneurs so they can easily identify which sessions meet their needs. They are:

• Planning for strategic organizational growth
• Telling your news business’ story to communicate impact
• Identifying and executing revenue growth opportunities
• Building resilient leaders, teams and cultures

Which type of session is the best fit for your proposal?

There are five categories of session meant to convey to attendees the primary intent and level of engagement. They are:

• Keynote session: An all-conference presentation or discussion featuring 1-2 speakers designed to set a tone, share information or inspire conversation related to news entrepreneurship
• “Thinking” session: A medium-group presentation or discussion featuring 1-4 speakers designed to explore big ideas, approaches or concepts related to news entrepreneurship
• “Learning” session: A medium-group presentation, discussion, panel or lightning chat featuring 1-6 speakers designed to share best practices, tips, insights or case studies related to news entrepreneurship
• “Doing” session: A small-group workshop featuring 1-2 speakers designed to directly apply a skill, concept or practice
• “Connecting” session: A small-group discussion led by 1 facilitator designed to foster community and build relationships around a shared identity or interest

Which stage of sustainability is the content of your proposal the best fit for?

LION has developed a maturity model that articulates where a news business falls on the path to sustainability, and conference sessions will be targeted to the varying needs of organizations in different stages. For example, a session on launching a major donors program might be a best-fit for a news business in the “Building” stage, whereas a session on re-engaging long term donors might be a best-fit for a news business in the “Growing” stage. The stages are:

• Preparation: Creating a lean business model and minimum viable product (MVP). This is the ideation and planning stage when a news entrepreneur is identifying a need, a target audience, a revenue model and a value proposition.
• Building: Iterating based on audience and market research while building a foundation for revenue and operations. This is the testing and tweaking stage when a news entrepreneur is revising their product and revenue model to match what the audience wants and what the market can bear.
• Maintaining: Increasing journalistic impact and audience growth while still seeking operational and financial stability. This is the alignment stage when a news business is rightsizing what it produces with how it produces it and how it makes money.
• Growing: Steadily and simultaneously growing revenue, audience and operations, which could include scaling. This is the expansion stage when a news business is increasing its depth through more robust products, revenue and operations and/or increasing its breadth by reaching new markets or audiences.

Got an idea that isn’t a clear fit for a conference track, session type or sustainability stage? Propose it anyway! Still on the fence about submitting your idea? We encourage anyone with an idea or experience to share to complete a submission. We’ll work with you to refine your idea, match you with a comfortable session type and provide you resources to help you prepare. If you’re a first-time conference speaker who needs more support, we can provide extra guidance.

Proposals will be accepted until 11 p.m. PT on Friday, March 29. You’ll hear from us in late spring-early summer to learn if your proposal was accepted or if we need more information.

Questions? Email Lisa Heyamoto, LION’s Associate Director of Member Education, at lisaheyamoto@lionpublishers.com.

The post Now accepting session proposals for the 2024 Independent News Sustainability Summit appeared first on LION Publishers.

Canada’s independent news ecosystem has potential but is fragile

Since 2008, 474 local news outlets have closed across Canada, affecting 335 communities, according to The Local News Research Project’s June 2023 report. These closures have significantly impacted rural and smaller communities in particular, where there are already fewer media outlets. Yet in the same timeframe, according to this report, 217 local news outlets opened in 154 communities. More than 42 percent of those new outlets are independently owned.

Based on our own research conducted in August 2023, LION identified 270 independent news publications in Canada that are digitally dominant and focused on local news — which we define as geographically constrained or serving a specific topic/audience. These publications were added to LION’s Project Oasis database. Learn more detail in the post we published, “These 270 independent news businesses are a bright spot in Canada’s local news ecosystem.”

Here are a few trends we identified from this dataset:

• The majority, 40 percent, are based in Ontario. The second highest, 19 percent, are based in British Columbia.
• Of the 224 publications focused on geographically constrained news, 54 percent report on urban cities and 46 percent on rural communities.
• Of the 166 publications for which we could identify a launch date, 124 were founded between 2000 and 2023, and 88 of those were founded within the last 10 years. 
• British Columbia has the highest proportion of new publications, with 63 percent founded in the past 10 years. 
• Independent news publications have more diverse leadership teams than the industry average.
• More than 90 percent of the 270 publications publish solely in English.

The six biggest challenges facing Canadian independent news publishers

Based on LION’s Oasis survey research and an additional 11 one-on-one interviews with local publishers and journalism-support organizations, LION has identified six key challenges facing independent news publishers in Canada.

1. Obtaining seed funding: Securing initial capital and seed funding is a critical hurdle for Canadian independent news publishers, particularly due to the limited size of local markets and the lack of access to early-stage capital. This lack of financial resources hinders their growth potential significantly.

2. Reaching existing and new audiences in the absence of Facebook: Canadian independent news publishers can no longer deliver their news content on Facebook and Instagram, given Meta’s response to Bill C-18. Digitally native publishers are disproportionately affected by this legislative change. The sudden absence of these platforms leaves a gaping hole in their strategy, making them particularly vulnerable.

3. Accessing government support: Publishers said they struggled to navigate the complexities of securing government funding due to limited resources and a lack of necessary knowledge about them. They require comprehensive resources to help them identify and access the different government programs and tax credits, many of which remain underutilized due to publishers’ unfamiliarity with them.

4. Developing and accessing business infrastructure: Publishers lack proper business infrastructures for their news businesses. The prohibitive costs and logistical complexities of obtaining essential professional services such as legal, accounting, and insurance are substantial obstacles. There is a notable gap in both the funding to procure these services as well as the knowledge about the necessary services that are required, their procurement, and evaluation. 

5. Building a talent pipeline: A key challenge is the broken talent pipeline. Many news organizations struggle to find and keep skilled journalists. This issue is not just about attracting talent but also about the lack of effective connections with universities, which could be a valuable source of new journalists. While some publishers with direct university ties, particularly through teaching roles, have access to student talent, this is not the norm. The general lack of collaboration with academic institutions means that many community newsrooms miss out on the opportunity to build a sustainable pipeline of young, skilled journalists. 

6. Lack of peer learning and coalition building: Canadian publishers often find themselves operating in silos, with limited opportunities for collaboration and peer learning. Publishers highlighted the need for exchanging ideas and resources, discussing common challenges, and acting as incubators for partnerships and collective problem-solving with fellow independent news publishers.

How LION could help

In 2019, when LION became an official nonprofit organization and hired its first full-time team of employees, we began receiving some inquiries from Canadian independent news publishers asking to join our membership. While we made clear that we did not specifically serve Canadian publishers, we did formally change our membership eligibility criteria to include Canadian publishers who wanted to learn from our existing support and programs for U.S.-based publishers.

Fast forward to 2023, and LION has grown its membership to 500 members, 31 of which are based in Canada across eight provinces. Over the past four years, we have begun to experiment with ways to more directly serve Canadian publishers:

• We ran a Google News Initiative Startups Boot Camp for 16 Canadian entrepreneurs.
• We’ve run several Google News Initiative Startups Labs since 2021; a total of 12 Canadian publishers have participated in those.
• We offer our Sustainability Audits and Funding program, of which 20 Canadian publishers have participated in 2022 and 2023.
• We adapted five of our News Entrepreneur Academy courses specifically for our Canadian members to learn about business structures and taxes, human resources and staffing, and managing risk and money in Canada.
• We’ve written mini case studies on Canadian publishers highlighting the work they’re doing, including La Converse, Clearing a New Path, Taproot Publishing, NRI Nation, and Energeticcity.
• We now have 270 Canadian independent news publications in our Project Oasis database.
• We published a primer on funding and support for Canadian independent news publishers.

Looking forward, we see the potential and value in developing offerings specifically for independent news publishers and the ecosystem in Canada. Everyone we interviewed for this project acknowledged that there is no Canadian equivalent to LION Publishers. This presents both an opportunity and a challenge. LION needs to identify and address the specific needs of the independent news segment, ensuring that its services are tailored to the needs of independent Canadian publishers. And this gap also presents LION with an opportunity to occupy a unique position in the Canadian media landscape, addressing the needs of a segment currently underserved.

We’ll continue to make our existing offerings available to Canadian publishers, and start fundraising this year to be able to offer even more Canada-specific resources and support to our members. If you’re a LION member, funder, or supporter of independent news in Canada and want to share your questions or feedback on how we might do this, please reach out to Deputy Director Anika Anand at anikaanand@lionpublishers.com. We look forward to sharing updates on our progress with you soon.

Thank you to Nikita Roy and Julie Sobowale for contributing to our research efforts, and to the Google News Initiative for funding this research project.

The post We’ve identified six key challenges facing Canadian independent news publishers appeared first on LION Publishers.

There are many things that drew me to LION Publishers, but one is my affinity for the scrappy self-starters that can be found in the growing roster of LION members. 

Journalism wasn’t my dream career growing up. I actually had no idea it was an option when I was a kid in rural Texas and didn’t take a single journalism class in college. I submitted an editorial column to my college paper on a whim, and when I decided to go into public radio, I taught myself how to edit audio and said “yes” to every opportunity, even if I had to then Google how to do it. If you’ve ever launched or grown a business, I’m sure you can relate! 

In the early years of my career, my goal was to move to Washington, D.C., and work for NPR. But working as a reporter and producer at local stations in New Mexico changed how I see both journalism and the value of local news. 

Like so many other places, my peers and I watched national reporters parachute in to report on the most difficult things in our communities –– poverty, child abuse, and violence. They would talk to many of the same sources we used but somehow tell a story that wasn’t as nuanced or had completely unnecessary mentions of green chile to give a story a “sense of place.” It infuriated me, even though I didn’t grow up in New Mexico. When I moved to Albuquerque, I committed to listening to people and trying to reflect the complex history and culture of the state in my reporting. It’s probably not what I would have been taught in journalism school, but looking back, I know it was crucial for building trust with people in the community. 

As I started to see local news as equally important to national news, I wanted to support local journalists. That’s why in 2018, I started the New Mexico Local News Fund, a hub organization that brings together journalists, community leaders, and funders to support a broad range of efforts to increase access to local news across the state. Before joining LION, I also spent five years at the Solutions Journalism Network, coaching journalists across the country who are shifting how they are reporting on persistent problems by covering how people are responding. The solutions framework helped me center local information needs in my own reporting, and I loved seeing the insights that emerged when reporters covered potential solutions in different places. 

Every community deserves reporting that tells local, accurate stories. The future of our democracy depends on this. That’s why I’m so excited to be a part of LION and support the effort to increase resources and programs for members who are working to make their businesses more sustainable. By helping these independent news organizations strengthen their business operations with what we’ve learned in our years of supporting this field, we’ll help rebuild the information ecosystems of communities by supplying them with relevant, trusted news and information. 

Listening has played such an important role in my career, and I’m committed to hearing from LION members as I get up to speed in my new role. If you’d like to offer ideas or feedback about how to get the most out of your LION membership, please email me at sarahlim@lionpublishers.com.

The post LION Publishers welcomes Sarah Gustavus Lim as its membership director appeared first on LION Publishers.

The barrage of layoffs and closures did little to deter these publishers, as we witnessed incredible levels of innovation, perseverance, and collaboration among newsrooms.

But just because local newspapers are dying doesn’t mean local news is in trouble. Instead, we’re seeing even more bright spots and developments that should be widely celebrated.

We saw this most acutely when we received nearly 300 LION Local Journalism Awards submissions –– an all-time high –– detailing successful revenue stream experiments and creative community engagement endeavors. There were so many exceptional entries that we opted for co-winners in several categories. And I won’t soon forget the moment when our ceremony co-host, Outlier Media’s Candice Fortman, accepted a LION Business of the Year Award, and the room *erupted* in raucous applause. 

To be clear, we weren’t the only ones who celebrated how independent news publishers bucked the negative local news narrative in 2023. When the Medill Local News Initiative released its State of Local News 2023 report, it highlighted 17 “privately held and controlled” news organizations as literal “bright spots” –– beacons of hope in an otherwise grim landscape. Nieman Lab also profiled the success of five local news startups (all LIONs) and how they do things differently. Even The New York Times took note; its December 22 newsletter, “The rebirth of local journalism,” featured the work of nearly two dozen LIONs, with many more listed online.

But we still have more work to do. In fact, we aim to significantly strengthen our support for independent news publishers over the next five years, as outlined in our recently released strategic plan.

2023 set the stage for what’s to come, and we’re super inspired by our progress. Notably, we hit a major milestone by reaching more than 500 members in the U.S. and Canada. We also:

• Completed 75 Sustainability Audits and 96 Progress Reports, two popular programs now bolstered by our new maturity model, which maps the growth path of an independent news business
• More than tripled our planned monetary support following the completion of those Audits and Progress Reports, from $6,000 per participant to $20,000, thanks to a two-year commitment from the Google News Initiative
• Received 140 applications for 36 spots in our Sustainability Lab: Unblocking Revenue Barriers, demonstrating just how invested our members are in finding solutions to stubborn business challenges
• Gathered affinity groups for publishers who identify as BIPOC and/or LGBTQIA+, and launched a Community Ambassadors program to identify publishers not yet on our radar and foster connections among local peers
• Hosted two regional meetups, one in the Deep South and another in the Southeast, bringing together 250 news publishers and supporters for learning and connection

All this work wouldn’t have been possible without our dedicated industry supporters, including the Google News Initiative, the Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund, and the Walton Family Foundation.

So what’s next? We’ve outlined six goals in our strategic plan, and we’ll start chipping away at those while continuing to do what we do best –– helping independent publishers build more sustainable news businesses. We look forward to iterating on our learnings and sharing our insights with you along the way. 

Thanks for a great 2023.

Chris Krewson
Executive Director

The post LION Publishers 2023 Annual Report appeared first on LION Publishers.

Status: Independent Contractor

Point of Contact: Associate Director of Coaching

Location: Remote within U.S. and Canada

Engagement Type: Short-term contract, with variable working hours, from February 2 until December 13, 2024.

Compensation: Flat rate of $16,000 for a total of 12 audits. $4,000 may be invoiced upon completing the deliverables for each of the four cycles.

About LION Publishers

Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit professional journalism association for independent news publishers. While most of our 500+ members across the U.S. and Canada run local news businesses, we also have members who serve larger regions and specific identity-based communities across geographies. LION provides teaching, resources, and community to independent news entrepreneurs as they build and develop sustainable businesses.

Project Summary

LION Publishers has created a Sustainability Audit program that assesses a news organization’s strengths, opportunities, and priorities to become a sustainable news business. Our theory is that sustainability for independent news businesses exists at the intersection of operational resilience, financial health, and journalistic impact, and foundational weaknesses in any of these areas can cause the entire operation to (at best) underperform or (at worst) fall apart.

In 2022 and 2023, we audited 175 newsrooms through the Sustainability Audit program. You can read more about that iteration and what our experts learned here.

This year, we’re looking for audit analysts to assess three publications each per cycle. We will be conducting four cycles in 2024. See dates below.

The audit analysts will:

• Read our analyst guidelines and participate in an initial 30-minute onboarding meeting to understand expectations, ask questions, and sync with other analysts
• For each cycle:
  • Familiarize themselves with each publication through online research
  • Gain a deeper understanding of each publication via a dossier, which contains background information, audit questionnaire answers, relevant internal documents, and benchmarking data
  • Schedule and conduct 90-minute interviews with the leaders of each publication to gain relevant context and details
  • Attend an optional 60-minute working session to ask questions related to drafting the final report
  • Analyze the information from the dossier and interview to draft a publication-facing report for each publication, which includes:
    • A summary of where the publication is on its path to sustainability
    • A selection of its strengths and how to capitalize on them
    • A prioritized list of recommended actions to take immediately, in the short term and in the medium term, to become more sustainable
  • Work with LION to incorporate feedback into the report draft, either asynchronously or synchronously
  • Schedule and conduct a 30-minute follow-up call with the leaders of each publication to talk through the final report
• Complete an offboarding survey to inform future programs

We anticipate that each audit will take 8-9 hours to complete, assuming that an analyst is completing three audits per cycle for a total of 12 audits.

The approximate dates for each cycle are:

• Cycle 1: February 2 – May 1, 2024
• Cycle 2: May 2 – July 12, 2024
• Cycle 3: July 22 – October 1, 2024
• Cycle 4: October 1 – December 13, 2024 

Our ideal audit analyst is someone who:

• Has deep experience running or working with independent news startups 
• Is eager to share their knowledge, skills, and advice with LION members
• Would enjoy the opportunity to learn about and learn from independent news leaders
• Is comfortable making recommendations that range from big picture strategic thinking to specific tactical approaches, but knows they don’t need to be an expert in everything and can curate the LION community, industry knowledge, and their networks to help publications prioritize
• Is available to participate in all four cycles

Application materials

Submit your materials using this form by 11 p.m. ET on January 7. You will be asked to provide:

• Your resume
• Any online links that show your work (an X profile, a portfolio page, etc.) and/or discuss your work (a website, program description, article/post, report, etc.)
• Answers to the following questions:
  • Why are you interested in becoming an analyst?
  • Describe your experience running or working with independent news organizations. What was your role? What did you learn that you might apply when working with participants in the Sustainability Audit program?
  • Tell us about a time when you assessed a body of information, identified patterns and throughlines, and created actionable recommendations. What was your process, and how did you communicate your findings?

If you have questions about this role, reach out to LION Associate Director of Coaching Elaine Díaz (elainediaz@lionpublishers.com) to learn more.

The post LION is hiring Sustainability Audit analysts appeared first on LION Publishers.

This seemed like a compelling theory to test, so we launched the Revenue Growth Fellowship in 2021 to provide 12 LION members with a two-year direct funding runway to hire someone in a revenue-generating role. The plan was for this person to generate recurring revenue for the news business, which would kickstart continued growth and development.

But like so many other aspects of news entrepreneurship, we learned it wasn’t quite that simple.

Direct funding, it turns out, is not the silver bullet we imagined it to be. It can give news leaders the confidence to make bold decisions, launch a big effort, or keep them afloat during a rough patch, but new dollars alone do not accelerate a news business on the path to sustainability. 

We gave news organizations between $65,000 and $89,000 in funding in successively smaller increments over two years, and our measure of success was that the revenue hire would eventually bring in enough money to cover their salary by the end of year two. Yet just six of the 12 organizations said that ended up being the case — a 50 percent success rate. 

That led us to one of our biggest takeaways from this program: Without taking the time to create a strong operational infrastructure, thoughtful employee recruitment and management and a focused revenue strategy, no amount of direct dollars will make a news business financially healthy. 

Tellingly, news businesses that experienced higher levels of strategic and operational volatility were much more likely to say their hire did not bring in the expected revenue. Characteristics of these publications include:

• News businesses that changed their revenue strategy mid-program
• Outlets that experienced turnover in the position due to a hasty hire or a poor fit
• Leaders who struggled to shift their focus from editorial to the business side
• Publications that hired for a part-time rather than full-time revenue role
• Organizations that underwent a merger during the program

It all adds up to our top-level insight, and one that will continue to guide our work at LION: News businesses need to be ready for direct funding in order for it to be truly catalytic. Here’s more of what we learned about what accelerates and hinders revenue growth that every news business can benefit from.

1. Revenue growth won’t happen without operational readiness 

One lesson we’ve learned repeatedly (and seen play out across our membership at large) is that a strong operational infrastructure is absolutely critical for gaining any traction with revenue growth. 

We started the Revenue Growth Fellowship program with the assumption that news businesses would be ready to jump right into the hiring process. But participants had some urgent operational needs to address to be in the best position to hire. 

So we worked with publishers to set and track goals, assess organizational risk, level up financial management practices and build an infrastructure for revenue growth. Of particular focus was developing systems for hiring, onboarding, retaining and managing employees. 

“When I think about how [we have] grown thanks to this program, revenue is not the first thing that comes to mind,” a founder said. “[It was] operational growth. That is, establishing policies, documentation and procedures to support a growing team. The support we received in this area at the start of the program was incredibly valuable and set us up for success once our organization began to grow in staff.”

Leaders initially struggled to make time for this operational work, but came to value its importance and ended up applying these operational best practices increasingly more often over the course of the program. They put in place hiring and revenue processes that they continue to use and build on, and many reported that these efforts have become less scattershot and more methodical and consistent. 

“If I did it again with the knowledge I have now but the same financial reality, I would have built more process and reporting into the member revenue program,” one leader said. “But I’d be realistic about the time and capacity it might take to make that a well-oiled machine.”

2. Revenue growth efforts stall without a clear strategy, a consistent approach and significant leader involvement

Growing revenue is a marathon, not a sprint. And organizations that planned for the long haul and stayed the course saw significantly better outcomes than those that experienced disruptions. 

News businesses that focused on growing the same revenue stream with the same revenue hire throughout the two-year program were the only publications that saw consistent revenue growth quarter over quarter. These participants had a clear-enough revenue strategy to enable them to make and support the right hire, who could consistently build on their efforts over time. And these organizations were able to leverage that stability to improve other aspects of their business; despite differences in size, age, tax structure and focus, they saw concurrent increases in full-time employees, cash on hand, runway and net revenue.

Key to that stability was significant involvement in the revenue growth efforts by the founder or key leader of the organization. Many news entrepreneurs come from a journalism rather than business background, and lack the experience or desire to focus on growing revenue. We’ve heard many of our members say if they could just hand off that work, they would be free to do what they do best: produce journalism. 

But it’s precisely that deep understanding of an organization’s mission and values that makes a founder the best person to make the case to financial supporters, whether a potential foundation,  advertiser or reader. Of the 12 program participants, half ended up shifting the revenue generation work back to the founder, even after hiring someone to be in the revenue role. We learned alongside participants that the founder, or primary leader, of early-stage news businesses, in particular, simply needs to be the face of revenue generation efforts.

“[If I had this to do over again,]” one founder said, “I would switch roles early on and focus on revenue myself while assigning the editorial work to others.”

Another key learning, and one we failed to mitigate against, was that a part-time revenue hire is particularly unlikely to achieve the desired results without a strong revenue strategy already in place. We originally gave organizations enough funding for a part-time hire if they did not have any other full-time employees (including the founder). We reasoned that these organizations, which tended to be younger, needed more time to build the operational structures to support a staff member. But that ended up being true for all cohort members. And while the intention was always for organizations who initially hired part-timers to bring them to full-time, those that hired part-time revenue help were especially likely to say that they ended up doing most of the revenue work themselves, regardless of whether that was the plan. None of these organizations said their part-time hire brought in enough revenue to cover their salary.

“I found that, for this role, it was hard for someone as an employee to achieve ambitious goals on a part-time salary,” a founder said. “I think I went into this thinking, ‘Okay, it’s doable. Something is better than nothing, and the employee will have enough passion to grow with us.’ For both folks we hired, I found that, to them, it was a job with a mission they liked, but they still had limited time to do their job correctly. It was hard to ask them for much flexibility because they had to do other things to supplement the pay.”

3. Revenue growth hinges on hiring the right person to do the work (and being ready to support them) 

Making the right hire rather than the right-now hire makes all the difference. Many news leaders initially underestimated the time, planning and strategic alignment required to be fully ready to make their hire, and the person they brought on turned out to be a poor fit.

“It was a lot of lessons learned,” one leader said. “I should have taken more time to recruit. It was a challenge to figure out what to prioritize first, having minimal experience with a business at the time.”

A big decision point for cohort members was determining what role to hire for, and how much experience the candidates should have. News leaders who saw the most success with their new hires had a focused vision for the person’s responsibilities, and designed the role and the hiring process accordingly. One organization knew it wanted to attract highly experienced and networked applicants, so it supplemented the program’s funding to hire at a salary range that would yield those candidates. Another founder knew they couldn’t afford someone with that kind of resume in their market, so they created a role focused on supporting revenue operations rather than directly generating revenue. 

News leaders found the most success building in areas where they already had traction and an operational foundation — in other words, where they already had a clear strategy. For example, one organization had ambitions to build its nascent advertising/sponsorships stream, but saw better results once it decided to level up its membership program instead.

“We have realized we aren’t quite set up to manage sponsorships/sponsored content/advertising yet,” they said. “We’d need to do a lot more work to create a foundation for that area of revenue. We’re further along with our membership capability and have the metrics to track against those growth goals.”

But it’s not enough to simply make the right hire — you must be ready to support them. Hiring new personnel without ensuring that the leadership can effectively onboard, train, and retain them can lead to overburdened leaders and counterproductive outcomes. News leaders were most successful when they devoted time and energy to ensuring their team members had what they needed to meet their goals and empowered them to make decisions and take calculated risks. 

“I feel like I’ve learned a ton about managing and onboarding and am proud of the documents and processes I’ve created for our team,” one news leader said. “But managing this position was much more difficult and time-consuming than anticipated.”

How this program has informed our work at LION

The Revenue Growth Fellowship program was the most ambitious program LION had attempted when we launched it in 2021. And it was our first foray into being a funder. We learned a lot from the experience, including that our support is most impactful when we’re helping news businesses strengthen their foundation for growing revenue rather than providing direct funding to help grow their bottom line — an insight that underpins our five-year strategic growth plan. 

Here are some other insights from the program that have influenced our work: 

• Led us to develop asynchronous trainings for our News Entrepreneur Academy focused on building operational practices like setting goals and managing finances
• Shaped the curriculum of programs like this year’s Sustainability Lab, which centered on readiness for revenue growth
• Informed our Sustainability Audit metrics and maturity model to map the path to sustainability
• Influenced our strategic decision to offer holistic, bespoke support to our Focus Members — BIPOC and LGBTQ-led organizations — through a case management approach

We’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all the publishers who participated in this program and candidly shared their wins and challenges so we could learn how to better support our members. We hope this level of transparency will encourage other publishers and support organizations to learn from and adapt to the lessons we highlighted here.

The post Direct funding alone does not make a news business more sustainable appeared first on LION Publishers.

The board voted unanimously to approve Gunita Singh as chair, in accordance with the bylaws, following a year of service as vice chair. Singh, a staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, joined LION’s board in 2021.

“With the unveiling of LION’s five-year strategic plan this past October, I couldn’t be more excited about LION’s vision for its members and local news, generally,” Singh said. “And I have no doubt LION’s leaders will execute that vision with creativity, dedication, and zeal.”

The board also unanimously elected Scalawag Executive Director and LION member Cierra Hinton as vice chair. Hinton has served on the board since 2020.

Rebekah Monson, LION’s outgoing chair, will be the immediate past chair of LION’s executive committee and chair of the newly created membership committee. More details on this committee are forthcoming.

In addition to the leadership transitions, LION’s board congratulated three outgoing members and officers. Jay Allred, LION’s former chair and vice chair who leads LION member organization Richland Source, stepped down after eight years of service. Rosemary Hoban, who served as secretary and leads LION member organization NC Health News, stepped down after six years. Shannon Shaw Duty, who joined LION’s board in 2021 and leads LION member organization Osage News, also stepped down in October.

Finally, the board welcomed new committee leadership. Board member Neil Chase, CEO of CalMatters, now chairs the governance committee, and board member Anita Li, founder of The Green Line, chairs the board development committee. Anyone interested in serving in a board or committee member capacity is encouraged to contact the board using this form.

The post Introducing LION’s 2023-2024 board and executive leadership appeared first on LION Publishers.

His work includes:

• Designing and maintaining our tech stack, including our website and Salesforce, to ensure they meet our product and programming needs
• Creating documentation and trainings for our staff to understand how to navigate these systems
• Continually making recommendations on how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our technology systems 

Stel most recently worked at SF Made. Prior to that, he was the database administrator and technology consultant at Family Promise HCR.

Stel is based in New York.

Please join us in welcoming Stel to the LION team — you can reach him at stelduncan@lionpublishers.com.

The post Stel Duncan joins LION Publishers as our Associate Director of Technology appeared first on LION Publishers.

Status: Full-time exempt (not eligible for overtime), with 90-day introductory period (see details below)

Reports to: Executive Director

Location: Remote within USA

Compensation: $105,000 to $120,000 annually

Job Summary

Over the past four years, LION has grown its membership by 168 percent and grown our ambitions in how we can best help our members’ news businesses reach sustainability.

We recently published a Strategic Growth Plan that outlines these ambitions over the next five years, and central to that work is a Membership Director who will own our first strategic goal: Deliver membership offerings that will move members toward sustainability.

The Membership Director will design and implement LION’s membership strategy and work closely with associate directors to oversee the execution of the following membership programs:

• Our Education Program, which provides structured sharing of knowledge and expertise.
• Our Community Program, which connects members with peers to facilitate learning best practices and creates a sense of belonging and camaraderie.
• Our Direct Services Program, which offers cost-saving products and services that strengthen members’ businesses’ financial health.

This person will also join LION’s executive team, contributing to organizational strategy decisions that will help LION fulfill goals related to the sustainability of LION, including diversifying our revenue streams, making LION a destination for employees to grow as professionals, and building LION’s resilience with a scenario planning strategy.

Our team believes that relevant, accurate and culturally competent local news and information helps people fully engage in civic life, make more informed decisions and better understand the world around them. If you’re interested in helping us make this vision a reality and working in a space of optimism and growth, learn more about the job and how to apply below.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and oversee membership strategy (65%)
  • Design a single, overarching membership programs strategy with input from membership associate directors
  • Ensure member needs and feedback are centered in all program design and iteration
  • Collaborate with Director of Research and Evaluation to streamline data collection processes and limit number of data collection touchpoints with members
  • Ensure all membership programs’ priorities and timelines are in alignment with each other and all organizational goals
  • Ensure that membership Associate Directors utilize resources across the membership team to have succession plans in place to cover essential work during employee leaves/vacancies (e.g. cross-training, keeping slack in bandwidth, assigning relative priority to all membership program initiatives)
  • Approve all external membership communications, in consultation with senior managers, development director and marketing manager
  • Accountable for ensuring the membership team hits membership-related organizational goals 
  • Ensure we’re making data-informed decisions to design and iterate membership strategy Analyze data to inform membership strategy and future iteration 
• Contribute to LION’s organizational strategy (25%)
  • Collaborate with the executive leadership team to set LION’s vision and direction and organizational culture
  • Collaborate with directors to plan for future staffing and capacity needs, while contributing to discussions on that growth and change’s impact on culture, systems and processes
  • Attract, develop and retain membership team’s talent by aligning strategy with a positive team culture while upholding the organization’s core values
• People Management and Development (10%)
  • Delegates workstreams effectively by setting clear, actionable goals for direct reports
  • Provides ongoing reinforcing and redirecting feedback to direct reports to ensure that work product meets or exceeds expectations
  • Actively monitors direct reports’ bandwidth and proactively collaborates with directs to adjust priorities and/or work product expectations to prevent burnout
  • Aligns with direct reports on their professional development goals, and holds directs accountable for making progress towards these goals throughout the year

Other duties as assigned.

LION is an Equal Opportunity Employer

LION believes that a team with diversity of backgrounds and experiences will generate the most innovative ideas and ultimately do the best work in support of our mission. This is why we welcome contractors, vendors, staff and board members who contribute to a diverse, equitable and inclusive work environment. We understand diversity as multi-dimensional and intersectional, encompassing aspects of our identities including race and ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, ability, class, geography, lived experiences and more. We welcome and encourage all qualified candidates to apply to opportunities at LION so that we build a team that reflects the diversity of independent news entrepreneurs we wish to serve.

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States.

Skills and Qualifications for The Role

• Knowledge of/experience with the independent news ecosystem: Can articulate the major challenges and opportunities of news organizations, journalism support organizations and the industry at large.
• Scenario Planning: Creates realistic and actionable contingency plans for both ideal and difficult situations. Has a track record of working with small, lean organizations and limited resources to pivot and empower others to pivot according to circumstances. 
• People Leadership: Demonstrates strength in core leadership and management skills, including setting clear expectations, guiding and providing feedback and ensuring accountability of work deliverables in a constructive and inclusive way.
• Program Design: Demonstrates ability to translate organizational goals, funder goals, and available human and financial resources into programming that is clear, achievable and scalable.
• Accountability to Funders: Demonstrates clear understanding of different types of funding structures (e.g. time and/or program-restricted grants, deliverable-based contracts) and the implications these structures have for program design and delivery.

Skills and Expectations for Teamwork at LION

• Work in a way that upholds and reflects our organizational values: Being data-informed, equitable and inclusive, people-centered, systems thinkers, transparent and iterative
• Use digital tools and platforms to stay organized, communicate transparently, and collaborate with team members remotely 
• Collaborate strategically with others, clearly defining processes for decision making
• Give and receive constructive feedback to help the team produce its best work
• Celebrate our wins and learning moments
• Take on an experimental mindset and demonstrate flexibility to iterate on our work, systems, and processes 
• Be willing and able to ask for help when needed, and demonstrate an ability to learn and grow in the role

Physical Requirements and Environmental Conditions

• Must be able to remain in a stationary position, at a desk or similar, 90% of the time. Time spent in stationary location includes operating a computer and relevant peripherals and communicating via phone.

Travel Requirements

• Available to travel for staff retreats 1-2 times per year (approx. 3 days per retreat)
• Available to travel for annual LION member event annually (approx. 3 days)

About LION

Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit professional journalism association for independent news publishers. While most of our 450+ members across the U.S. and Canada run local news businesses, we also have members who serve larger regions and specific identity-based communities across geographies. LION provides teaching, resources and community to independent news entrepreneurs as they build and develop sustainable businesses. One of our core values is being people-centered, and here are some ways we build that culture for our staff. 

90 Day Introductory Period

This introductory period is a try-out time for the employee and the Company. During this introductory period, the Company will evaluate employees’ suitability for employment and employees can evaluate the Company as well. The purpose of the introductory period is to be intentional about setting clear goals for the employee to accomplish, prompting regular feedback and support from the employee’s manager, and providing structure for a candid conversation about whether either the employee or the manager believes there is a misalignment of the employee’s competencies with and interest in the role.

Benefits

• Medical PPO, Vision & Dental fully paid by employer; 50% paid for dependents
• Short-term disability, long-term disability, life, and worker’s compensation insurance paid by employer
• Accrued Paid Time Off (including sick days) is 20 days per year 
• Paid holidays (including week of July 4 and Christmas Eve through New Years Day) is 18 days in 2022
• Up to 12 weeks fully paid family/caregiver leave
• 401K with employer match up to 3.5%
• Flexible working hours
• No-meeting Fridays
• Annual professional development budget
• Monthly work-from-home stipend
• For new hires: Health insurance stipend until eligible for employer medical coverage to begin
• Eligible for year-end, surplus-dependent bonus

Application Materials

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

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