Meet the latest round of New Jersey ‘Grow + Strengthen’ participants
New Jersey publishers will focus on local news revenue projects
Late last year, we announced a new round of micro-awards aimed at supporting projects and experiments focused on bringing in more money for local news publishers in New Jersey. The program is called Grow + Strengthen: Revenue, and it provides stipends of up to $5,000 each — plus business coaching and a free year of LION Publishers membership.
Grow + Strengthen is a program the Center has sponsored before, but it’s been a while; we announced our first round of participants back in 2013. We did it again in 2014, but that time we focused on supporting investigative reporting.
Today, we’re excited to announce our 2020 cohort! The stipends for this year’s recipients are made possible thanks to funding from the New Jersey Local News Lab, a partnership between Democracy Fund, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and the Community Foundation of New Jersey.
Meet our Grow + Strengthen: Revenue participants
Organizations were selected based on a weighted evaluation rubric and judges scores.
New Brunswick Today will focus on growing reader revenue
New Brunswick Today is a community-driven, bi-lingual, hyperlocal news outlet covering the issues that matter to residents of New Jersey’s hub city.
Now that NBT’s new website is funded by advertising, editor Charlie Kratovil says he is looking to focus more on growing the revenue and support they receive directly from their readers. One way they’ll do this is by expanding their Spanish-language coverage and, for the first time, translating all of their reporting into Spanish. Kratovil says New Brunswick Today has “transitioned from reliance on advertising” over time towards a more reader-supported model, “but we are not leveraging all of the resources at our disposal.”
NJ Pen plans to launch a ‘Good News Box’ subscription
NJ Pen is an independent local news site covering nine municipalities in suburban Camden County. Founder and publisher Matt Skoufalos sees the NJ Pen Good News Box as “a way to capitalize on consumer interest in curated subscription box services and my readers’ interest in supporting small, local businesses.”
The Good News Box will include a curated selection of locally produced or supplied products based on a theme, packaged in a custom, NJ Pen-branded container. The boxes will be distributed at local business or during a so-called “pick-up party” organized by NJ Pen. The pick-up parties will also serve as additional opportunities for community engagement, subscriber acquisition, and local business marketing.
CivicStory will launch a small-business sustainability sponsorship program
CivicStory is New Jersey’s only nonprofit news site dedicated to advancing solutions-based news about sustainability and civic change. They’re also spearheading the Sustainability Reporting Hub (SRHub), a reporting collaborative that provides stipends to a diverse set of newsrooms, which host reporting fellows and publish sustainability reporting over the course of a six-month period.
CivicStory plans to launch a sponsorship program for small businesses and nonprofits as part of a new vertical on the SRHub website. In return for a sponsor-membership fee, sponsor organizations’ logos will be placed on a logo page and arranged by category with links to their websites. Sponsor-members will receive courtesy reminders to share newsworthy information with the NJSR Hub team, which can then be conveyed to reporting fellows.
The “sponsor-member” project, as CivicStory founder and creative director Susan Haig calls it, is specifically aimed at small businesses, nonprofits, and academic institutions. The goal is to provide a way for sustainability-oriented NJ-based organizations to support solutions-based reporting about New Jersey’s pivot to sustainability.
Montclair Local will provide social media training for its staff — and its readers
Montclair Local is a non-profit, member-supported independent local news provider that was launched as a direct response to the consolidation of Montclair’s media landscape after Gannett purchased North Jersey Media Group in 2017. Montclair Local became a non-profit newsroom in December 2019, and its board consists entirely of Montclair residents.
Well-executed social media marketing strategies can have a substantial impact on a non-profit’s ability to promote its mission, build audiences, support membership and fundraising efforts. During NewsMatch, for example, quite a few INN member organizations have found success driving donations through social platforms.
Executive director Anne Keys believes that providing her staff with social media training will have significant impact on Montclair Local’s bottom line. But Keys isn’t stopping at her staff — she also wants to train members of the community alongside her team of reporters.
Local community business and nonprofit members, including those representing diverse backgrounds will join Montclair Local reporters in honing their social media skills to spark audience engagement, execute paid media and monetization campaigns, and increase membership, among other topics.
Nubian News will launch and monetize a local TV show and video-based sponsorship program
The Nubian News is one of only two Black owned and operated hardcopy newspapers in the state — and they publish in both English and Spanish. Nubian News owner and publisher Kamau Kujichagulia is working on a two-pronged project to grow the footprint of the publication in the broader Trenton community and generate additional revenue in the process.
The first part of the project involves the creation of a new TV show that brings local residents into the studio for a series of interviews about all the underreported community work and goings-on in Trenton.
“The community needs to see and know that people are out there working hard and doing things,” Kujichagulia writes. “Our children need to know that whatever they want to do, they can do. And seeing people who have done it — people who look like them — will let them know they can, too.”
The second part of the project involves a video- and multimedia-based advertising, promotion, and events service that would allow companies to bundle their print advertisements with a promotional video add-on that can be used across the company’s own social media accounts and promotional or marketing channels. The two-for-one package will also include an add-on for sponsored content in the paper.
Morristown Green will launch and monetize a podcast
Morristown Green has built a reputation as the go-to source for community news in Greater Morristown — the hub of Morris County, home to the Mayo Performing Arts Center and a thriving cultural scene, with a fabled Revolutionary history, a vibrant faith community, and a diverse population.
Owner and publisher Kevin Coughlin has created a handful of one-off podcasts over the years, including interviews with rock legends, local figures, and other interesting community stories.
“There are many more fascinating stories in our backyard,” Coughlin writes, “and they would resonate beyond our borders.”
Coughlin will produce a podcast series for Morristown and use it as a vehicle for experimenting with monetization. That includes building out sponsorship packages around each episode — identifying the best formats, themes, and marketing materials — and exploring partnerships with other media organizations to co-promote and collaborate on the show. He plans to hire someone to help him build the sponsorship packages.
Joe Amditis is the associate director of the Center for Cooperative Media. You can contact him on Twitter at @jsamditis or email him at amditisj@montclair.edu.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism, and in doing so serve New Jersey residents. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Local News Lab (a partnership of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, and Community Foundation of New Jersey), and the Abrams Foundation. For more information, visit CenterforCooperativeMedia.org.
