(3-31-13)<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0 (Ann)\u00a0 Funding is the biggest problem facing non-profit startups \u2013 every thriving start-up has had an angel willing to support it (often in six figures), at least at the beginning.<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0 (Ann)\u00a0 Look for funding before<\/i> you launch \u2013 after that, the journalists will be too busy producing journalism to have time for fund-raising. . . and most journalists aren\u2019t the best people to look for funding, anyway. You need people who are great at selling \u2013 the stories, the product, the idea.<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0 (Dave)\u00a0 The Chippewa Valley Post <\/b><\/i>project in Eau Claire hopes to make use of a pool of former journalists \u2013 many now in PR \u2013 with an itch to \u201cget back in harness\u201d periodically, to go after untold local stories.<\/p>\n
4.\u00a0 (Ann) Volunteers are very important \u2013 but be sure to have a sign-up list of projects that can (or should) be done, and a due date for each one to insure (as much as possible) that they actually get finished. Also, if all the volunteers report to one person, that person will quickly get overwhelmed. \u00a0See if you can form teams.<\/p>\n
5.\u00a0 (Dave) The CVP<\/i> project leadership is also committed to making sure that all material \u2013 whether produced by people with journalism backgrounds, citizen journalists or students \u2013 is edited to a professional standard.<\/p>\n
6.\u00a0 (Ann) There really are no successful existing business models for news operations \u2013 there are some hyper-local sites (e.g.<\/i>, the West Seattle blog) that pull in enough advertising and other revenue to support one person, from their focus on a tight geographic area. Among sites focused on larger areas, the Texas Tribune seems to be faring the best, and they had something like $5 million in capital to start. The low cost of advertising on Google and Craigslist makes it impossible to make any reasonable amount of money selling ads (that\u2019s what is killing newspapers). \u00a0We need different sources of revenue for journalism.<\/p>\n
7.\u00a0 (Dave) One possible model is the consumer cooperative ownership approach taken by Tom Stites\u2019 Banyan Project in Haverhill, MA (see http:\/\/banyanproject.coop\/<\/a>). \u00a0\u00a0Another is The Rapidian <\/i>in Grand Rapids, MI (see http:\/\/therapidian.org\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n 8.\u00a0 (Ann) Think about who the customer is \u2013 is the viewers of the Website, or foundations or other funding sources who care most about the size of the audience you can attract to your site and others to which you\u2019re linked.<\/p>\n 9.\u00a0 (Dave) What I hope to take away from this conference is ideas that have worked for other start-ups (re: operations and especially re: funding) as well as learning which ideas haven\u2019t worked (and why) so we don\u2019t spend time reinventing square wheels.<\/p>\n 10.\u00a0 (Ann) What I hope to take away is a group of people in Colorado who care about journalism and want to do something about it. Colorado Public News has the framework for them. And I\u2019m happy to give my knowledge about starting a news operation to people from other areas, like Dave.<\/p>\n 11.\u00a0 (Ann, with full agreement from Dave)\u00a0 Re: 2018, what we would most hope to see is that people become willing to pay the costs of journalism that\u2019s done well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (3-31-13) 1.\u00a0 (Ann)\u00a0 Funding is the biggest problem facing non-profit startups \u2013 every thriving start-up has had an angel willing to support it (often in six figures), at least at the beginning. 2.\u00a0 (Ann)\u00a0 Look for funding before you launch … Continue reading