For many independent news leaders, finding time to think beyond the day-to-day work of running a news business is difficult. And yet, it is essential to take a step back and strategically plan for organizational growth. 

We hear you, and we see you.

That’s why we’re delighted to introduce the Sustainability 360 program, an initiative designed to make the independent news industry more accessible for our Focus Members by connecting them with the most impactful support and resources that will help their businesses move toward sustainability.

In a one-year pilot, LION will provide six program participants access to experts who can provide strategic and tactical advice, consultants who can increase a team’s capacity, and conversations with other publishers working on similar challenges. We will offer our knowledge to navigate existing resources, key stakeholders, and influencers. But most importantly: We want to provide the right combination of these connections in a way that cuts through, instead of adding to, the noise.

Why we built this program

We’ve designed this program based on key insights we’ve made over the last few years of serving our members:

• Our members regularly ask us “how” questions; while there is a hunger for learning, finding the time and resources to translate knowledge into action is a significant barrier;
• Time-intensive, short-term, and cohort-based programs are effective for addressing immediate tactical issues, but they may not be suitable for developing and implementing medium-term goals, which often define an organization’s priorities for the year; 
• And finally, there are more existing resources than ever for news entrepreneurs; in part, because of the many recent additions, navigating this landscape can be overwhelming and time-consuming for publishers already strapped for the only nonrenewable resource they have: their time.

Our program addresses these pain points by:

• Providing a year’s worth of support to allow for more time and space to not only plan but execute a Success Plan (more details below)
• Rather than topic-based programs, we are creating a smaller cohort so participants can create Success Plans based on their individualized needs (in coordination with their coaches)
• Taking advantage of tactical and strategic advice 
• Using LION’s staff knowledge and expertise on how to navigate the existing resources within our industry

“We recognize that the needs of each newsroom are unique,” said Sarah Gustavus Lim, LION’s director of membership. “That’s why we are testing a more holistic approach with this targeted group of members.”

The program’s ultimate goal is to help this cohort move to the “Growing” stage of LION’s Independent News Maturity Model, which is in service of our Strategic Growth Plan’s goal of helping 100 members move to the “Growing” stage of sustainability.

What program participants can expect

LION will select up to six news businesses led by Focus Members to participate in the inaugural program, which will begin on June 28, 2024, and run through June 2025.

All participants will start the program with a Sustainability Audit and be paired with a coach. Their coach will then work with them on designing a Success Plan, a practical workbook providing structure and guidance as participants set goals. Instead of doing a five-year strategic planning process or deep-diving into a litany of tactical daily tasks, the Success Plan is a tool that sits at a middle point that both helps publishers better operate day-to-day and cues up the strategic thinking to prepare them to grow.

Following that, these will be the five main program components to enable cohort members to use their Success Plan to reach the “Growing” stage:

Strategic Advice: After receiving a Sustainability Audit to establish a baseline of your business’s progress toward sustainability, you’ll be paired with a Sustainability 360 coach, who will provide ongoing strategic advice and specific recommendations and refer you to other experts for tactical advice.

Tactical Advice: Based on recommendations from your coach and other experts from LION’s curated network, you can book up to five hours of coaching time to address specific tactical challenges holding back your systems, processes, or workflows. This could include sessions on developing your newsletter audience, utilizing Google Analytics to make informed decisions, or implementing SEO best practices.

Tactical Implementation: We understand that you can’t do it all, so we’ll work with you to identify business tools and services, like human resources or bookkeeping, and subsidize those costs so you can lower expenses and focus on what matters most for your business.

Community: We’ll bring together all of the program participants so you can share experiences and knowledge, discuss diverse ideas, and find new opportunities for networking and professional growth.

Wayfinding Support: We also recognize the importance of having someone who can help you understand how this industry works and how to access resources efficiently. While we work to make these resources more accessible for our entire membership, as part of this program, you’ll have direct access to our staff to answer your questions about how to best navigate existing resources, key stakeholders, and influencers.

We’ll be measuring key indicators of each stage and updating the Audit you received at the beginning of the program to determine your business’s progress toward the “Growing” stage.

As for the time commitment, we anticipate you will spend up to 10 hours a month implementing the Success Plan you develop with your coach. It’s critical to us that this program adds value to your organization — not take away precious time from you running it — and you’ll work with your coach to ensure that’s the case.

Apply by June 3 at 5 p.m. ET

Who’s eligible to participate

You’re eligible to participate in this program if you are a Focus Member. We created our Focus Member criteria based on our experience listening to and coaching BIPOC and LGBTQIA+–led news businesses on the challenges they face as well as entrepreneurship and small business research (including this Pivot Fund study) that tells us founders and leaders with these identities face the greatest institutional barriers to success.

Focus Member organizations are:

• In the following sustainability stages: Building or Maintaining and
• Currently led by someone who identifies as: Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, Latine, or Person of Color, and/or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, or as a member of broader gender and sexually diverse communities

*We’re using BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ as shorthand for the above.

We define “led by” as someone who is currently in at least one of the following roles in an organization: CEO/Executive Director, Founder, Publisher, Editor, Chief Operating Officer, or Chief Financial Officer.

We will identify Focus Members, including their stage of sustainability, based on data we’re gathering through your initial Sustainability Audit and most recent membership application. However, we’re also asking for your self-assessed stage of sustainability in the application for this program, and we will take this into account while reviewing your application.

If you’re unsure whether you qualify as a Focus Member, contact our associate director of coaching, Elaine Diaz, at elainediaz@lionpublishers.com.

How to apply

If you are a Focus Member, you should apply! Applications are open now through June 3 at 5 p.m. ET. We will select up to 10 finalists for an interview by June 7 and evaluate applicants based on their alignment with the program, bandwidth, and capacity to execute their Success Plan. We’ll also consider applicants’ willingness to share what they have learned from their experience to inform how we iterate on this offering in the future. Your insights, feedback, and experiences will play a crucial role in shaping and refining the program to better meet the needs of future participants.

Sign up to attend our info session on May 22 at 4 p.m. ET

Additional FAQ

• Is there funding allocated for this program?
  • While LION has historically given direct dollars to our members through our programming, being a funder is not our long-term strategy. Instead, we want to focus on lowering the cost of doing business and removing barriers to access. That’s why we will cover the costs of strategic and tactical consulting and business tools and services while members are in this program. Including LION’s staff time, this is an investment of approximately $20,000 in each organization.
    
• Can more than one person from an organization participate in the program?
  • Yes, and we strongly encourage you to open this opportunity to other team members. We’ve heard in the past that having two people in the coaching calls has proved beneficial for the organization’s ability to compare notes and execute tasks. We will cap program calls at two people in senior leadership positions from each organization.
    
• What goals will be included in a Success Plan?
  • This workbook will help you set your medium-term goals. There are long-term goals (I want to scale my news business to serve three communities), short-term goals (I want to earn $10,000 in advertising sales next month), and then there are medium-term goals, which are often annual goals that set your priorities for the year. They represent a significant step toward your long-term goals and should be something you can point your efforts toward for the year and refer to in times of decision or doubt.
    
• Do I need to be a LION member to apply?
  • Yes. If you’re not a LION member yet, you can apply here.
    
• How can I get more information about this program?
  • You can sign up to attend our info session on May 22 at 4 p.m. ET. We will cover the program objectives, eligibility criteria, application process, and timeline. Our team will be available to answer your questions. You can also contact our associate director of coaching, Elaine Díaz, at elainediaz@lionpublishers.com.

The post Apply to LION’s new Sustainability 360 program 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.

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.

“We’ve seen time and again how working through small blockers can lead to big wins for news businesses,” said Lisa Heyamoto, LION’s Director of Programming for Member Education. “But identifying those blockers can be challenging. This program is designed not only to help publishers articulate and address what’s standing in their way, it will also help them develop solutions they can apply to future obstacles.”

This program will provide:

• 1:1 coaching to help participants identify and overcome a specific revenue challenge 
• Asynchronous training using a personalized curriculum 
• A menu of deliverables from which each organization can select
• Peer-learning moments
• Up to $9,000 USD to implement what they’ve learned

These publishers were selected from more than 130 applications from news businesses based in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Canada. We selected them based on their clarity of purpose, urgency in tackling challenges, and alignment with the program’s objectives.

“This critical program builds on the Google News Initiative’s long-term partnership with LION Publishers, which has a proven track record of helping publishers grow their revenue,” said Chrissy Towle, Director of Americas Ecosystem & Associations News Partnerships at Google. “We’re confident that this program will make a significant difference in the sustainability and revenue of the news organizations who participate so they can continue to serve their communities.”

Of the 36 publishers in the program: 

• 34 are based in the U.S. and 2 in Canada
• The median age is 5 years old 
• The median gross annual revenue is $198,868
• They employ between 1-22 people, with an average of 3 full-time employees
• Almost all rely on more than one revenue stream

The publishers will be supported by an incredible group of coaches: AX Mina (Ana), Dan Petty, Graham Watson-Ringo, Jennifer Mizgata, John Davidow, Kimberly Spencer, Maria Archangelo, Richard Eugene Brown, and Shira Center (more information below).

Congratulations to all the participants!

2PuntosPlatform

Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Revenue Challenge: We will focus on creating ongoing revenue strategies. We look forward to creating revenue marketing packages that ensure sustainability and learning more about how to design products that help us grow revenue.

AFRO American Newspapers

Location: Baltimore, Maryland  

Revenue Challenge: We’d like to tackle the issue of recruiting, training, and retaining ad sales talent. Assistance with goal-setting is another area we’d like to address.

Austin Vida

Location: Austin, Texas  

Revenue Challenge: Gaining a clear understanding of our finances in order to create a financial strategic plan that’ll help me make informed decisions about the business. I want to better understand, forecast, and analyze the financial health of the news organization. 

Bolts

Location: Washington, D.C.   

Revenue Challenge: Bolts is ready to take our audience development to the next stage by crafting a holistic reader revenue strategy with an eye to membership. We plan to use the LION Lab to identify the right infrastructure for tracking and communicating with donors, and to develop a plan for segmenting our newsletter and engaging our members to cultivate a deeper sense of community.

Borderless Magazine

Location: Chicago, Illinois  

Revenue Challenge: We want to create a strategic plan for the next year that outlines metrics for success and how much time and money we should invest in each revenue stream. This plan should also include markers for when we should hire for our next revenue position and suggestions on what that position might be. 

Boulder Reporting Lab

Location: Boulder, Colorado  

Revenue Challenge: We want to strengthen our newsletter sponsorship program. Since our December 2021 launch, we’ve leveraged a national grant to raise tens of thousands of dollars from our community. We surpassed our goals for individual donations and grants, but fell far short of our sponsorship goals despite substantial audience growth. Our goal is to unlock $100,000 in annual sponsorship revenue, with up to half coming from newsletter ads.

Buckrail

Location: Jackson, Wyoming

Revenue Challenge: Buckrail saw great growth in advertisers, staff, variety in ad offerings, and revenue over the past few years. We were able to bump our rates and charge a premium. As the economy has cooled, we are struggling to realign our rate sheet and increase the appeal of ad offerings while still holding on to the consistent, high-value advertisers that participate in more costly subscription plans.

Bucks County Beacon

Location: Warminster, Philadelphia

Revenue Challenge: Currently, most of our revenue is from a single sponsor. Our community contributions are flat, and our advertising program is non-existent. We need to increase revenue while diversifying where it comes from.

Burlington Buzz 

Location: Burlington, Massachusetts  

Revenue Challenge: I plan to grow my general audience, grow my list of paying subscribers, and secure sponsorships from large donors while participating in in-kind partnerships with small businesses that don’t have the capital to spend on advertising. The advertising program I had attempted isn’t working, as the kinds of businesses I want to partner with don’t have the revenue to pay for advertising if they’re not making direct conversions. I would like to change course and seek corporate or non-profit sponsorships/partnerships that are more interested in gaining name recognition or entering an altruistic partnership to promote local news.

Canopy Atlanta

Location: Atlanta, Georgia  

Revenue Challenge: We plan to create and implement a sponsorship program specifically targeting local businesses in the communities where we work. We will develop the materials we need, such as a deck, sponsorship levels, and MOUs, and also put a plan and revenue goals in place to execute over the next year. 

Carolina Panorama Newspaper

Location: South Carolina

Revenue Challenge: Our challenge is finding personnel to sell our advertising and marketing products. We’d also like to learn which products have the best return on investment.

Energeticcity.ca

Location: Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada

Revenue Challenge: For the last three years, we have been offering our clients digital marketing services as a way to grow our revenue. With Bill C-18 passing and Meta blocking all media from their platforms, display advertising from our website cannot be relied upon to drive future growth. Digital marketing services are a clear path forward, and we need help to get these services in front of as many people as possible to build a long-term sustainable business.

Evanston Now

Location: Evanston, Illinois

Revenue Challenge: I want to determine whether expanding my site’s service area makes financial sense, or whether I should focus on increasing revenue within my existing community.

Fresnoland

Location: Fresno, California

Revenue Challenge: During the lab, I’d like to focus specifically on bringing in corporate sponsorships for a fall event while simultaneously conducting outreach to place newsletter sponsorships and website advertisements. I’d also like to identify strategies that can help streamline the workflow for smaller forms of advertising and sponsorships.

La Esquina TX 

Location: Houston, Texas

Revenue Challenge: Currently, we are over-reliant on newsletter sponsorships, so we must expand website monetization and customize compelling packages. But doing so requires developing competencies that are still unfamiliar to our journalistic team. To meet our goals, we need to focus our resources on sales, audience analysis, and executing a diversified revenue strategy.

LINK Media

Location: Covington, Kentucky

Revenue Challenge: As we head into our third year, I’m focused on developing a long-term, sustainable cash flow for the business, with diversified revenue streams and a strong understanding of our ongoing expenses. 

LkldNow

Location: Lakeland, Florida

Revenue Challenge: Sponsorships and major donors have large growth potential but are time- and attention-intensive. Without a staff position dedicated to revenue, we’re struggling with the bandwidth it takes to break through and then develop and retain the relationships required for this work.

Moab Sun News

Location: Moab, Utah

Revenue Challenge: We earn very good revenue from print advertising, but this needs to be diversified and grown to ensure our long-term sustainability. There are so many directions that we could go in, so we need support to determine where our energy is best put to use.

NRI Nation Inc.

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Revenue Challenge: During this Lab, I aim to address the challenge of effectively monetizing the substantial traffic growth our news website has recently experienced, with nearly half a million page visits last month. I’m particularly interested in integrating advertising revenue with our business model. Additionally, as we venture into live events, I hope to get guidance on aligning our editorial strategy with our revenue objectives. I’d love to get help with our overall strategic plan to ensure that we can build in financial sustainability to support our editorial needs.

Oviedo Community News

Location: Oviedo, Florida

Revenue Challenge: I would like to work on my leadership and management skills in order to adapt my nonprofit’s structure as it grows and expands. I’d like to take a deep look at OCN’s board and staff roles and plan financially for necessary changes and additions.

Queerency

Location: Austin, Texas

Revenue Challenge: We need help systematizing and growing our advertising sales operations. We need help with digital revenue strategy and growth. We need help with subscriber management and subscriber growth strategies.

Reporte Hispano

Location: New Jersey

Revenue Challenge: We have successfully raised the rate for our print advertising clients but we haven’t been able to hire revenue-focused team members. We haven’t seen growth in our current digital revenue or in non-profit revenue as a small business. 

San José Spotlight

Location: San Jose, California

Revenue Challenge: Silicon Valley is one of the wealthiest regions in the world. There is great potential to increase our revenue to help expand our nonprofit journalism to neighboring cities and achieve our mission of uplifting voices of marginalized communities, igniting civic engagement, and strengthening our democracy. However, we’ve struggled to recruit and retain revenue-focused staff to identify new major donors, cultivate relationships with corporate sponsors, research foundational grants, and increase reader revenue.

Streetlight

Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Revenue Challenge: One of our biggest challenges is increasing major donor support so we can fund a fundraising support position and begin raising capital to develop our newsroom.

The 016

Location: Worcester, Massachusetts

Revenue Challenge: I need more sales experience to get us where we need to be. Becoming an expert in sales will help me become a better CEO. Moreover, I need to address the challenge of creating a narrative and collateral for sales and bundles, namely creating a media kit after assessing our current offerings and pricing and tweaking our products accordingly.

The Bedford Citizen

Location: Bedford, Massachusetts

Revenue Challenge: The Bedford Citizen would like to identify and engage local businesses as sponsors. We’d like to raise $65,000 in the next 6-to-18 months. We plan to use these funds to take on special projects and hire much-needed staff.

The Current Media

Location: Lafayette, Louisiana

Revenue Challenge: While we’ve grown subscriptions by 26% and monthly recurring revenue by 19% over the past year, our greatest challenge is developing a roadmap to strategically grow membership in order to meet our recurring revenue goal of $10,000 per month.

The Daily Catch

Location: Red Hook, New York

Revenue Challenge: I want to review the sponsorship program we currently have in place to determine what additional components we need to offer and if we are pricing sponsorship options at the right level.

The Eastsider LLC

Location: Los Angeles, California

Revenue Challenge: We set a goal of signing up 300 monthly contributors by the end of the year. But so far, we have been stuck below 220 even though we have ongoing messaging in our newsletter, website, and articles. I would like to leverage the lessons and coaching from the Lab and apply them to our fall/winter fundraiser to reach our target and increase the average contribution.

The Lansing Journal

Location: Lansing, Illinois

Revenue Challenge: In order to get the help we need to increase our coverage of local news, we need additional funding from our existing revenue sources as well as new revenue sources. We’d like to improve our success at fundraising, ad sales, grant writing, obituary sales, and merchandise sales.

The Lens

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana

Revenue Challenge: 1) How do we create a budget with growth in mind? 2) How do we know we’re effectively raising, managing, tracking, and spending our money?

The Triangle

Location: Williamsburg, Virginia

Revenue Challenge: I hope to begin diversifying my publication’s revenue streams by developing an initial ad sales and/or sponsorship plan. As part of that plan, I would like to tackle the challenge of growing my audience and reducing churn to become more appealing to potential advertisers. I also hope to start the process of identifying prospects.

This Is Reno

Location: Reno, Nevada

Revenue Challenge: We are sustainable, but may be able to grow and expand. I need to focus less on reporting and more on business operations, so we need some kind of plan where I am not running everything.

Tucson Sentinel

Location: Tucson, Arizona

Revenue Challenge: We’d like to convert 20,000 newsletter subscribers to paying donors/members, expand local, small business sponsorships, and leverage our efforts to hire a full-time revenue staffer.

Verified News Network (VNN) Oklahoma

Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma (Muscogee Creek Reservation)

Revenue Challenge: After bootstrapping our organization for five years, we have built up steady streams of income to support our news operations. However, very little of this is news revenue, and we would like to learn how to take the funding we have to grow our news revenue streams, like advertising and sponsorships.

Wausau Pilot & Review

Location: Wausau, Wisconsin

Revenue Challenge: We want to establish monthly fiscal goals that will serve as a roadmap for future staff planning. We want to have a better idea of our monthly financial needs so we can plan for future expansion in a responsible way.

Sustainability Lab Coaches

AX Mina (Ana)

AX Mina (Ana) is a strategic consultant and leadership coach with over a decade of global experience in organizational strategy and leadership, technology development, public speaking, and media. She serves as Treasurer of the News Product Alliance and previously served as COO at Meedan, where she developed and oversaw strategies and processes around business development, fundraising, and hiring and retention. Her work takes a product-first and agile approach, designed around informed and measurable experiments to identify viable and scalable strategies, and she likes to work with clients to think creatively toward compelling solutions.

Dan Petty

Dan Petty is the director of audience strategy for ProPublica. He leads the organization’s audience team, whose focus is to help ProPublica journalism reach wide, loyal, and diverse audiences on and off the organization’s platforms. He was previously director of audience development at MediaNews Group, where he worked on editorial strategy, operations, and business development and helped build the company’s digital subscription business. He previously spent seven years at the Denver Post in various production and editing roles, and he has consulted for news organizations in Kazakhstan on behalf of the International Center for Journalists and the U.S. State Department. He received a bachelor of science in biology and journalism from the University of Richmond and an MBA with honors from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2022.

Graham Watson-Ringo

Graham Ringo, a 20-year journalism veteran, is a senior director at the News Revenue Hub in charge of client success and the point of contact for the organization’s newest tech venture, the News Revenue Engine, which will allow any organization to stand up a sustainable reader revenue program. A proud Mizzou graduate and Online News Association board member, Graham has worked for major metros, digital behemoths, and scrappy digital nonprofit startups, and is a lover of the full-funnel approach, well-crafted CTAs, making a budget and sticking to it, risky business, killer UX, and insider journalism speak.

Jennifer Mizgata

Jennifer Mizgata is a consultant and coach who collaborates with organizations on program design, audience research, business, and operational strategy. Specializing in digital innovation, leadership development, and organizational change, Jennifer coaches managers, senior leaders, and entrepreneurs on their careers and business strategies. She helps teams and individuals shift mindset, work more collaboratively and bring new products to market. With extensive experience working at the intersection of journalism and technology, she has worked as a program director, editor, and business strategist, using human-centered design to build new products that respond to community needs and help create a more equitable world. She also teaches media, innovation and business strategy at American University and writes about improving work culture.

John Davidow

John Davidow is a journalist with over 30 years of experience leading major local digital, radio, and television newsrooms. He is a respected public radio innovator and digital strategist. John is a founder of Media Bridge Partners, a consultancy dedicated to building and supporting anti-racist news organizations. In 2022, John was a coach for LION’s GNI Startups Lab focused on Managing Money and Risk.

Kimberly Spencer

With over 22 years of experience in nonprofit fundraising and 8 years in revenue generation within news organizations, Kimberly has had the opportunity to contribute to various teams and projects. Her work in both nonprofit and for-profit newsrooms has helped organizations maximize revenue and efficiency. As a coach, she aims to walk alongside those she works with, offering encouragement and serving as a sounding board. She approaches conversations honestly and with compassion, always hoping to facilitate success. Her experiences have taught her a great deal, and she continues to learn and grow in this ever-evolving industry.

Maria Archangelo

Maria is a compassionate and motivating leader of high-performing revenue, fundraising, sales, and membership teams. After a long career as a journalist, she now works as a partnership-builder, fundraiser, revenue-generator, grant writer, communications strategist, membership-grower, and public speaker. Her career in journalism taught her how best to connect with people, ask the right questions, understand their challenges, and come up with innovative solutions.

Richard Eugene Brown

Richard is an accomplished executive leader with over 15 years of experience in advertising sales, revenue operations, business development, and growth marketing within the news media industry. His journey began as an entry-level sales representative, and he has since progressed to senior roles at esteemed news organizations nationwide. Currently, he serves as the Senior Director of Retention at The Daily Beast, where he oversees subscriber management and implements strategies to reduce churn. Throughout his career, he has consistently excelled at devising and executing revenue growth plans, skillfully managing advertising budgets, and nurturing digital advertising sales teams. He takes immense pride in his role as a member of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation board, contributing to solutions for community content platforms and championing journalism excellence throughout Wisconsin. Additionally, he shares insights into ad sales and revenue strategies as a contributing writer for Editor & Publisher magazine, offering valuable insights to fellow industry leaders. He is also honored to have received the News Media Alliance’s Rising Star Award.

Shira Center

Shira T. Center is the general manager for editorial revenue and strategy at Boston Globe Media, the largest news organization in New England. In this role, Shira oversees the editorial calendar, programs, and products that drive commercial revenue growth, including live journalism events, news sponsorships, and newsletters. Before pioneering this unique role, Shira was an editor and reporter for 15 years, covering national and local politics, first in Washington, D.C., and then in Boston and throughout New England. She is an alumna of the Poynter Institute’s Leadership Academy for Women in Media, a former resident fellow with the Harvard Institute of Politics, and a 2023 MBA graduate from the Yale School of Management.

The post Meet the 36 news businesses selected for the Sustainability Lab: Unblocking Revenue Barriers appeared first on LION Publishers.

We learned that participants who saw the most significant progress tackled a specific issue using existing resources and implemented their learnings immediately. We also learned that identifying and addressing barriers to revenue growth was critical to making that progress. 

That’s why we’re thrilled to announce the Sustainability Lab: Unblocking Revenue Barriers, again in partnership with GNI. This Lab will help independent news organizations bridge the gap between big-picture planning and daily execution. Participants will identify what’s standing in the way of meeting their revenue goals and articulate and test creative solutions for overcoming those blockers. 

With the support of asynchronous training, one-on-one coaching, peer learning and up to $9,000 in direct support, each of the 36 participants will develop a custom curriculum and tailored deliverables that will help clear the way for revenue growth and make progress toward sustainability.

We recognize that blockers or challenges will vary for each organization, which is why we’re focusing our efforts on three main tracks that we know have a proven impact on sustainability.

1. Understanding your finances to plan strategically: This track addresses the ability to understand and analyze the financial health of your news business, including revenue, expenses, and cash flow. It involves having a clear understanding of the financial metrics and indicators that are most important for your business, and using that data to make informed decisions about budgeting, forecasting, and strategic planning.
2. Hiring, supporting, managing and/or retaining members of your team in a revenue role: This track addresses the importance of having the right role, the right person, the right goals and the right support in place for a team member focused on revenue generation. It might address any combination of the following: role development, recruitment, hiring, training, support, setting clear expectations and key performance indicators (KPIs) for revenue goals, or creating processes and fostering an environment of collaboration, innovation, and accountability. 
3. Growing or leveling-up an existing revenue stream: This track involves identifying opportunities to expand or optimize a current revenue stream, which could include developing revenue-generating assets, gaining a better understanding of your audience to inform a reader-revenue ongoing program, or setting up the right tool for tracking leads, donors, members, or subscribers.

This program will support news organizations to maximize their revenue growth potential by providing:

• 1:1 coaching to help participants identify and overcome a specific challenge 
• Asynchronous training using a personalized curriculum to ensure participants learn the skills and knowledge they need to achieve their goals
• A menu of deliverables from which each organization can select to focus on areas that will have the biggest impact on their revenue
• Peer-learning moments to provide participants with the opportunity to share experiences and learn from each other
• Up to $9,000 USD in funding to work on deliverables that implement their learnings

During the eight-week program, participants will:

1. Identify revenue pain points and what’s standing in the way of meeting revenue goals
2. Understand how to create a problem statement to articulate challenges
3. Analyze ideas and potential solutions using creative problem-solving frameworks
4. Apply problem-solving frameworks to the most urgent blockers and iterate based on feedback 
5. Synthesize financial and operational data to make informed decisions about budgeting, forecasting, and strategic planning and/or hiring, supporting, managing, and retaining members of their team in a revenue role and/or identifying opportunities to expand or optimize current revenue streams
6. Understand how to apply problem-solving frameworks to other painpoints and blockers

Participants will also gain insights and ideas from their peers in the program, with whom they can share their experiences, successes, and challenges with others in the program.

How to apply for the Sustainability Lab: Unblocking Revenue Barriers

Applications are open until Wednesday, July 19 at 5 p.m. Eastern Time. Read our FAQ below for more details on the programs, eligibility, funding and more.

We will host an information session via Zoom on Tuesday, July 11 at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. We will record the session and share the video here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What exactly does the Sustainability Lab entail?

Over the course of eight weeks, you’ll receive:

• 1:1 Coaching: Participants will receive personalized coaching sessions with experts that are designed to help them identify and overcome their specific challenges. The coaching will provide guidance and support tailored to each organization’s unique circumstances.
• Asynchronous Training: Participants will have access to asynchronous training through LION’s News Entrepreneur Academy. They will be able to personalize their curriculum to ensure they can acquire the necessary skills and knowledge required to achieve their revenue goals.
• Menu of Deliverables: Each organization will have the opportunity to select from a menu of deliverables. This menu offers a range of options that can be tailored to address the areas that will have the biggest impact on their revenue growth. Participants are also welcome to propose deliverables that are most relevant to them.
• Peer-Learning Moments: Participants will have opportunities to engage with their peers, share experiences, and learn from each other. We want to foster collaboration, exchange ideas, and build a supportive community within the program.
• Funding Support: To implement their learnings and drive revenue growth, participating organizations will have the opportunity to access up to $9,000 USD in funding. This financial support can be utilized to implement the knowledge gained during the program, enabling organizations to put their learnings into practice.

How much funding is available and how can I access the funding?

Program participants who submit their custom deliverables can then access up to $9,000 USD in funding. LION does not require a budget or a financial report specifically related to this funding. We know that news leaders are best equipped to determine how to utilize these resources within your organization. 

Am I eligible to apply?

Organizations that meet the following eligibility requirements are welcome to apply:

• Based in the U.S. or Canada
• Independently owned and operated. (This can include public media outlets if the public media outlet has merged with an independent publication and the two are independently run and funded; This can include college-based publications if they are independently run and/or funded.)
• Produce original content that is primarily on a digital platform(s)
• Operating for at least six months
• The majority of content must be focused on local news and/or geographically-constrained communities. National news should be written through a local lens or context. We will also accept publications that are not geographically constrained but offer single-subject news for a specific community.
• The content demonstrates a desire and an effort to practice accuracy, transparency and fairness
• Can demonstrate some progress on the path to sustainability, i.e., increased site visits, a growing membership program or increased earned revenue

We will prioritize organizations which identify as being in the following stages of sustainability, as this program is best suited to their challenges and needs:

• Building: Iterating products based on audience and market research while building a foundation for the supporting revenue and operations.
• Maintaining: Increasing journalistic impact and audience growth while still seeking operational and financial stability.
• Poised for Growth: Preparing for a growth catalyst while products, revenue and operations are stable. 

Do I have to be a LION member to apply?

No. The Sustainability Lab: Unblocking Revenue Barriers is open to any news business that meets the eligibility requirements. However, once accepted to the program, you must apply to become a LION member and be accepted before the program starts. Learn more about how to become a LION member here.

Can I apply for this program if I was selected for a Lab last year?

Certainly. However, we will prioritize applicants who have not been selected for a previous Lab in order to support as many publishers as we can.

Can I apply for this program if I was selected for a Sustainability Audit?

Yes, Labs and Audits are considered separate programs, but we view them as complementary. In fact, if you have already received a Sustainability Audit and are seeking guidance on implementing the recommendations, this Lab could be an excellent fit for you.

How will you evaluate applications?

Applications will be evaluated based on the clarity and urgency of your challenges, your readiness to address them and whether the program is designed to support them.  We are not expecting applicants to have all the answers, but we are interested in receiving clear and specific questions.

What if I need support in more than one or all three tracks? 

We view the three tracks as intersecting, and most news organizations would likely benefit from support in more than one track. However, we encourage participants to think about where they need the most support right now in order to meet revenue goals. Unless your challenge sits at the intersection of all three tracks, we recommend narrowing in as much as possible.

What if I’m not accepted? Can LION still help me strengthen my news business in these areas?

Absolutely, and this is a great year for that. Applications are open for the Sustainability Audit and Funding program that comes with $20,000 USD in direct funding for 2023 and 2024. You can take asynchronous courses through the News Entrepreneur Academy and all the templates and deliverables from the Lab will be available there. 

LION will also host the Southeast News Sustainability Meetup in Durham, North Carolina. This will be an intimate, local opportunity for independent newsroom leaders, funders and supporters based in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Georgia, as well as Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky and other states extending into the Mid-Atlantic.

What is the time commitment for this program?

This is an intensive eight-week program, which requires up to 4 hours of work per week. Think of it as a deep dive into the most pressing challenge your news organization is currently facing. The program is designed so your investment of time and effort will contribute to the overall sustainability of your news organization.

Still have questions? Reach out to Andrew Rockway, LION’s program manager, at andrewrockway@lionpublishers.com.

The post LION and GNI partner to deliver a program on unblocking barriers to revenue generation appeared first on LION Publishers.

LION Program Coach

Status: Independent Contractor

Point of Contact: Senior Manager of Coaching

Location: Remote within USA

Engagement Type: Short-term contract, with variable working hours, from August 21 until November 3, 2023.

Project Summary

LION is launching a program in September to help independent news organizations bridge the gap between big-picture planning and daily execution. During the eight-week program, participants will identify what’s standing in the way of meeting their revenue goals and articulate and test creative solutions for overcoming those blockers. 

With the support of asynchronous training, one-on-one coaching, peer learning and up to $9,000 in direct funding, each of the 36 participants will develop a custom curriculum and tailored deliverables that will help clear the way for revenue growth and make progress toward sustainability. 

During the eight weeks of the program, participants will:

• Identify revenue pain points and what’s standing in the way of meeting revenue goals
• Understand how to create a problem statement to articulate challenges
• Analyze ideas and potential solutions using creative problem-solving frameworks
• Apply problem-solving frameworks to the most urgent blockers and iterate based on feedback 
• Synthesize financial and operational data to make informed decisions about budgeting, forecasting, and strategic planning and/or attracting and retaining members of their team in a revenue role, and/or identify opportunities to expand or optimize current revenue streams
• Understand how to apply problem-solving frameworks to other painpoints and blockers

We recognize that blockers or challenges will vary for each organization, which is why we’re focusing our efforts on three tracks that we know have a proven impact on increasing sustainability. 

We’re looking for independent contractors who have deep expertise in one of the following tracks and a breadth of expertise in others, as well as an understanding of how they all intersect:

1. Understanding finances to strategically plan
2. Hiring, supporting, managing and retaining team members in a revenue role 
3. Growing or leveling up an existing revenue stream 

Skills and qualifications for this role

• Have experience with financial management and analysis, including budgeting, forecasting, and aligning organizational finances and operations. This includes the ability to guide participants in analyzing financial health, revenue, expenses, and cash flow data.
• Is knowledgeable about best practices to identify, attract and retain talent specifically for revenue roles within the news industry, including understanding the skills and experience needed for success in these roles.
• Can provide guidance on how to improve performance management systems and set clear expectations and key performance indicators for revenue roles in an existing organization.
• Have an understanding of how to evaluate and analyze current revenue streams within independent news organizations, which includes identifying opportunities for expansion and optimization.
• Is familiar with various revenue models, such as reader revenue, ads and sponsorships, major donors, etc. This includes knowledge of best practices, pricing strategies, and value proposition development.

Other skills and expectations

• Have experience working with news entrepreneurs operating lean teams
• Have a breadth of expertise with journalism entrepreneurial challenges and opportunities
• Are comfortable coaching around both big picture strategy and specific tactical approaches, but know they don’t need to be an expert in everything
• Share our vision that holistic sustainability lies at the nexus of journalistic impact, operational resilience and financial health 
• Can curate the LION community, industry knowledge and their networks to help publications prioritize their most urgent needs
• Can balance the delivery of empathetic encouragement and reality checks to resource-constrained publishers

Coaching project 

The coaching contractor will have two primary responsibilities:

• Through weekly coaching sessions, support and guide four participating news businesses as they implement training and produce the relevant program deliverables.
• Document coaching sessions to inform programming and to help LION gain a deeper understanding of what news businesses need at different stages. These insights will be shared at regular coaching team meetings and through light-lift weekly coaching reports. 

Coaching deliverables

• Participating news businesses report that they felt supported throughout the program and as they produced their program deliverables
• Weekly coaching reports for each participant
• Share feedback on the program and your coaching experience through our offboarding survey 

Hiring process

• Candidates selected to advance to the next round will be invited to complete a written exercise in which they will be asked to apply their experience to a closer real-life situation. This should take up to 45 minutes to complete.
• Finalists will be invited to a 30-minute Zoom interview with members of LION team.

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 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.

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.

Time commitment and important dates
The program runs the week of September 4 through the week of October 30, 2023. The onboarding process for the coaches will begin during the week of August 21.

Compensation
Coaches will be paid a flat fee of $9,400 for the project, which consists of roughly 50 hours of coaching and administrative work. Half will be paid upon signing the contract and the other half will be paid upon completion of the final deliverable.

Application materials

Submit your materials using this form by 11 p.m. Eastern time on June 30. You will be asked to provide:

• Your resume
• Any online links that show your work (a Twitter profile, a portfolio page, a LinkedIn profile, etc.)
• Answers to the following questions:
  • Based on your experience, what do you think are the biggest challenges for independent news businesses related to revenue growth?
  • How would you describe your coaching style? Can you tell us about a time when you put your coaching style into practice? What was the specific situation and what was the outcome?
  • Please rank your comfort level coaching around the following tracks, from most comfortable to least comfortable:
    • Understanding your finances to plan strategically
    • Hiring, supporting, managing and retaining members of your team in a revenue role
    • Growing or leveling up an existing revenue stream
  • Can you describe your experience coaching in the area with the highest rank? Include specific examples highlighting how you have helped organizations or individuals overcome challenges related to that area.
  • Please share anything else you’d like us to know about your background, experience or skills that speaks to your ability to do this role.

If you have questions about this role, reach out to LION Senior Manager of Coaching Elaine Diaz (elaine@lionpublishers.com) to learn more.

The post LION is hiring coaches for our next revenue generation program appeared first on LION Publishers.

Point of Contact: Senior Manager of Coaching

Location: Remote within USA and Canada

Engagement Type: Short-term contract, with variable working hours, from May 31 until November 30, 2023.

Compensation: Flat rate of $6,500 for a total of 6 audits. Half ($3,250) may be invoiced upon signing the contract and the other half may be invoiced upon completion of the final audit cycle.

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 400+ 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 that assesses a news organization’s strengths, opportunities and priorities along the path to becoming 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 one of these areas can cause the entire operation to (at best) underperform or (at worst) fall apart.

In 2022, we audited 100 newsrooms through the LION-GNI Sustainability Audits & Funding program. You can read more about that iteration as well as what our experts learned here.

This year, we’re looking for 11 Audit Analysts to audit 3 publications each per cycle. We will be launching two cycles, from May 31 until August 30 and from September 4 until November 30.

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 of the two cycles:
  • Familiarize themselves with each publication through online research
  • Gain a deeper understanding of each publication via a dossier, which contain 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.
• Fill out an offboarding survey to inform future programs.

We anticipate that each audit will take 8-9 hours total to complete, with the assumption that an analyst is completing three audits per cycle, for a total of 6 audits.

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 program participants 
• 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

Application materials

Submit your materials using this form by 11 p.m. Pacific time on April 26. You will be asked to provide:

• Your resume
• Any online links that show your work (a Twitter 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?
  • 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 Senior Manager of Coaching Elaine Díaz (elaine@lionpublishers.com) to learn more.

The post LION is Hiring Sustainability Audit Analysts appeared first on LION Publishers.

Coaches Hannah Sung and Natasha Grzincinc have extensive experience working in and with independent news publishers. Each coach will be hosting meetings between March 27 and April 28. 

Read more about each coach and sign up for a session by completing the form below. After completing the form, LION will confirm your membership and send you a link via email to book a coaching session.

Hannah Sung

Hannah Sung is a co-founder of the award-winning Media Girlfriends, a production company led by journalists of color who prioritize inclusion, diversity and perspectives in media. She is also founder of the At The End Of the Day newsletter and podcast, which was named an Apple Podcasts Best of 2022. Previously, she worked at the Globe and Mail and TVO. In 2020, she was the Asper Fellow at the University of Western Ontario. Hannah began her career in music television at MuchMusic, where she hosted shows including MuchNews and The NewMusic.

Areas of Expertise:

• Starting your news business
• Products/Editorial products
• Newsletters
• Revenue generation
• Podcasting
• Trauma-informed reporting

Natasha Grzincic

Natasha Grzincic (Gur-zin-sitch) is a Massey journalism fellow at the University of Toronto. She’s on leave from her role as deputy editor at VICE News, where she oversees newsroom development and leads coverage on the climate crisis and social justice. Tash is also a co-founder of Canadian Journalists of Colour, a networking group that supports racialized journalists. Previously, Tash was Madame Deputy at VICE Canada, put the mother in Motherboard (as senior editor), and was digital news lead at the Toronto Star. She’s also worked in the nonprofit world, at the global free expression network IFEX, and in print and magazines.

Areas of Expertise:

• Editorial strategy
• Practice your pitch
• Leading remote teams
• Working with freelancers
• Budgeting
• Finding success as a journalist of color

This opportunity is open to LION members based in Canada. Although we encourage all our Canadian members to apply, we will be prioritizing news publishers who didn’t participate in the GNI Startups Boot Camp Canada, as those members are already receiving ongoing coaching.

Sign up today:

If you have any questions, reach out to LION’s Senior Manager of Coaching, Elaine Diaz (elainediaz@lionpublishers.com) to learn more.

The post LION will offer coaching to Canadian members at no cost through April appeared first on LION Publishers.

My mother, an immigrant, talked about missing family members in our home country and not being able to travel to see them. My husband explained that he needed to hire for three positions at his job, but he didn’t have enough funding for all of them. 

Asking questions for 15 minutes required a constant fight against my desire to offer solutions to both problems. But unsurprisingly, by the end of both conversations, my mother and husband had come up with their own solutions — and none of them looked like what I had imagined. (Side note: I tried to replicate this with my toddlers, and it didn’t go so well, but that is a story for another day.)

This kind of conversation is at the core of our coaching philosophy at LION: We firmly believe that the people closest to the problem are the closest to the solution, and we have designed all our programs in the last year with that philosophy in mind. 

Most recently, we brought in experts from across the industry for our GNI Startups Lab program to support LION members on their path to sustainability in three specific areas: managing risk and money, building and managing a team and planning for revenue growth.

The feedback from participants on the coaching they received has been overwhelmingly positive:

• “The training through the News Entrepreneur Academy paired with the expertise of my coach set me up for success for the year to come and beyond.” -Travers Johnson, Queerency

• “The coaches, education, and LION community are supportive and top-notch.” -Michelle Olvera, BoldLatina

• “Bringing in leaders from the field who both know what they’re talking about and can break down their process step-by-step is exactly what we wanted out of this program and it’s exactly what we got.” – Gabe Schneider, The Objective

We heard feedback like this across all our programs that offered personalized coaching, including the LION-GNI Sustainability Audits and Funding program and the LION-Meta Revenue Growth Fellowship. Here are a few takeaways about why this type of coaching is so important and how other organizations can build it into their own programming. 

1. Coaching and training meet different needs for news publishers — and should be paired together.

Last year, we soft launched the News Entrepreneur Academy to offer LION members self-guided courses on small business topics such as accounting and planning for revenue growth. We built these courses into our GNI Startups Lab curriculum so news leaders could learn new skills and build a shared foundation of knowledge. 

However, we know that no two news businesses are exactly alike, and context matters when it comes to translating a best practice into an actual practice. That’s why we paired these self-guided training courses with personalized, one-to-one coaching. 

“Coaching is the critical link that helps publishers incorporate their newfound knowledge into their big-picture and day-to-day efforts,” said Lisa Heyamoto, LION’s director of programming, member education. “Our program design makes that relationship even more explicit.” 

Pairing coaching with training meant that our coaches could spend their time with participants discussing how to effectively apply the training. From our coaches in the Managing Money and Risk program, we learned that the trainings:

• Became an ongoing coaching tool. Coaches felt they could refer participants back to the videos to gain more clarity around key concepts and frameworks, instead of spending precious coaching time revisiting them on a call. 
  
• Made coaching conversations more productive. When participants were grounded in the concepts before meeting with their coaches, it was easier to make progress on problem-solving than when participants had not seen the courses.
  
• Were especially relevant to early stage organizations. For many of these organizations, the content in the NEA courses was entirely new to them, and it helped them catch up with organizations that had more small business administration experience.

“Coaching can be awesomely specific and useful so long as there’s a foundation of knowledge to build on,” said Anika Anand, LION’s deputy director, “and that came from our NEA courses in this case.”

2. Attracting highly qualified coaches with relevant experience starts with an intentional recruitment process.

We received 56 amazing applications for 12 GNI Startups Lab coaching positions this year, and the strength of our coaching pool started with the design of our recruitment process. 

Here are the steps we followed to make sure our process was fair, competitive and equitable:

• Accept applications: We didn’t just want to invite big names in the industry to be coaches, because we know there are many professionals with relevant experience we’d miss out on. By opening up applications, we gave these professionals the same chance to prove themselves as other candidates.
  
• Be transparent about pay: We believe no candidate should enter a contracting process without knowing compensation information beforehand, and this transparency also helps inform standard industry rates that other y peer organizations, funders, and news leaders can benefit from.
  
• When in doubt, err on the side of advancing a candidate: This helps guarantee that people from disadvantaged backgrounds or outside journalism support organization networks get a chance to show who they are, which sometimes takes more than one interview. 
  
• Think hard about your application criteria: We started by deciding what skills are must-haves and what are nice-to-haves. We also articulated the program’s target population and personas so we can ask candidates if they have relevant experience serving that group. (Sidenote: Highly qualified candidates sometimes don’t have relevant experience in newsrooms, but their experience mentoring local businesses makes them uniquely qualified to be coaches and foster out-of-the-box thinking).
  
• Make yourself available during the hiring process: Taking the time to talk with potential candidates allowed us to clarify expectations for good candidates who felt they may not have relevant newsroom experience. This is even more important if you’re trying to provide coaching in areas such as financial planning and human resources because they aren’t specific to the news business. We recommend stealing Outlier’s hiring hotline idea and making sure you set aside time for 1:1s. The questions you receive from the first candidates that reach out to you can inform a Frequently Asked Questions document.
  
• Make a plan for reaching beyond your own networks: If we’re only reaching out directly to people we know or posting on Slack channels full of people in our network, it is easy to reproduce the same privilege and inequality that permeates our industry. That’s why we use these questions to guide our outreach strategy:
  • To the best of my knowledge, is this pool of candidates varied in terms of race, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, geography, experience, education, etc.? 
  • Do we have people with diverse backgrounds?
  • Do we have people from different organizations?
  • To the best of my knowledge, do people from historically marginalized communities have access to this place or are members of this organization, Slack channel, etc.? If not, how am I addressing this through direct outreach and word-of-mouth?
    
• Evaluate and iterate: As with every process, there will always be imperfections and room for improvement. Take the time to answer emails from candidates who were not selected. Make sure to create a space to evaluate and for your team to provide feedback on these processes. Reach out to candidates and ask them about their experience.

3. Coaches need to understand the goals of their coaching sessions.

Our programs have repeatedly taught us that a single person doesn’t have all the answers – no matter their level of expertise. That said, a single person who knows how to ask the right questions can help news leaders solve almost any challenge, which connects back to our core coaching philosophy: The people closest to the problem are the ones closest to the solution.

Building on that philosophy, the main goals of our coaching program are to:

1. Build organizational capacity: Coaches focus on developing the participant’s skills and helping them shore up the structures, workflows and strategies that support their work.
   
2. Foster independent thinking and problem solving: We want participants to not only solve specific business problems in our programs, but to develop the skills and confidence to tackle future challenges independently.
   
3. Generate momentum toward measurable goals: As a process gains momentum, it begins to happen more quickly and becomes less likely to stop. Our coaches help news businesses set realistic and achievable goals that can create momentum and discourage “planning to plan.” 
   
4. Model applying the same framework to new, similar problems: A framework is a structure intended to support or guide future designs and decisions. By helping leaders develop a framework instead of prescribing a one-time solution, participants can build long-lasting skills that are transferable to new, similar challenges.

Central to this approach is tailoring the coaching to the organizations’ particular goals and progress. We don’t want organizations to meet program goals for the sake of meeting program goals. Instead, our aim is for each newsroom to move the needle in whatever way is relevant and feasible.

For the Startups Labs, coaches worked with participants to adapt the program deliverables to their specific needs. That was especially true during our Building and Managing a Team program where it was more relevant for some participants to work on building a budget (to set a strong foundation for making the next hire) or produce a performance review document or leadership readme than to pursue our suggested deliverable of a staffing plan and employee handbook.

4. Coaching works best when it’s a team effort.

It takes a village to boost and support news businesses, and we work hard in our programs to make sure participants are benefitting from the collective expertise and experience of the whole coaching team. 

How do we do that?

• We think about building a team of coaches, not just hiring individuals: We intentionally hire coaches with different and complementary skill sets, and we prioritize hiring people who are good team players.
  
• Host weekly meetings to workshop challenges: We don’t want these weekly meetings to be another space to repeat the information we gather from written coaches’ reports. Instead, we designed a Rose/Bud/Thorn system to make sure we have time and space to address and workshop specific challenges and share resources.
  
• Provide a Coach’s Handbook to help set expectations: We created this living document to provide an easy reference point for our growing group of coaches across programs. The handbook familiarizes coaches with the principles, values, and theory of change that guide LION Publishers so we remain consistent across programs. It also explains responsibilities and sets clear expectations so coaches are better equipped for success in their role. 

5. Setting coaches up for success requires a lot of hard work behind the scenes. 

We want our coaches to coach, not to spend their time drowning in administrative work, so we do a lot of heavy lifting in the background to make that possible, including:

• Sending a welcome letter to help acclimate our coaches to the program and our coaching processes at LION. 
  
• Writing one-page background briefs on all our program participants and sharing those with the coaching team. We heard from our coaches this year that they want even more of this kind of information to better understand where organizations have been and where they want to go.
  
• Setting up a light-lift coaching report template that coaches can complete and submit in Slack. The coaching reports are designed to take less than 15 minutes to complete, and they help us collaborate as a program team by providing visibility on the common challenges that participants are facing and the questions they’re asking.

How we’ll incorporate coaching into LION’s work in 2023

We are still working on the retrospective for the 2022 GNI Startups Labs, but we know for sure that we will keep building coaching into our education programs. We are interested in talking with even more coaches from diverse experiences and backgrounds, so (per learning #2!) don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at elaine@lionpublishers.com if you’re interested in working with us. 

Meet the coaches from our 2022 GNI Startups Lab

Managing Risk and Money

Eric Johnston, chief executive officer at Sonoma Media Investments, LLC

Graham Watson-Ringo, senior director of client success at News Revenue Hub 

Ingrid Marielos Marthy, former director of the Women’s Business Center, an SBA-sponsored program, in Fayetteville, NC, and San Francisco, CA

John Davidow, founder of Media Bridge Partners and acting chief of staff at the National Trust for Local News

Building and Managing a Team

An Xiao (Ana) Mina, executive consultant and coach with over a decade of global experience 

Mary Benedicta Cipolla, former editor-in-chief and publisher at Chalkbeat

Richard Tofel, founding general manager and first employee of ProPublica from 2007-2012, and its president from 2013 until September 2021

Jennifer Mizgata, senior media consultant specializing in digital innovation, leadership development, and organizational change

Planning for Revenue Growth

Maria Archangelo, chief revenue officer at Open Campus

Sam Gross, co-founder of Stacker

Scott Rosenfield, chief of staff to the CEO at The Atlantic

Todd Stauffer, association manager and digital specialist for the Association of Alternative Newsmedia

Elaine Díaz is LION’s senior manager of coaching.

The post What does it take to support news publishers with personalized coaching? appeared first on LION Publishers.

Those are some of the bright spots our 27 Sustainability Audit analysts identified after helping us compile customized reports for 75 LION members so far this year. (We just announced our final 25 audit recipients for the LION-GNI Sustainability Audits & Funding program and look forward to sharing insights we gleaned across all 100 audits early next year). 

“One of the most exciting things about being a sustainability analyst is when you see how much thinking in the local news space has evolved,” said analyst Maria Archangelo, chief revenue officer of Open Campus, and a long-time leader of high-performing revenue, fundraising, sales, and membership teams for news organizations.

That evolution, Archangelo said, has led to news businesses creating better products, finding sustainable and scalable ways to understand what audiences want and developing creative strategies to generate revenue.

She cited Sioux Falls Simplified as an example. Founder Megan Raposa market tested her ideas through one-on-one interviews before launch and found that readers wanted a wider variety of coverage than her original plan to focus on education. More LION members are using this approach to help fill a community need by better matching their products to the markets.

Also more news leaders are embracing their role as publishers and journalists, said Todd Stauffer, association manager and digital specialist for the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. He’s seeing news leaders focus more deeply on finding creative ways to generate the revenue that enables the journalism, even if the business side isn’t their first love.

“It was very encouraging to see people in the journalism ecosystem taking on these difficult changes and finding ways to rise up to them,” Stauffer said.

Bene Cipolla, consultant and former publisher of Chalkbeat, said she was impressed to see how organizations built “significant, engaged audiences with very little staff, which shows the hunger for quality local news in their areas.”

These insights are encouraging, and as every publisher knows, there is still more work to do. 

Here are seven challenges our analysts surfaced, alongside some solutions they’ve recommended, that are helping inform our next steps for the Sustainability Audit.

The challenge: Too many organizations make decisions based on instinct rather than data. “I heard a lot of ‘I think’ or ‘I believe,’ and some of the founders had invested an incredible amount of money and time without checking any of their assumptions or evaluating them at critical junctures in their business,” said analyst Ariel Zirulnick, senior editor of community engagement for Southern California Public Radio. 

The solution: Conduct audience research to understand who your audiences are, what they want and how they behave. 

“[Focus on] what the audiences need and want, not what the news organization wants to provide,” said Erica Perel, director of the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

The challenge: Not enough attention paid to or investment in revenue, people and operations. As Stauffer pointed out, there is progress being made here, but it’s not consistent across all publishers.

The solution: More publishers need to focus on planning, documenting, recruiting, hiring and retention. That includes “creating humane job descriptions and setting employees up for success, having policies to prevent harassment and other workplace violations, [budgeting for] realistic and healthy benefits packages, etc.,” Perel said.

The challenge: Solopreneurs not being realistic when it comes to compensation and burnout.“A theme across the organizations is that [many] founders and owners don’t pay themselves a living wage, for well past the startup phase,” Perel said. “As long as this is the prevailing expectation, news entrepreneurship will be closed to people who can’t afford it.” 

The solution: Founders need to prioritize paying themselves a sustainable wage, and consider creating a community advisory board or looking for a business partner to reduce the ‘echo-chamber of one’ effect and increase the confidence and productivity of the news leaders.

The challenge: Focusing on increasing the reporting at all costs. Analyst Angilee Shah, editor-in-chief of Charlottesville Tomorrow, highlighted one of the most common problems our participants face: adding more editorial content without the operational infrastructure to support it, which leads to feeling even more under-resourced. 

The solution: “They need systems, processes, and long-term planning to enable them to grow intentionally and sustainably,” Shah said.

The challenge: Not enough examples of exemplary operational processes and systems. “There needs to be a transition from thinking of local news as scrappy and small and simply a passion project to [it being] a viable business and career option with decent salaries,” said Jan Boyd, chief content officer at WSBE Rhode Island PBS. 

The solution: Collecting and sharing more examples of successful processes and systems that make the work more sustainable. “So much of success comes down to establishing routines,” said Zirulnick. 

The challenge: A lack of industry benchmarks that inform and motivate a news business’ growth. Analyst Dan Oshinsky, who runs Inbox Collective, said benchmarks allow teams to answer common questions about their business health and stage of growth, which helps orient news businesses on the path to sustainability. 

The solution: An industry-wide focus on benchmarks. “Seeing their growth measured against other local newsrooms will help many of these organizations understand where they need to invest and improve moving forward,” he said, adding that the industry also needs “more real talk and detailed data analysis about what success at each growth stage actually looks like.” (This will be a big focus for LION next year, and we’ll share more soon.)

The challenge: Too many news leaders feel like they’re going it alone. You generally succeed [in a leadership position] because you don’t quit,” Stauffer said. “But not quitting is easier when you can share your experiences with people who understand, sympathize, and have potential solutions.” 

The solution: More opportunities to share experiences and build community. “As I wrote up the audits, I had the sense that they’d benefit from ongoing conversations,” Cipolla said. Those conversations can take many shapes: follow-up calls, mentorship, peer-to-peer learning, and coaching support. 

What’s next for LION’s Sustainability Audits

The audits are a reminder that “despite significant challenges, local news is staffed by people of goodwill who truly want to serve their communities and can blossom with the right help,” Perel said. 

LION is continuing its work to implement many of the solutions suggested by our analysts, and we will conduct 300 additional audits over the next three years thanks to support from the Knight Foundation. The lessons we learn will inform our future support and programming.

Meet our audit analysts

Thank you to all the experts who have contributed to our Sustainability Audits this year as analysts: 

1. Adriana Peña, media business strategy consultant and founder at Adventiva
2. Alec Saelens, revenue project manager at the Solutions Journalism Network
3. Alexandra Smith, audience director at the nonprofit newsroom The 19th
4. Angilee Shah, editor-in-chief at Charlottesville Tomorrow
5. Ariel Zirulnick, senior editor for community engagement at Southern California Public Radio
6. Becca Aaronson, co-founder and news product strategist and executive consultant at News Product Alliance 
7. Dan Oshinsky, founder and consultant at Inbox Collective 
8. David Arkin, consultant on content, product and digital audience at David Arkin Consulting
9. David Yoder, senior ad & marketing manager at Richland Source
10. Elaine Díaz Rodríguez, senior manager of coaching at LION Publishers
11. Emily Roseman, research director & editor at the Institute for Nonprofit News
12. Erica Beshears Perel, director of the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media
13. Frances Dinkelspiel, co-founder and former executive editor of Cityside Journalism Initiative
14. Graham Ringo, senior director of client success at the News Revenue Hub
15. Jan Boyd, chief content officer at WSBE Rhode Island PBS
16. Jennifer Preston, former VP for Journalism at the Knight Foundation and senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School
17. Joanne Griffith, chief content officer for APM Studios
18. Joe Lanane, publisher success senior manager at Indiegraf
19. Kim Fox, director of product, reader experience at Hearst Newspapers
20. Lisa Heyamoto, director of teaching & learning at LION Publishers
21. Maple Walker Lloyd, director of development and community engagement at Block Club Chicago 
22. Maria Archangelo, chief revenue officer at Open Campus
23. Mary Benedicta Cipolla, former editor-in-chief and publisher at Chalkbeat
24. Maria Catalina Colmenares-Wiss, consultant, strategic advisor and former program director for Latin America at Media Development Investment Fund.
25. Priyanka Sharma-Sindhar, director of development and donor engagement at The Conversation US.
26. Shannan Bowen, executive director of the NC Local News Workshop
27. Todd Stauffer, association manager and digital specialist at the Association of Alternative Newsmedia

The post What our independent news experts learned from auditing 75 news businesses appeared first on LION Publishers.

LION Program Coach – Planning for Revenue Growth

Status: Independent Contractor

Point of Contact: Senior Manager of Coaching

Location: Remote within USA

Engagement Type: Short-term contract, with variable working hours, from October 10 – December 12, 2022

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 400+ 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

The 2022 GNI Startups Lab: Planning for Revenue Growth is an eight-week program launching in October. The aim is to help independent news businesses strategically assess revenue-generating opportunities, align finances with goals and understand what it takes to make them happen, with the ultimate aim of helping them progress down the path to sustainability.

It will provide news businesses with:

• Training to understand how to assess an opportunity and identify how ideas align with market forces, audience needs and capacity
• An understanding of the operational needs that precede revenue growth
• One-on-one coaching to implement training and produce program deliverables 
• Direct funding to execute deliverables

We’re looking for independent contractors to provide coaching who:

• Are familiar with the systems, policies, processes, resources and workflows you need to have in place before launching a new revenue stream or growing an existing revenue source
• Are familiar with revenue trends and revenue opportunities for news businesses
• Have an understanding of audience and market research 
• Have an understanding of budgeting, forecasting and risk assessment as critical aspects of assessing financial position and informing future plans
• Have experience working with, or have themselves been, entrepreneurs running small teams
• Have a breadth of expertise with journalism entrepreneurial challenges and opportunities
• Share our vision that holistic sustainability lies at the nexus of journalistic impact, operational resilience and financial health 
• Are comfortable coaching around both big picture strategy and specific tactical approaches, but know they don’t need to be an expert in everything 
• Can curate the LION community, industry knowledge and their networks to help publications prioritize their most urgent needs
• Can balance the delivery of empathetic encouragement and reality checks to resource-constrained publishers

Coaching project 

The coaching contractor will have two primary responsibilities:

• Through weekly coaching sessions, support and guide four participating news businesses as they implement training and produce the following program deliverables: Revenue operations checklist and Revenue plan.
• Document coaching sessions to inform programming and to help LION gain a deeper understanding of what news businesses need at different stages. These insights will be shared at regular coaching team meetings and through light-lift weekly coaching reports. 

Coaching goals and deliverables

• Participating news businesses report that they felt supported as they produced their program deliverables
• Weekly coaching reports for each participant
• Your feedback on the program and your coaching experience through our offboarding survey 

Time commitment and important dates

The program runs the week of October 10 through the week of December 12, 2022.

Compensation

Coaches will be paid $10,000 for the project, which consists of roughly 50 hours of work. Half will be paid upon signing the contract and the other half will be paid upon completion of the final deliverable. 

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. 

Application materials

Submit your materials using this form by 11 p.m. Pacific time on September 20. You will be asked to provide:

• Your resume
• Any online links that show your work (a Twitter profile, a portfolio page, a LinkedIn profile, etc.)
• Answers to the following questions:
  • Why are you interested in coaching with LION?
  • How would you describe your coaching style?
  • What do you see as the biggest challenges facing independent news organizations when it comes to revenue growth?
  • Tell us about a time when you helped someone align their ideas with reality. What was the situation and how did you approach it? What did you learn?
  • Please tell us anything else you’d like us to know about your background, experience or skills that speaks to your ability to do this role.

If you have questions about this role, reach out to LION Senior Manager of Coaching Elaine Diaz (elaine@lionpublishers.com) to learn more.

The post LION is looking for coaches with experience in revenue growth appeared first on LION Publishers.

Status: Independent Contractor

Point of Contact: Senior Manager of Coaching

Location: Remote within USA

Engagement Type: Short-term contract, with variable working hours, from September 19 through November 25, 2022

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 400+ 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

The 2022 GNI Startups Lab on building and managing a team is an eight-week program launching in September. The aim is to help independent news businesses strategically and effectively hire, onboard and manage team members to support the people whose talent and well-being are key to their long term sustainability. 

It will provide news businesses with:

• Training to identify why and when to hire for a new position and understand best practices for hiring, onboarding and managing a team member
• One-on-one coaching to implement training and produce program deliverables 
• Direct funding to execute deliverables

We’re looking for independent contractors to provide coaching who:

• Have an expertise in news business management, strategic planning, staffing and internal operations
• Can provide support on best practices for hiring, onboarding and managing a team member and documenting processes, approaches and workflows
• Is familiar with human resources and building strong work cultures, including best practices to structurally address burn-out
• Have experience working with, or have themselves been, organization leaders operating small teams
• Have a breadth of expertise with journalism entrepreneurial challenges and opportunities
• Share our vision that holistic sustainability lies at the nexus of journalistic impact, operational resilience and financial health 
• Are comfortable coaching around both big-picture strategy and specific tactical approaches, but know they don’t need to be an expert in everything 
• Can help publications prioritize their most urgent needs using insights from the LION community and the broader industry
• Can balance the delivery of empathetic encouragement and reality checks to resource-constrained publishers

Coaching project 

The coaching contractor will have two primary responsibilities:

• Through weekly coaching sessions, support and guide four news businesses as they implement training and produce the following program deliverables: a staffing plan and an employee handbook
• Document coaching sessions to inform programming and to help LION gain a deeper understanding of what news businesses need at different stages. These insights will be shared at regular coaching team meetings and through light-lift weekly coaching reports.

Coaching goals and deliverables

• Participating news businesses report that they felt supported as they produced their program deliverables
• Weekly coaching reports for each participant
• Your feedback on the program and your coaching experience through our offboarding survey 

Time commitment and important dates

The program runs the week of September 19 through the week of November 25, 2022.

Compensation

Coaches will be paid $10,000 for the project, which consists of roughly 50 hours of work. Half will be paid upon signing the contract and the other half will be paid upon completion of the final deliverable. 

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. 

Application materials

Submit your materials using this form by 11 p.m. Pacific time on August 19. You will be asked to provide:

• Your resume
• Any online links that show your work (a Twitter profile, a portfolio page, a LinkedIn profile, etc.)
• Answers to the following questions:
  • Why are you interested in coaching with LION?
  • How would you describe your coaching style?
  • What do you think are the biggest challenges and opportunities for independent news businesses related to staffing and management?
  • What do you believe makes a strong work culture? What influenced those beliefs, and how have they evolved over time?
  • Tell us about an experience you’ve had formally documenting a process, approach or workflow that had previously been vague, inconsistent, scattered or living only in someone’s head. This can be an experience you’ve had yourself, or one that you’ve helped others with. 
  • Please share anything else you’d like us to know about your background, experience or skills that speaks to your ability to do this role.

If you have questions about this role, reach out to LION Senior Manager of Coaching Elaine Diaz (elaine@lionpublishers.com) to learn more.

The post LION is looking for coaches with experience in building and managing a team appeared first on LION Publishers.