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This is absolutely a thing. The two benefits to this are you can traffic and track your newsletter advertising in whatever tool you use for the display advertising—Google Ad Manager, Broadstreet, AdButler, etc. and you can automate the display of newsletter ads so they start on stop when they're supposed to. When you set up your ads this way, you should be able to get good metrics on when the ads are viewed and clicked, and, depending on your setup, you can use your ad server to optimize the ads that are shown in your newsletter. (In fact, you may even be able to pull programmatic or remnant advertising into your newsletter.) The bad news? It can get a lot more complicated than just dragging the ad image into your newsletter layout. You'll need to check the documentation for your ad manager (ex: Broadstreet), your Email Service Provider (Mailchimp, Active Campaign, etc.) and whatever tools you're using to produce your newsletter.

To get people to "buy what you're selling," you're going to need to do some marketing of your publication. Linked below is an interview by the American Press Institute with Tim Griggs, CEO of Blue Engine Collaborative and a long-time coach and thought-leader in the journalism ecosystem. I particularly like his answers about how to engage your readers and community your publication's value proposition beyond platitudes such as "support local journalism." You've got to make it more personal and meaningful—and you'll do that by testing and measuring results.Driving revenue and sustainability

In my experience, every once in a while you'll get a big donation for your media enterprise — $500, $1,000, maybe even $5,000—through your online donation tool. In most cases, that's probably the limit. If you want larger donations, then you need to meet with people and make the ask. How? Your existing e-mail subscribers and donors are a good start. Using non-profit CRM software, you can access wealth-screening tools (DonorSearch is popular and sometimes intergrated with non-profit CRM tools) to let you know when a given donor is worth more money and when they're known for giving to causes. Then, you reach out to set up a meeting. Remember when I mentioned that the Mississippi Free Press calls all their donors? That habit can make it easier to reach out to the big donors, as well, because, in one way, you're treating them like everyone else—showing appreciation at the outset. The process is really like any sales call, except the pitch is generally more about helping people (your readers and their communities) than it is about making money. You should have donor materials that discuss how you spend your donor's money and perhaps projects that might interest the donor. But remember this. Your goal is to build a relationship with the donor, not just get the donation. Once you get on the phone or in person with a potential big donor, you need to listen to them. Sit back with your coffee or lunch and ask good questions (you're a journalist — or journalist-adjacent — right?) to get them talking about what's important to them. Ask how they make the decision to support causes. Brent Weaver at uGurus teaches the concept (he's a nerdy-ish web developer teaching others to have web development agencies) that "relationships = interactions over time." One recommendation is to keep your meetings short as a rule—30-minute calls or 50-minute in-person meetings—and plan more of them with a potential donor (or a sales prospect). The argument is that meeting more often for shorter amounts of time builds a relationship faster than meeting fewer times for hours-and-hours. Even if it feels like you're "really hitting it off" and have a three-hour happy hour with a donor, the next call or meeting may be tougher to set up than it would be if you still have a lot to discuss after 50 minutes. Once you know more about what the donor wants, you can pitch your idea for how they can help. It may even be a later meeting. The pitch should include a discussion of their priorities, how your organization's goals address those priorities, and how their donation is going to help you with your organization's goals. Note that it can be tempting to craft a project or suggest that you "hire a reporter" in order to land that whopping $50,000 or $100,000 from a new donor. Fight that temptation. Instead, focus on the synergies between the donor and your organization and do what you can to ask for funds that are unrestricted and can be used for your general operations. One other note on big donors—having some can make it easier to get more. In The Raising of Money by Jim Lord (a great book to read if you're getting into the donations game), one of his suggestions revolves around the idea of the "peer ask." The principle here is that if one of your big donors goes to a wealthy friend saying "Cynthia, I think the Sidewalk Free Press is something you should look into, I'm giving $50,000 this year, and if you kick in they can do a lot more environmental coverage," that's a much easier way to get the donation. If you can get your existing supporters, donors or board members to help you make the ask—or make the introduction and/or go on the meeting with you—that can be a big boost. I'd say you're probably more likely to get big donors when you're a non-profit, just because the tax implications are more significant at that level, and, frankly, many big donors are specifically looking for tax benefits when they donate. That said, if you're a for-profit and you're going after big donors, these days it's fairly easy to set up fiscally-sponsored non-profit fund that you can use to fund investigations, reporters and other parts of your operation. The Alternative Newsweekly Foundation is a sister organization to AAN that can help you get started. You could also look to your local community foundation or a similar organization to be a fiscal sponsor, which could also confer some credibility for local donors. Setting up fiscal agency shows you're serious about the way donated money is handled, and your fiscal agent will know the lingo and be able to help with things like donor-assisted funds, family foundations and other inside baseball comes up in the donations game. (And they can give you better advice than me on the tax front—I'm not an accountant or lawyer!)

Pete Ericson and Tyler Channell of Leaky Paywall and The Paywall Project are so into paywalls that they have a podcast on the subject. In Episode 26 (!) they discuss how paywalls can work with both subscription and donor strategies to increase revenues for a local news publisher. One caveat: Pete describes "subscriptions" and "memberships" as essentially the same thing, with both leading to full access of the site's content. In my definition, a "member" is really a recurring donor who gets relatively little more than recognition and appreciation for becoming a VIP donor. So while Pete discusses two distinctions: donor: someone who gives money to support the publication subscriber/member: someone who makes a recurring payment for full access to the content I have three: donor: gives money to support the publication VIP member: gives recurring money to support the publication and be a part of the club subscriber: makes a recurring payment for full access to the site's content Only the third, in my case, required a paywall. BUT… that doesn't mean paywall software can't work for donors or VIP members. In fact, it can be a great idea to use paywall software to encourage people to sign up for your email newsletter (for free) or to become a VIP member in order to either gain access to special features on the website (stuff that's "behind the paywall" even if it isn't your news content) or who get personalized recognition when they show up at your website and are logged in. Pete and Tyler also lay out some different strategies for publications based on where they are in their lifecycle—startups might rely more on donations, while more mature publications could use a leaky paywall for members or subscribers. Here's another tip: Publications covering topics such as environmentalism or education might offer monthly memberships or subscriptions, even as startups, to help them build recurring revenues. And, you can always experiment with different approaches and make changes along the way. Check it out.

“Someone else pays for my reporter? Where do we sign?!” I’d guess that’s the first response you’d get from most money-crunched newsrooms. Someone else funding one of your most essential resources—a reporter—can be highly appealing. You’ve got a few ways to go about it: fully funded, fellowship funding or project funding. Let’s look at each. Funded reporters Programs exist at scale to provide paid reporters to newsrooms—the big names are Report for America, ProPublica, and The New York Times, and sometimes they’re literally on a different payroll and sometimes their pay is subsidized, with the expectation that you’ll match and/or raise money locally to complete their pay package. (Similar but limited to the Golden State is the California Local News Fellowship, which places young graduates in newsrooms while paying them as University of California employees.) You may also find that other journalism funders (or local/regional funders) will work with you on specifically funding a reporter for a set number of years, particularly if that reporter is from an underserved population, focuses on a particularly needed vertical or fills a critical gap in coverage. One caveat to funded reporters: These organizations may want to edit or co-edit the stories produced by your reporter, so bear that in mind as you get started. ProPublica and the Times have their own goals—they want to publish some cutting-edge investigations—and that will cut into the time your reporter can work with your team on breaking or follow-up reporting. Reporting fellowships Fellowships vary considerably in what they cover, but the best ones (for our purposes) are those journalists can use to fund part of their job, specific investigations or educational opportunities. Ideally, they'll offer some education for the reporter while covering some reporting costs or a portion of their pay.40 Journalism Fellowships for Experienced Journalists and Recent Graduates | ProFellow Project funding This is perhaps the most ubiquitous approach—you get a particular project funded, enabling you to either assign a current reporter to it (using the funding to offset their salary during the duration) or hire a freelance reporter. (Alternatively, the freelancer may get the grant themselves and then publish the resulting journalism with your outlet.) Project funding can come from national sources—Pulitzer Center, Fund for Investigative Journalism, Earth Journalism Network, The Carter Center, Society of Environmental Journalists, USC Annenberg Heath Reporting Fellowship, Association of Healthcare Journalists, Inasmuch Foundation, The Hatch Institute, INJR, IRE, NYU, Solutions Journalism Network, Type Investigations, Education Writers Association, and many others A lot of these links came from this Poyner article by Kristen Hare. The story is a little out of date, but it's a great starting point for tracking down some project funding opportunities.. Beyond the national opportunities, project funding is often easier to approach with regional foundations, local family foundations or big donors. Of course, less structure can work against you, too, especially if the funder tries to get involved in the journalism when they’re not welcome. With grants at this level, you should consider putting a grant agreement in place to ensure everyone is in complete agreement about how this project will go down and who has the ultimate say over what.

Announced in 2023 and gathering steam in 2024, Press Forward is an initiative spearheaded by the Knight Foundation and fiscally sponsored by the Miami Foundation. It's goal is to create a "national coalition investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms, close longstanding gaps in journalism coverage, advance public policy that expands access to local news, and to scale the infrastructure the sector needs to thrive."Press Forward | A national initiative to support the revitalization of local news Out of the gate, you're probably not likely to get a "Press Forward" grant, as the grants will generally come from other philanthropic organizations as part of their commitment (or increased commitment) to journalism funding. (For instance, the Mississippi Free Press is a MacArthur Foundation grantee, announced as part of their first cohort of Press Forward grants.) That comes under the banner of "Aligned Grantmaking" where individual foundations can grant money to news outlets or other organizations as part of this national effort. Soon to be announced is the Pooled Fund, which will be open to grant applications. In this case, foundations without dedicated journalism program officers can rely on Press Forward to help them pick and manage grantees to receive journalism grant dollars. Finally, Press Forward encourages "Press Forward Locals," often managed by community foundations, to encourage local grantmaking to journalism outlets. It's a valuable educational and organizational effort because those Press Forward Locals have a vested interest in seeing journalism and democracy thrive in their cities, regions and states.