Local Independent Online News Publishers

Sustainability Audits:A comprehensive process for LION members to identify and respond constructively to roadblocks to sustainability within their organizations, including $20K in direct funding for participants who complete deliverables.We completed 75 Audits and 96 Progress Reports, and distributed $20,000 to each participant to act on their recommendations. 93% of our Audit participants feel more confident in their organizations ability to reach sustainability.

Membership Direct Services & LION Awards:The operations of having a membership, including processing applications/renewals, securing member benefits (e.g. discounts), organizing two regional in-person events, and launching a Community Ambassadors program.We grew our membership by 12% to over 500 members. 29% of our memberships leadership identifies as BIPOC and 13% as LGBTQIA+. We hosted two in-person, regional News Sustainability Meetups, one in the Deep South and another in the Southeast. More than 250 news leaders attended these meetups to connect and learn from each other. We implemented ideas from our BIPOC Listening project, piloting BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ affinity groups at the Southeast event. Our News Entrepreneur Community Slack group grew by 50% to over 1,500 users. We launched our inaugural Community Ambassadors program, facilitating learning among local peers and helping LION identify newly launched news organizations.

Membership Education:We concluded the two-year Revenue Growth Fellowship program with valuable data insights, added new resources and courses to News Entrepreneur Academy (members have completed 450 courses), and conducted an 8-week Sustainability Lab: Unblocking Revenue Barriers featuring asynchronous training, one-on-one coaching, peer learning, and up to $9,000 in funding to help participants overcome a revenue challenge.

Data & Evaluation:We published 3 data insights posts, and increased the number of organizations profiled in the Project Oasis database by 31%.