Loyalty is membership’s North Star. Here’s how news sites & advocacy groups measure it.

September 26, 2019 Emily Roseman

Membership in news is experiencing unprecedented popularity, yet our industry is still searching for the best way to measure the success of membership programs. What we do know is that members’ loyalty is critical to long-term success. We surveyed available benchmarks for membership and looked at best practices for measuring loyalty metrics in real time, in news and beyond.

Want to make your journalism more memberful? Find a range of proven practices, including revenue-generating routines

August 28, 2019 Emily Goligoski & Jay Rosen

We went around the world to identify memberful routines that incorporate community members’ knowledge and produce value for news organizations. Here are practical tips from 19 news sites that show how to involve your supporters in your own site’s work.

Smart investments in paid lead acquisition to grow membership (or, spending money to make money)

August 20, 2019 Phillip Smith

*Illustrations by Margaux Savey, Momkai*

Even with a limited marketing budget, paid acquisition is a low-risk, reliable return investment for publishers and funders looking to more quickly earn audience growth and financial sustainability.

Redistributing power in communities through involved journalism

June 18, 2019 P. Kim Bui

It’s time to move beyond collaboration, contribution, and participation if we are to truly redistribute power. Community contributor models were a good start, but now journalists need to undertake more power-sharing and equitable allocation of resources.

What media can learn from other member-driven movements

April 12, 2019 Emily Goligoski

Journalism’s traditional financial models are dying. Could churches, environmental movements, and open source communities hold clues to its survival?

Lifetime membership value, or what is participation “worth” & how should we measure it?

April 3, 2019 Joe Amditis

Members often contribute to organizations in ways that are not easily quantifiable, and most participatory contributions are often hard to distill into a single line item. Is it possible to measure the value of participation and, more importantly, is it something we should even be measuring in the first place?

What does it take to have "members" of a news organization rather than consumers of its products?

March 29, 2019 Emily Goligoski

If you don't have processes for ongoing, visible, and participatory ways to involve members from the start, you are setting the stage for their disappointment. News entrepreneurs from around the world share how they make space for their members to vote, test, and weigh in regularly.

“This is the journalism” & other insights from networked reporting

February 6, 2019 Melanie Sill

For those eager to shift the news paradigm, Join the Beat collaborations with community members show how networked reporting opens up a “really big group of sources,” as De Correspondent migration reporter Maite Vermeulen said. Read more about starting engagement well before publishing and promotion with audience-oriented discovery and research.

The Correspondent became the most participatory journalism crowdfunding project in history without one story on its site. Here’s how

January 24, 2019 Emily Goligoski & Aron Pilhofer

The Correspondent put forward a model for more inclusive journalism by putting people at the center and consistently communicating. Read how the project’s success in crowdfunding $2.6MM reflects three years of diligent planning and purposefulness. It also reflects cohesive design elements; Dutch “proof”; and a clear value proposition.

Why your community members want to aid your reporting & 25 jobs you can ask them to do

December 12, 2018 Emily Goligoski & Stephanie Ho

The people formerly known as the audience tell us they’re motivated to learn, contribute expertise, be heard, be granted transparency, express support for a cause, and meet people with shared values. You can learn from news organizations around the world about how they responsibly, enthusiastically allow community members past the gatekeeper and make coverage that saves and generates money.