We hosted LION’s 2021 Annual Member Meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 14. Thanks to all who were able to attend! During the meeting, members virtually connected with LION’s new board leadership, staff leadership and with each other.

Although we left some time for members to ask LION staff and board leadership questions during the meeting, we couldn’t tackle them all during the session. So we rounded up member questions (including ones we couldn’t get to during the meeting) and wrote up our responses below. 

Have more questions for LION staff leadership? We’re hosting an hour-long Ask me Anything session on January 10, 2022 (starting 12:00 pm PT/ 3:00 pm ET) to give members another chance to ask any questions you have about LION membership, programming, future LION plans, or anything else you have on your mind. RSVP here.

• Is there a cost to the Sustainability Audit?

We estimate each audit will cost between $1,000 to $1,400. We are seeking funding for 2022 so that up to 100 members who would like an audit can receive one for free. In the future, we will explore offering discounted audits to members who would like to directly pay for one.

 

• Any plans for developing a fiscal sponsorship program?                   

If there is enough interest from our membership and LION could offer fiscal sponsorship benefits that other existing organizations cannot, we will explore being a fiscal sponsor. Please reach out to us directly to tell us what your fiscal sponsorship needs are to help inform our decision.

 

• Have you considered matching grants to support membership? / How feasible is it for LION to have a pool of funds set aside that current LION members can apply to receive from LION as grants to fund projects?

We won’t be matching grants for now. Over the past two years, LION has experimented with various types of funding-- small grants in the hundreds of dollars through our Skills Series pilot and much larger grants in the tens of thousands through our GNI Startups Lab and Meta Revenue Growth Fellowship programs. Based on that experience, we’ve learned that our ability to add value through direct dollars is predicated on offering small amounts of targeted funding alongside training and coaching. Our plan for 2022 is to fundraise for training and direct funding that will focus on operational resilience for news businesses.

 

• Do we have LGBTQ representation on the board? I looked at the website and board member bios, but don’t see LGBTQ mentioned.

Yes, LION has a couple of board members who identify as LGBTQIA. LION Board Chair Tracie Powell and Vice Chair Rebekah Monson are interested in hosting a conversation with LGBTQIA members early next year. Rebekah’s email so you can be looped into that conversation is: [email protected]

 

• How does LION keep the "I" (Independent) in its name when so much of its funding, programs and interest are driven by Google and Facebook? Does LION offer any statements detailing how it keeps its operations and decision-making independent from these gargantuan firms? We run our own ads: Google and Facebook are our direct competition.

In terms of how we work with Google and Meta (formerly Facebook), we’re happy to share how those relationships evolved, and how we work to take advantage of the resources they offer members while maintaining our operational independence:

• The Google News Initiative and the Meta (Facebook) Journalism Project were created to direct money from Google and Facebook to publishers in ways that these two projects saw fit. The funders at each have different approaches to how that works.
• We first began working with GNI when they approached us about mapping the local independent news ecosystem. Building on Michele McLellan’s great work with Michele’s List, we launched Project Oasis in 2020. For that project, GNI offered some suggestions of the kinds of data they’d like to see collected, but we primarily worked with other collaborators, including Doug Smith and the UNC Center for Innovation & Sustainability in Local Media, to finalize the survey. When conducting the research, we were clear in our survey to LION members and other independent media that we would share data with the Google News Initiative to help inform their funding strategies. That data sharing has proved crucial for the additional funding we’ve secured from GNI for programs and direct funding for members, including the GNI Startups Lab, GNI Boot Camp, COVID relief funds, etc. With these GNI-funded programs, we have regular check-ins with a member of the GNI team (LION member Ashley Woods Branch was recently our contact at GNI while we worked with them on the Startups Lab and Boot Camps) to update them on progress, and they offer to help with additional resources from within Google or additional funding when they’re able. We’ve always felt comfortable pushing back on or challenging ideas that GNI staff have brought to us, and we’ve always felt they respect our priority to meet our members and program participants where they’re at.
• We began working with the Meta (Facebook) Journalism Project when they asked us to pitch them an idea that could help members, and we proposed the (now) Meta Revenue Growth Project. We saw a need to help organizations poised for revenue growth have enough capital upfront to hire a person in a revenue role so they could make their position, and the organization, financially healthy over time. The Meta Journalism Project gave us a grant to run the program and provide direct funding to a cohort of publishers over two years. We check in with them once a month to give them updates on how the program is going and what we’re learning.
  The through line for those programs is that these relationships have meant millions of dollars supporting digital native publishers that, in the past, had been reserved for the legacy operations, or not directed into local news at all.

 

• Along the lines of support, does LION have any plans in the coming year regarding mental health support (even if just podcast guests)?

We know many of our members struggle with wellness and burnout. Next year’s programming will include best practices on addressing operational pain points that can lead to burnout. We also have plans to create a specific class on founder burnout next year. We encourage you to email our membership team with other specific questions, ideas or resources, like this Mental Health for Journalists toolkit.