Local newsrooms, it’s time to unbundle your journalism [4 spots available]

Pactio helps local newsrooms increase their revenue and impact on their community.

Most publishers are looking for ways to diversify revenue and local journalism nonprofits are no exception. If you are looking for a way to strengthen your business model without the burden of creating and managing a new revenue platform, Pactio could be the answer (apply here).

Instead of asking readers to pay for everything you produce, Pactio makes it possible to unbundle your offerings and generate funding for the specific products that your readers want to support — all integrated with and presented on your own familiar site.

These micro-subscriptions are what has contributed to the success of The Athletic, which acquired 100,000 subscribers in two years in the sports vertical, mostly at the local level. It is also what is driving 35% of digital subscription growth for The New York Times. And in the local news space, The Dallas Morning News has led the charge with highly successful local sports subscriptions, as explained during an excellent Online News Association panel last year by Amanda Wilkins and Mark Francescutti.

We are offering five U.S. nonprofit publishers the opportunity to use the Pactio platform for free for one year and share learnings around micro-subscriptions and crowdfunding. Applications will be accepted until the end of March and those selected will be brought on board starting in May. LocalNewsMatters founder Katherine Ann Rowlands will select and lead the group to help the publishers learn and iterate faster. Here are the basics:

What you can do with Pactio: Generate new revenue to support the creation of journalism and engaged conversations around it, whether it be for environmental coverage or an education beat or a series on immigration. The logistics of payments and subscriptions are handled for you, but all the results are shared and transparent so you can monitor response and adjust your strategy during the year.

What Pactio can do for you: We provide the web platform, the payment service, the billing and the tools to measure impact. All of that is automated by Pactio and integrated into your site. We will also help you experiment and adjust your strategy during the 12-month period to maximize results.

Pactio enables publishers to increase their revenue with crowdfunding and micro-subscriptions.

What it costs: For 20 cents of each new dollar raised, Pactio handles billing, payment and the web platform, distributing 80 percent of every transaction back to the publishers each month. Use of the platform for this trial year is free and there is no upfront fee to get started.

How it works: Pactio supports the technology but you set the price and control the content. For example, you could set a minimum subscription level to support education reporting at $2 or $20 per month. If 100 readers commit to $5 per month to support a micro-subscription, that’s $500 in new, gross revenue each month (or $400 minus the transaction costs). If 200 readers sign up, double that new income. You can also use the platform for crowdfunding around a specific story or series, generating new revenue to cover the cost of a data project or an investigative series, again with you setting the value.

Which publishers would benefit: We are looking for a range of different-sized local publishers from across the country. Those who already have 5,000 or more engaged users (members, subscribers, donors, avid social media followers, newsletter subscribers) will probably succeed fastest in getting new revenue but even smaller outlets with around 2,000 engaged users could see a substantial increase in revenue. And all of this supports the building of trust with your audience because you are directly responding to their specific demands for news on your own site.

Want to learn more? Fill out the application before March 31 and feel free to ask us questions by contacting us.

~ Pactio has successfully launched three micro-subscriptions based on freelance reporters covering specific local beats, such as Emma Penrod who’s covering water in Utah. Their revenue increased by 15–20% after using Pactio and member retention is above 98% after 7 months.

~ By partnering with local non-profit sites such as LocalNewsMatters.org, we created a new funding model to pay reporters and editors to answer reader questions, building trust with the audience and generating financial support for the journalism.

Ready to take the next step? Fill out the application before March 31 if you would like to be considered for this program.