Nonprofit newsrooms find peer support through Pods

The magic of the Institute for Nonprofit News’ Pods program became clear at the organization’s annual conference.

At INN Days in June, 16 small groups — or pods — of nonprofit news staffers networked, shared best practices, and discussed their challenges and successes. The conversations among more than 300 attendees covered topics such as philanthropic funding, compensation, hiring practices, and strategies for newsletters, social media, audience development, and securing individual donations.

More than 300 attendees gathered for Pods networking lunch during INN Days 2024.

This was more than random peers connecting at an industry event. In this case, the networking intentionally occurred among groups likely facing similar challenges and successes.

INN’s Pods program, launched in May 2023, facilitates information sharing and peer support among nonprofit news organizations of comparable geographic scope, audience, revenue and staffing. INN assembled the groups based on data from the annual INN Index, a comprehensive database of nonprofit news organizations in North America.

Partitioning INN member outlets into subgroups with shared characteristics allows Pods to provide meaningful, actionable benchmarking data as well as targeted peer groups for members.

INN CEO Karen Rundlet on Pods.

The following are some lessons learned from pod conversations.

• News outlets need benchmark data to reflect their current growth stage and to map the future. INN members can view their pod’s benchmark data as well as data from other pods in different growth stages within the same geographic scope to compare and inform strategy development. For example, local news startups can see benchmark data from small, mid-sized and large sustainers — local news outlets that have leveled up from the startup phase. INN members have said that benchmarks from industry leaders operating within a similar geographic scope of coverage can provide guideposts for smaller, younger nonprofit newsrooms to project growth targets.
• Previous benchmarks and peer connections have helped inform news organizations’ strategic planning and goal setting around revenue, expenses, and audience strategy. Pod participants said they felt validated and bonded over discussing shared work challenges and solutions. Some said they have used the data to support their pitches to funders and to educate and set expectations with their board of directors. Some members continued their conversations in small group gatherings.
• Beyond the data, INN members want to connect with mentors most likely to “get it” and give actionable advice. New INN members get to meet the extensive network of nonprofit news journalists and business professionals and learn from their collective wisdom and knowledge of the field. This targeted networking is essential to nonprofit outlets’ knowledge sharing and strategy building.

Thought-provoking, field-building conversations about nonprofit news strategies will continue online throughout the rest of the year through INN’s programming.

Pods are made up of a combination of four geographic scope categories and four growth stages.

INN members who completed the most recent Index survey can access the full benchmarking data, which includes revenue and expenses, audience and distribution, and NewsMatch trends.

Read more for 2024 Pods’ Schema Methodology:

INN’s research team partitioned all members who took the 2024 Index survey into 16 Pods using Index data on their geographic scope of coverage, estimated audience size, revenue, and staff size.

We’ve found the geographic scope of an outlet’s coverage to be an effective distinguishing factor as they have been observed to affect revenue streams, staffing capacity, and audience strategy for news outlets.

The four geographic scope categories are: National + Global, State + Regional, Local, and Hyperlocal. Hyperlocals are local outlets that have an estimated target audience size of less than 100,000.

We incorporated growth stages as the second dimension in our partitioning scheme: Startup, Small Sustainer, Mid-level Sustainer, and Large Sustainer. See definitions for each of the growth stages, below:

• Startup: Startups are outlets within their first three years since launch. This year, all outlets that launched in 2021 or later qualify as a “startup.”
• Small sustainer: Sustainers represent outlets beyond their startup years whose revenue and staffing capacity are relatively small. They’re stabilizing existing revenue, growing audiences and experimenting with new revenue streams. Small sustainers make up about a third of non-startup members in each geographic scope.
• Mid-level sustainer: Mid-level sustainers represent outlets beyond their startup years whose revenue and staffing capacity are mid-size. Many of these outlets have established one or two steady revenue streams. Mid-level sustainers make up about a third of non-startup members in each geographic scope.
• Large sustainer: Large sustainers include well-established outlets that have a comparatively higher revenue and staff size, serving larger markets than many other nonprofit news organizations. Large sustainers make up about a third of non-startup members in each geographic scope.

This method enables us to identify 16 distinct pods as shown below.

Reach out to INN Research Associate Ha Ta to learn more about the Pods program.