Make money with solutions journalism? Here are 8 tips to get there.

Lessons from SJN’s revenue summit in Mansfield, Ohio

By now, it’s pretty clear that solutions reporting can improve journalism. It’s been shown to stimulate the audiences’ attention, enhance understanding of issues, and help build trust.

If this kind of journalism also increases people’s willingness to engage with problems, it provides an effective public service. So beyond the positive impact on society, there is surely potential to grow revenue too… right?

At least a half-dozen SJN partner newsrooms have raised new money for solutions journalism — and in some cases, the revenue has funded more than SoJo. Over the years the Arizona DailyStar in Tucson has generated $100,000 for series with a solutions focus, including money from a local community foundation to fund its coverage of the foster care system in Arizona. Longtime partner The Seattle Times has generated millions of dollars in philanthropic funding for several reporting projects that incorporated solutions and non-solutions reporting, including the Education Lab, Project Homeless and Traffic Lab. After showing its SoJo chops, the Richland Source raised a pot of money from local businesses to do more SoJo series — $70,000 in one month. And this is in a small, conservative Midwestern rust belt town still recovering from recession.

In total, by the end of 2018, SJN partners had raised at least $1.3 million to support solutions journalism.

Still, just about every newsroom struggles financially. We want to contribute to finding remedies and spread the word.

So in October, 2019, we brought people from newsrooms across the U.S. to Mansfield, Ohio, to discuss one topic: how solutions journalism can become a catalyst for revenue generation.

We chose to gather in Mansfield because the Richland Source has championed solutions journalism as a way to serve its community and to tap into funding from local assets. The Source is a big civic player in Mansfield. While we were there, we attended a mayoral debate the paper organized at a big local theater and a Halloween party in its basement. You can read more about their community engagement events here.

During our couple of days there, editors who use SoJo to raise revenue explained their methods, the groups brainstormed and debated ideas, Richland Source funders told us why they support the paper, and everyone met new friends. Participants also talked about how they use SoJo to build trust and engage their communities — activities that strengthen a newsroom’s public service work, and its case for getting subscribers, members and philanthropic donations.

Here are some key lessons:

Solutions journalism resonates with funders.

The logic of journalism that goes beyond merely exposing problems appeals to funders that want to support effective problem-solving in their communities. It’s a language that makes sense even to funders who haven’t supported journalism before. Funders already know what the issues are and are not interested in “gotcha” journalism or sowing more discord, said Sharon Chan, former VP for innovation, product, and development at The Seattle Times and currently VP for philanthropy at The New York Times. LaMonte Guillory, chief communications officer of the LOR Foundation, said that his organization funds solutions journalism because it helps the communities they support identify solutions to a set of problems.

Many funders, however, don’t know how solutions journalism is different than boosterism, positive fluff, and even sponsored content. When reaching out to funders, presenting an outline of its core components is useful to build that understanding from the outset.

When approaching funders, inquire about their goals.

People and institutions are prepared to give money to newsrooms pursuing work that aligns with their objectives. Jill Jorden Spitz, Editor at the Arizona Daily Star, said she had more luck asking funders to support a project that aligns with their mission than just asking them to support journalism. Jay Allred, president of Richland Source, suggested a strategy for flipping the traditional narrative around fundraising, based on the ideas presented by Donald Miller in his book called “Building a Story Brand”. As opposed to newsrooms casting themselves in the role of heroes saving their communities through journalism, they should position themselves as empathetic and competent guides. In this role, they help the hero of the story (the funder) understand what’s at stake and call them to action. In doing so, the funder becomes engaged in the effort to support the independent journalism that nourishes and supports the community. Using that principle he set up a partnership program with local organizations, corporations, and individuals who believe in the newsroom’s work.

Make the boundaries clear.

Before asking for funding, sit down with your newsroom to lay down principles surrounding the project. Specifically, Allred said he asked Richland Source journalists, “what makes you feel gross?”. This should yield a list of limits and transparency requirements to uphold in relation to funders and the community, or as Chan developed at The Seattle Times, a policy to ensure integrity and independence. Chief among those would be that funders do not have input in the stories published and aren’t used as privileged sources in the reporting. When meeting with potential funders or submitting a proposal, these boundaries should be stated and agreed upon at the beginning.

Developing project ideas swiftly.

Chan emphasised the need for media organizations to have nimble and low cost methods for devising projects to fund. One of her tips is to organize dedicated meetings internally, between journalists and operations staff, to develop initial ideas quickly and cheaply. These can be fleshed out subsequently, once they have been presented and vetted by stakeholders. Indeed, large investments of time and resources upstream can end up too costly if the project isn’t funded.

Newsrooms shouldn’t be immune from the money talk.

While the firewall that prevents the business side from influencing editorial output must remain, journalists ought to participate in thinking about how their work can generate money. Their skills can also be put to use when crafting proposals to funders or making appeals for audience contributions.

Solutions journalism appeals to communities, who will support you.

During a session with a diverse group of paying members of the Richland Source members, we learned that producing solutions journalism helps grow people’s trust in their local media. Local residents feel it helps make people proud of and hopeful for their town. In the words of Deanna West-Torrence, a paying member of the Richland Source, “you don’t always know what they’re going to write, but you definitely trust the people who are writing [solutions journalism] … And you know that it’s for the good of the greater community.” A track record of journalism that both exposes problems and describes promising responses to those problems shows communities the news outlet is invested. As a result, community members describe a different kind of buy-in.

Use solutions journalism as a platform for audience engagement.

Jiquanda Johnson, founder of Flint Beat, spoke of her passion to use journalism to make a difference, and about her strategy to engage with the community as a source to find out what can be done about an issue. People’s lived experiences of problems are an invaluable information resource and a good place to start developing a solutions angle by asking “who is doing better?”.

Ariel Zirulnick, Fund Director at the Membership Puzzle Project, said that this form of participation helps grow your audience’s trust and support for your work. The knowledge, ideas, and time of your audience should be considered as non-monetary contributions, valuable in their own right.

Moreover, organizing public events that open up conversation between community members and journalists can create feedback loops that help improve the journalism. Chan, formerly of the Seattle Times, spoke about the virtuous cycle that engagement around solutions journalism can trigger, generating story tips and civic action based on the reporting, which in turn can lead to more coverage.

A solutions focus can ultimately lead to generating revenue.

If done with consistency, sustained levels of trust, and compelling messaging, engagement around solutions journalism can become a money earner. Tracie Powell, founder of All Digitocracy, said “anytime you can bring audiences together around topics or issues and address the solutions to some of the most pressing challenges that people are experiencing in their life, I think that’s value and people are willing to pay for that.”

Zirulnick said news organizations doing solutions journalism offer community members an “opportunity to restore what feels broken in society” and added that “if they have an audience revenue program… we see an increased willingness to donate to those organizations.” MPP’s report Making Journalism More Memberful reviewed the case of Nice-Matin, a french media cooperative practicing solutions journalism. It read:

For Nice-Matin, solutions journalism offered an opportunity to “drive people back to news,” according to [journalist Sophie] Casals, and address their trust problem with readers. Subscriptions manager Ati Roufai said that solutions journalism helps readers feel they’re more a part of the publication, and it outperforms other content in driving subscriptions.

Now we can hear you asking, “so how do we demonstrate that solutions journalism can leverage money for newsrooms?” Well, throughout 2020 and into 2021, SJN is running the Local Newsroom Revenue Project, a pilot initiative designed to train local newsrooms in solutions reporting and help them develop strategies that can lead to generating revenue around this editorial focus. We will be working with 10 partners (chosen from more than 100 applicants) based across the US. Read more about the project here.

We’ll keep you posted on what we learn this year.