Work

Lenfest News Philanthropy Network

I help lead The Lenfest News Philanthropy Network, a global community of practice supporting philanthropic fundraising in journalism. More than 1,000 development professionals, journalists, and editors have joined the network.

I’ve led and organized courses on topics such as the basics of fundraising, grant writing, major donor development, mid-level donor strategies, and more. I also organized the News Philanthropy Summit, a three-day conference in fall 2021.

Learn More:

• The Lenfest News Philanthropy Network

Solution Set

I launched Solution Set in January 2018 with the goal of applying solutions journalism to journalism itself. Each issue features an in-depth examination of innovative or interesting ideas in journalism and highlights replicable best practices.

I have written or edited more than 70 issues of Solution Set. Issues focus on areas such as revenue generation, product development, audience engagement and more. I’ve also created an accompanying Solution Set Book Club and experimented with an SMS text message version of the newsletter.

Sample Issues:

• The Discourse missed its fundraising campaign goal. Here’s what the Canadian news startup learned.

• Michigan State University graduate students are combining academic research and original journalism to report for local newsrooms

• Deep in the heart of Texas, The Tyler Loop, a digital news startup, is working toward sustainability

• How The Bangor Daily News uses Net Promoter Score to learn more about its subscribers

• Rivard Report turned criticism into cash

Solution Set in the news

• This new newsletter wants to be a playbook for what’s working in journalism — Poynter, Jan. 4, 2018

• ‘Solutions journalism on journalism itself’ — journalism.co.uk, April 23, 2019

• Newsletter Expert Series: Research — Revue, May 7, 2019

• With His Weekly Newsletter, Joseph Lichterman Provides a Roadmap to Newsroom Innovation — Editor & Publisher, Oct. 25, 2019

Watershed Collaborations

I managed From the Source: Stories of the Delaware River, a collaborative reporting project covering the Delaware River Watershed, which spans from New York through Delaware. The project, which ran from 2018-2020, was a partnership between The Lenfest Institute, the National Geographic Society, and more than 10 local news organizations including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Wilmington News-Journal, and Delaware Public Radio.

Funded by The Lenfest Institute, National Geographic Society, and William Penn Foundation, the project also supported Good River: Stories of the Ohio, a collaboration of seven nonprofit newsrooms covering the Ohio River Watershed.

Learn More:

• From the Source

• Good River

The Newsletter Guide

The Newsletter Guide is an email newsletter strategy resource for publishers. I co-created the guide with Harvard’s Shorenstein Center and Yellow Brim.

The guide includes strategies for content development, audience growth, revenue generation, and more. It also features open-source templates for email newsletters.

Business Models for Local News: A Field Scan

I co-authored “Business Models for Local News: A Field Scan” in partnership with Harvard’s Shorenstein Center. The report identified five key needs for revitalizing local journalism:

1. Increased financial investment in startups

2. Growing philanthropic commitments

3. The need for growth capital for existing organizations

4. Improved collaboration among both news organizations and platforms

5. Greater emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion