Hiring and structuring for revenue wins
Gonzalo de Peon, The American Journalism Project,This summary of the full report by Eric Garcia McKinley of The Impact Architects for American Journalism Project and News Revenue Hub looks at how Civic News Organizations (public service reporting news orgs) have structured their staff in their pursuit of sustainability.
For organizations launching membership programs, deepening audience engagement, beginning various types of fundraising, and other revenue streams, the people they hire can make or break their efforts. This report identifies a few of the key abilities and dispositions, namely that they can win the confidence of the editorial team, embody the mission of the organization, develop multiple revenue streams, and focus on ROI.
Read this report for the detailed case studies from a wide range of news orgs, but stay for the org charts and cache of job descriptions ready to be adapted.
No organization we spoke to claimed to have found the solution to revenue generation, but each had useful lessons for other Civic News Organizations at different levels of maturity. These organizations are broadly comparable to other organizations this study is designed to benefit. Though they don’t necessarily represent the entire industry, they may represent how it’s evolving.