One of my go-to phrases in coaching is this: “A good non-profit newsroom needs to be a good non-profit.”

A sustainable non-profit newsroom isn’t one where two reporters say, “Let’s get some grants so we can do the reporting.” If you want to run a sustainable non-profit news organization, you have to do the things like good non-profits—museums, symphonies, children’s charities, shelters—which means being disciplined about mission, strategic about positioning, and intentional about how you ask for money.

My go-to book on being a good non-profit fundraiser is Jim Lord's The Raising of Money, which has been essential to how I think about donor relationships. Lord argues that the way you frame your ask—the entire mental model behind it—determines whether you succeed or fail.

Two thoughts for this entry lean on his book.

(1.) Too many newsrooms think in terms of scarcity. Not that I don't feel you—I ran a pretty lean news outlet for years—but you can't take this thinking...

"We're struggling with reader revenue." "Our ad sales are down." "We don't have the staff we used to."

...into your marketing.

The problem is that donors don’t want to keep you from failing. They want to invest in your success.

So avoid pitching the deficit. Pitch the success. The city council investigation you broke last month. The best housing coverage no one else is doing. The trust you've earned in your community by actually being in it. The fact that you have a truly local team doing truly local things because you’re a local and it’s important to you.

That's the investment story. A donor or member wants to be part of something that matters—not part of a rescue mission to save your salary.

(2.) Successful Non-profits (and, hence, non-profit newsrooms) are very clear about what they do better than anyone else in their market. They know what sets them apart, and they work hard to articulate it. Maybe it's investigative depth. Maybe it's neighborhood-level reporting that corporate media has abandoned. Maybe it's solutions journalism that actually moves the needle. They capture their impact and then say it out loud.

That clarity—knowing what you're building and why it matters—that's what donors need to hear. That's what helps them say yes.

A good non-profit newsroom is clear-eyed about its mission, confident in its value, and rigorous about what it actually delivers.

From there, all you need is an amazing fundraising strategy, an execution plan and the willingness to implement it. (More on that in the next few weeks! :)