All LION members are eligible to participate in the sustainability audit program. If you are not currently a member, you can apply here. 

There are three steps to the audit process:

• The leader of a news organization fills out a questionnaire that details the business’s operational readiness, financial health and journalistic impact. 
• They schedule an interview with one of our audit analysts to dig more deeply into questionnaire responses, goals and organizational practices. 
• Together with the analyst, the LION team produces an audit report that 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 list of sustainability indicators the publication has completed and those it has yet to complete
  • How the publication compares to other LION publishers when it comes to benchmarks like staffing, revenue and audience metrics
  • A prioritized list of recommended actions to take immediately, in the short term and in the medium term to become more sustainable, which will include recommendations to apply for upcoming LION programs as well as other existing resources from across the industry

We developed this audit to help LION members assess where they are on their journey to sustainability and what steps to prioritize in becoming sustainable. In our experience, news leaders benefit tremendously from taking a thorough and holistic look at their business, articulating their goals and challenges and having an outside perspective on their progress. We’ve also heard from some members that the Audit gives them useful fodder to share with prospective funders and donors. Here’s a look at what we’ve learned so far. 

We will conduct audits in four cycles throughout 2022: May-June, July-August, August-September and October-November. 

We will accept applications to participate in the audit process on a rolling, ongoing basis throughout 2022. You may specify which cycles work best for you in the application. If you’d like to be considered for the fourth and final audit cycle of 2022, applications are due by end-of-day Monday, October 10. 

We will look for the following when selecting publishers for each cycle: 

• The ability to benefit from audit insights
• The level of organizational commitment to the audit process and implementing the audit recommendations
• A mix of publications across organization size, geographic locations, missions and audiences served 

The audit process from start to finish takes about seven weeks with an overall time commitment of about five hours for a news organization. News organizations have approximately two weeks to fill out the questionnaire, which takes about three hours to complete. The 90-minute interview takes place shortly after the questionnaire deadline and you’ll receive your completed audit at the end of the seven-week cycle. 

LION and GNI are pleased to be able to offer this service free of charge to selected LION members. 

Yes. Funds up to $6,000 per organization are available to news businesses that meet the following criteria: 

• Act on at least three recommendations outlined in the Sustainability Audit
• Submit a funding request that outlines what recommendations the news business acted on, how they will contribute to long-term sustainability, the amount requested and a breakdown of how the funds would be used.

Publications that received an audit as finalists for the GNI Startups Lab or the LION-Meta Revenue Growth Fellowship in 2021 but were not selected for the programs are eligible to participate in the LION-GNI Sustainability Audits and Funding program. We encourage these news businesses to apply, as the audit and report have since evolved significantly. However, we will prioritize news businesses that have not received an audit.

LION staff will have access to each organization's individual data. Audit analysts will have access only to their assigned organizations' individual data. LION may share aggregated data publicly and with strategic partners, such as Google News Initiative. We will never share individual data without your permission.

Yes. We’ll publicly announce the participants selected for each cycle, which we hope will be beneficial for news businesses to share with their funders, audience, board members and other stakeholders.