Here are nonprofit and related organizations worldwide that work in support of investigative journalism, listed by region. It is a diverse group that includes nonprofit newsrooms, online publishers, professional associations, NGOs, training institutes, and academic centers in nearly 50 countries.
Entrepreneurship coach Phillip Smith explains how publishers who seek to grow their membership can invest in paid lead acquisition tactics and predict the rate of return on their investment.
Introduction: The Three Main Commercial Revenue Strategies
Nonprofit investigative journalism organizations are increasingly borrowing strategies from larger commercial publishers to supplement their grant funding and to extend their impact. While membership and subscription strategies are focused on your consumers, commercial revenue strategies mean making deals with other institutions.
In Kenya, the NGOs Transparency International and Fojo Media Institute have paired up to train budding investigative journalists and offer them reporting grants. GIJN’s Rowan Philp reports.
Journalism has been mired in an economic crisis for years, prompting journalists to find new models of funding, and to experiment, innovate, and learn from one another. Some nonprofit organizations are raising funds through a range of commercial activities. GIJN’s latest Resource Center addition, written by Ross Settles from the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the Hong Kong University, is designed to help journalists navigate the complex field of commercial revenue.
Predictions are a tricky business, but there is one sure thing for 2020: local news publishers cannot depend on the old ways of doing business. Mark Glaser, a media consultant and advisor, shares five interesting business models that are cropping up, from the co-op ownership model to government subsidies and “information districts,” to state-level ecosystem support.
Krautreporter proved it: donation-financed journalism is possible. Not only in the United States, but also in Germany – and possibly everywhere. It started a campaign for its own online magazine for in-depth journalism with experienced writers. Within one month it raised around 1 million Euros (about US$1.1 million). But 19% of this money was gone the moment it was raised. Devoured by sales tax.
The literature on successful management of nonprofits, fundraising, and revenue diversification for media organizations is growing quickly, along with the nonprofit media sector. Most of the available material, however, is U.S.-specific, with little focus on the many challenges outside the States.
In People Problems Part 1, we talked about two common kinds of complaints that you as a manager might hear. “I don’t think Karl is showing enough commitment to his work.” “The technical staff is being rude to our salespeople.” Here is a method for developing your colleague’s problem-solving skills, followed by how to apply it in these two cases. If you focus on developing your people, your organization will develop far more rapidly than if you focus on just the num.
The proliferation of nonprofit newsrooms is one of the more promising developments in an industry wracked by a crumbling financial base and sweeping technological change. Since 2000, dozens of nonprofit media groups have sprouted, not only across America but worldwide. Many are deeply committed to investigative and accountability journalism, working to fill a void left by a mainstream media that either can’t or won’t do its job as social watchdogs. In April, the Knight Foundation published the third installment in a series of reports since 2011 tracking the progress of nonprofit news sites as they strive for a sustainable financial base. There are lessons here for media nonprofits worldwide.