Dear LION Member,

Your membership application has been accepted. Welcome to the only journalism association solely dedicated to helping news entrepreneurs launch and build stronger independent news businesses. Here’s what you need to know about LION and how to take full advantage of your membership.

Your LION member benefits and how to access them

Stay up to date on LION’s offerings and connect with other independent news entrepreneurs:

• Join the LIONs Den: It’s a private, members-only Facebook group that your news organization’s chief executive can request to join. Visit this page, click “Join Group,” fill out all the questions to request to join and we’ll add you from there.

• Join the News Entrepreneur Community: It’s a Slack group for anyone who is interested in journalism entrepreneurship, and there are also some members-only channels. Anyone from your team can join the Community and all the members-only channels. Request access here, and we’ll be sure to add you to the members-only channels as well.

• Read our weekly newsletter: It’s for anyone working or interested in independent news. We curate the best, most relevant opportunities and recent news articles that might be of interest to our members.

• Promote your work: In our weekly newsletter’s Kudos section, we highlight LION member achievements. Done something noteworthy? Email hello@lionpublishers.com and we’ll share it there.

• Stay in the loop on LION’s offerings: We’ll send you quarterly members-only email updates with a rundown of what LION’s been up to the past quarter and a reminder of opportunities and membership benefits you can take advantage of.

Hear from your peers and industry experts, and tell us what you’d like to learn:

• We regularly host LION Lessons featuring other LION members and topic-area experts who share insights into running independent news businesses. Watch our past LION Lessons, like Mastering the Art of Grant Writing and Building a Reader Services Platform, and keep an eye on our communications channels for upcoming sessions.

Get help with your social media:

• Receive a free social media audit by Meena Thiruvengadam, consultant for the Center for Cooperative Media. You will receive personalized, actionable recommendations, including a digital report delivered at the conclusion of your session with individualized suggestions to help you maximize your impact as a publisher. Request a social media audit

• File a support ticket with LION if you’re having specific problems with your Facebook page or account, including getting Facebook verification, access to the Media Partner Support Portal, CrowdTangle and more.

Get legal help:

• Lawyers for Reporters offers pro bono legal services to LION members on issues relating to media law, insurance, corporate transactions, employment, real estate, tax and non-profit governance. Media law assistance includes pre-publication review, copyright and trademark clearance, licensing, and news-gathering advice. Email them, and let them know you’re a LION member, at cmoore@nycbar.org.

Receive a complimentary membership to the Local Media Consortium:

• For 2021, the Local Media Consortium is offering a complimentary membership to LION members who have under 200,000 in monthly uniques. Membership perks include: partnerships with service providers (except the ad manager partnership); access to member resources and past and upcoming webinars; quarterly update meetings; and strategic initiatives including the Branded Content Project and The Matchup. If you are interested, schedule time with LMC’s Allye Ratledge.

Apply for our LION Awards:

• We’ll host our third annual 2021 LION Awards in October. Submissions will be due by mid-August. Keep an eye on our communications channels for when this year’s submissions open up. In the meantime, check out our 2020 winners.

The team behind LION and how to get in touch with us

LION Publishers was founded in 2012, after a year of organizing by a grassroots group of local news publishers. It was primarily run by a volunteer board until 2019 when we received a Knight Foundation grant to hire and grow a team dedicated to serving its members. Learn more about the folks on our team, our board of directors and our 2021 Advisory Council.

We also recently updated our organizational values, which you can read about here. In 2020, our first year with a full-time team, we achieved a lot that we’re proud of –– you can read about it in our annual report. But we know there is much more work to do to help support independent news entrepreneurs like you. We are always open to suggestions and feedback about how to make LION a valuable organization for you. When you email hello@lionpublishers.com, you’ll reach our entire team.

Finally, meet your LION membership programming manager

Cassie Balfour is your main point of contact at LION, and your biggest advocate. She will provide you with support and resources, promote your work, and share insights about your news business with the rest of the team, so it can help shape LION's broader strategy. Feel free to reach out to her at cassandra@lionpublishers.com.

If you have more questions about your membership, please hit reply and we’ll get back to you ASAP.

Sincerely,

The LION Team

haven't joined yet but plan to

We typically attend this every year, as it is the most specifically relevant to our work and important for networking, Usually held in June.

Mixed feelings on this one in the past - definitely good but very hard investigative skills - consider for specific reporters/editors

There are some scholarships available

We currently rely on trainings, mostly free, from services like Poynter. In the future, we'd like to provide our own workshops to staff and even the community (earned income idea), but we haven't had capacity.