Category: Local News Sustainability

It seems we have our work cut out for us.

As we collectively blue sky different operational models for new media companies, we really have to work very thoroughly at helping our new news entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs understand what we are talking about.

I was on a panel Friday with veteran social entrepreneur John Plunkett, hosted by Thom Clark, President of the Community Media Workshop, discussing the low-profit limited liability company (L3C) and its potential for media. It was the first in-depth conversation about L3C operations I have participated in here in Chicago. And deep indeed did Plunkett and Clark take us. Maybe —for this group at least —just a tad too deep into the operational and budget linkages of Plunkett’s new, first ever L3C.

We had a great turnout and I was glad to see many colleagues there, notably Steve Rhodes of the Beachwood Reporter, Andrew Huff of Gaper’s Block and Gordon Waleck of LISC New Communities. Occupying the front row were Vivian Vahlberg from the Chicago Community Trust/Knight Foundation Community News Matters program and a few seats down sat Clark Bell, head of journalism programs for the McCormick Fundation.

I learned quite a bit. I could see Vivian — as well as a few others — very happily scribbling away. But I came away with the impression that we need to back up a few paces before we can host an informed and informative conversation of this type. Foundations, corporations, corporate foundations, and every other kind of entity in between, have very different reasons for giving money. And they have different pots of money that they give from. If we are going to ask for that money, we need to know what those pots are and what the foundation requires in return.

This is not the stuff journalist’s dreams are typically made of.

So it seems it’s time we define our terms, to see if they are terms the new news can live with.

That is one of many reasons that I volunteered to report and blog from the PRI Makers conference next week, a gathering of those foundations that make those elusive “Program-Related Investments” at the heart of the L3C model.

I’ll be Twittering as I go at hashtag #PRI10. Read along and learn with me.

What do PRI Makers care about?

Well it says it right there on their website.

Says Alaina Smith, Communications Manager for Philanthropy Northwest, who is running the conference here.

Innovate. Leverage. Grow.

Innovate: In making PRIs, foundations are employing new and evolving approaches to philanthropy. By making inexpensive capital available to enterprising organizations, they are encouraging new approaches to addressing social needs.

Leverage: Foundations use PRIs to make the most of their resources. PRIs are recyclable. Their proceeds can be reused over and over to extend their value. Strategically timed and deployed PRIs can attract additional investment from private public sources, multiplying their impact.

Grow: While grants are instrumental in testing ideas and establishing programs, additional kinds of investment are necessary to build sustainable organizations and bring effective programs to scale. PRIs can accelerate that process and help organizations reach greater numbers of people.

There’s also a clue in the language revealed under one of the PRI Maker home page drop-downs

Finding Deals
Investment opportunities
PRI Activity Database
Deals Clearinghouse
Intermediaries

Doesn’t sound much like charity, does it? That’s why I like the sound of it for media.

I received this note from colleague and friend Tom Stites, who has been envisioning creating the Banyan Project for some years now as an answer to good community-relevant journalism. He has been nominated as a Community Choice finalist for the 2010 We Media Game Changer Awards.

The winner presents a keynote talk at the We Media Miami conference, March 9-11 in Miami. All of the Community Choice finalists will be honored there, along with award winners selected by the We Media team.

I like Tom’s vision of a mission-based journalism collective to truly serve our Democracy and I intend to vote for him. I hope you will take a look at The Banyan Project and be moved to vote for him, too.

To vote, head on over to We Media.

Dear Friends — I’m always hesitant to ask big favors, but I’ve received news in which so much is at stake that I’m chucking my hesitancy and casting a shameless request far and wide.

First a bit of background: As you may know, I had a long career in major newspapers and ended my formal career as the editor and publisher of a magazine. Since my 2007 retirement I’ve devoted my energy to helping ensure that, despite the crumbling of legacy media, the quality journalism so crucial to democracy can thrive in the digital future.

What started as a hand-wringing conversation among concerned senior journalists has become a serious venture — I’ve just sent the Knight Foundation an expanded version that it requested of our $1.9 million grant request for launching community-level Web journalism pilot sites in three cities. I am honored to be the president of this venture, which has become known as the Banyan Project.

Now the news that inspired this email: Because of my Banyan role I’ve been selected as a candidate for an Ashoka Game Changer Award. It will be presented in March at the WeMedia conference in Miami; the winner will get to present the conference’s keynote address to a hall full of influential journalism people and — most important — foundation executives including the top people from the Knight Foundation. So winning the award would give our not-for-profit startup a huge boost in its search for funding.

The winner will be determined by on-line ballot, so let me start by asking for your vote (it only takes two clicks, see below). That’s just a request. Now, here comes the shameless request:

To win, I not only need to activate every friend I can to cast a vote but also to do everything I can to activate my friends’ friends to vote for me as well. If you can spare some energy to round up more votes from your own networks it could make a huge difference. Families, friends, coworkers — whoever might be a prospect! Please note that this is urgent: Voting ends tomorrow night.

Why should people vote for me, other than because you’d be doing the asking? Simple: At a time when newspapers are dying, the Banyan Project will exemplify democracy:

Banyan’s journalism will be tailored to meet the distinctive needs of the huge public of less-than-affluent Americans, the everyday citizens so ill-served by mainstream news media. It will thus squarely meet a significant but rarely addressed issue: the economic injustice inherent in today’s top-down journalism, which aims almost entirely to serve affluent people with discretionary income to spend in the stories of their upscale advertisers. Overcoming this is a major part of what drives the Banyan Project.

Voting takes only a few seconds: Go to http://wemedia.com/awards/2010-community-choice-finalists/ and click the button next to my name in the ballot on the right side of the page. If possible, as soon as you’ve voted, please forward this to your network. If you or do Facebook or Twitter, or blog, please post something.

Thanks for anything you can do to help Banyan —

Tom

P.S. If you want to know more about the Banyan Project, just click on banyanproject.com.

T

Tom Stites
tom@tomstites.com
http://banyanproject.com
http://tomstites.com