LION Publishers Sustainability Audit Dashboard

LION Publishers is a journalism support organization that provides business support to local news entrepreneurs across the United States through membership programs. Launched in 2021, the Sustainability Audit program is a proprietary framework developed to evaluate operational resilience, financial health and journalistic impact. Upon completion of the audit, news organizations receive personalized coaching, strategy recommendations and a custom action report to help navigate a path toward long-term sustainability.

After conducting over 1,000 of these audits with over 600 newsrooms, the amassed data also provides insightful trends and helpful indicators for the entire local news field. Now presented in the Sustainability Audit Dashboard, these metrics are updated quarterly, providing performance indicators covering annual revenue, average users, newsletter subscription data, staff size and much more.

Use This Resource To:

1. Create evaluation benchmarks based on sector-wide averages for reviewing new  funding applications or tracking the progress of existing grantees.
2. Compare the stats of early-stage news organizations and healthy news businesses to better understand the kinds of support that can help grantees progress toward operational and financial sustainability.
3. Create tailored snapshots and get geographical insights on a variety of news organizations, the products they are deploying and different revenue streams based on your needs and interest.

Suggested Content:

• Rebuilding Local Journalism at Scale: A Field-Level Analysis of Infrastructure Needs
• Meeting the Revenue Challenge – Philanthropy’s Role in Local News Growth
• Practical Grantmaking: INN on How to Find and Support Small, Strong Newsrooms

Source: LION Publishers