The Pivot Publisher Series: How to smartly build capacity and organizational design

So my name is Zuri Berry. I'm the digital strategy editor at the Baltimore banner, but I'm also an owner and principal producer of ZMC Podcasts a podcast development and audio production company. I've been in the news business for almost 20 years now, having worked in newspapers, TV, radio and now in a digital only outlet. So I'm pretty grateful to be here, given that waves of the industry that we've all been through. And I do want to set the stage for this conversation. But first, I guess a cou

ple of announcements before we really get into it. I'd like to thank the Pivot Fund for having me here, as well as our esteemed guest, whom you'll get to hear from plenty in just a moment. So thank you, Tracie Powell, the Pivot Fund's esteemed CEO. I'd also like to thank the Knight Foundation for supporting and sponsoring this publisher series. Second announcement here being that we're going to hold all questions until the end of the webinar. That's on me. I'm going to make sure there's plenty o

f time to answer everyone's questions. So please use the Q and A function here on Zoom to add questions as we go, and I'll pick them up at the end. I guess with that, I'd like to address the elephant in the room. We're having this conversation about capacity building and organizational design at a moment in which the media industry is going through tremendous flux. Frankly, there's been a lot of layoffs and cuts, and not all of it can be directly attributed to the journalism. In fact, plenty of

cuts have happened in places where the journalism is actually resonating. It's actually meaningful to the communities that they serve. But somehow, in this business, there's still a disconnect. There's, with our business models, our budgets, and our need for staffing. There's clearly a problem here. About how we set ourselves up for success and how we maintain that success by the ways in which our news organizations are built. So in the midst of all this, we're also seeing a wave of capacity bui

lding journalism funded through organizations like the Pivot Fund, like Press Forward, and it's on these organizations, the founders of the newsrooms they fund to help ensure that their investments and grantees are sustainable. So we're going to tackle this issue head on, and we're going to Talk about finding talent. So let's kick this off by hearing from our panelists. I'm going to start with Lisa Snowden. She is the co founder and editor in chief of the Baltimore Beat. That's a digital and pri

nt based news organization. Lisa, can you tell us about yourself and what makes the Beat stick out in Baltimore? And if you could let us know your organization size. Sure. Um, our organization is very small. Uh, we have about, right now we have, including myself, two full time staffers. We are, thanks to the Pivot Fund, bringing on a third full time staffer in just a few weeks, um, starting in April. And we have a few contract and, and part time folks. We also use, uh, use freelance writers. Um,

so the Baltimore Beat was born out of the death of Baltimore City Paper, which was the city's about 40 year old alt weekly. Um, we knew that the city still needed that kind of journalism perspective that, um, the, you know, deep dive journalism, very serious arts coverage, very critical stance on, uh, on leadership in Baltimore. But also we knew that it needed something that was more intentionally Black, like something that intentionally reflected the folks who lived in Baltimore. Baltimore is

a 60 percent Black city and as is no secret journalism is a very white industry. So that's so the to the audience is not always reflected in the newsroom. So we were kind of trying to kill two birds with one stone really feel that need that are all weekly provided and also make sure that we are giving voice and opportunity and training opportunities to establish journalists of color and up and coming journalists of color. Thank you. Thank you and welcome. Uh, second, I want to go to Madeline Bai

r. She is the founder of El Timpano, an award winning civic media organization designed with and for the Bay Area's Latino and Mayan immigrant communities. Welcome, Madeline. Can you tell us about yourself and what makes El Timpano so important to Bay Area immigrant communities? Yeah. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Um, so I'm, uh, a journalist and media developer. I have a background, um, in both community media, uh, both as well as more traditional journalism, uh, independent filmmaking

and international human rights. And I'm from Oakland, um, and started El Timpano in 2017 when I moved back to the Bay Area after I had been away for many years and I saw that latino immigrants were the fastest growing community in my hometown, but you would have no idea of that by consuming local media because they were nearly invisible, um, in, in local media and in civic conversations on issues impacting them. Um, and at the same time, there was a dwindling of, you know, already very limited

options. for quality journalism, news and information that spoke their languages and address their needs and concerns. Um, so I founded El Timpano really to address that gap in journalism that both serves and amplifies the voices of Latino and Mayan immigrants in the Bay Area. Um, and in terms of this, this conversation, you know, we, I didn't have any ongoing funding or ongoing staff, including myself, until 2020, when I was able to step down from from my day job in the fall of 2020. I was our

first full time employee. We had a part time employee as of the start of 2020, but it didn't happen. Took us another year to raise the funds to hire our second employee, uh, which I did in early 2022. Uh, and we're now a team of, uh, about 13 people. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. And I was just reading a story actually on your site from Vanessa Flores, a nice profile of a young woman struggling, uh, to pay her bills. And I just think that's such impactful journalism. So looking forward to

learning more about your organization. Thank you. Um, Susan, I want to come to you now. Susan Gluck Papajohn. She is a talent and organizational strategy consultant. She's a seasoned executive whose career has spanned the arts, non profit technology, and media sectors. Welcome back, because this is, I think, another Pivot Fund webinar that you've done. Can you tell our audience more about yourself and the types of clients you work with in the media sector? So I, uh, I have focused entirely on no

nprofits, mission driven organizations, organizational design, strategy, and recruiting. Um, the last four and a half years, I've done a, I started to work in the nonprofit newsroom. arena, um, with non profit, mostly startups, um, uh, or very young, uh, non profit newsrooms across the country, maybe 15, 16 of them. I'm just launching a CEO search for, uh, a Sahan Journal, so if anyone has any nominations or ideas, let me know. Um, so, uh, It's not just really about recruiting. There's a lot of

organizational assessment that needs to happen before people go to market and say, who's the next hire? We really need. So we'll talk a little bit about that. But, um, I'm happy to be here And we're happy to have you. Um, so I guess this leads to our very 1st question that is, um, of significance here, which is, just about building these newsrooms. In addition to funding, as the leader of a local newsroom, and this question is posed to Lisa and Madeline. What are some of the key things that you'

ve learned about the recruiting and hiring process as founders? Lisa, why don't you kick us off there? It's really been a journey. And I think that because it's been a journey, your need shifts to the Baltimore beat started as a for profit with one staff. We relaunched when we just decided myself and my co founder, we're just going to do this. And then it was the two of us. And then when we got a substantial grant, we were able to relaunch again with a staff of at that point, three, three folks.

So we ran for a little bit and two folks ended up leaving. And so then we've had to kind of think about it from a what do we need next? And we need a lot all the time. We're small places. But for me, I knew that the next thing that we needed was help on the news side, because one of the folks that we that we lost was a news writer. And so I was in the position where I was writing things. And that cannot happen as much as I love writing as much as being a reporter and writer has been a big part

of my career. That has that's not a I don't have the luxury of doing that right now. So for me, it was it was knowing that and then being intentional about making sure that it's always in the front of my mind. How are we making sure that the beat still reflects the audience that we're serving? So even if it's not necessarily hiring somebody who is African American, it's making sure that they're aligned with what we want to do, and also that we still have a pipeline open. For when the next hire i

s ready, when there's more money that comes into the door, that we're ready, we're grooming folks to come in and and be available and ready for us to make that next hire that could be, you know, that could be an African American person. I want to be clear also that we are, we don't just hire African Americans, we hire everybody. Well, let me just underscore what you said there in alignment, meaning somebody of and for the community and all of those things, right? Like somebody, clearly somebody

who is a good representative for Baltimore. Yes. Thank you for that. Madeline, can you answer that question? Yes. Uh, I have learned so much and I'm continuing to learn so, um, very much will learn from my peers on this panel today. As I mentioned, you know, we've hired about 12 people in the past two years, and, um, before making our first hire that I, I really didn't know what I was doing. Um, and so. So I want to kind of distill just a few of the top learnings. Um, and I can elaborate later,

uh, if there's a desire, but, you know, I think the first thing I learned is just, you can't, um, you can't do it yourself, uh, which is hard to say for, you know, one person or two people teams. I thought when I was making my first hire for El Tiempo No, I thought I had to do it myself, because I didn't have any colleagues at that point. Um, but you really need to hire with a committee because you just want to hear different perspectives, different people might have questions, um, that you don'

t have, concerns that you don't have, see things that you're not seeing. And so, um, you know, after I've learned that, that with, um, You know, early on in that process, I did put together a committee. And even when we didn't have the people on staff, I looked towards El Timpano's advisory council. I looked towards my network and said like, Hey, we're making this hire. I'd love for you to join the committee. Um, sometimes I even offered a stipend if they weren't on our advisory council, just to

thank them for their time. Um, and people were, you know, were very much willing to support me in that process. The second thing I learned is that hiring is really a year round process. You can't just wait until you have a position and you're ready to start searching. So, you know, one thing I've done is I have a virtual whiteboard with the dream candidates. Um, and I'm always on the lookout if I see great work, if I meet great people, um, I try to take informational interviews, uh, when I have

the time, even if we don't have a position open, um, really just to keep a running list of great people who we might want to bring on to the team when, when, and if there is an opportunity. The third is that, you know, hiring, you really need to be proactive about it. It's about so much more than just creating a JD and throwing it up on a bunch of job boards. Um, you know, that's why there are people like Susan who do it full time. Um, you know, it takes a lot of time. It's not necessarily a dr

eam at the right time. So you have to really think about it about a hiring process as a project and create a plan, have a kickoff meeting. Um, you know, now when we are planning for a hire at El timpano. In our first kickoff meeting as a hiring committee. We brainstorm together like, okay, who are dream candidates for this role? Who are other people who might know other dream candidates who aren't on our radar. Who's going to reach out to those people? Um, and, you know, if you're one of my drea

m candidates, you probably know, because I'm not bashful, I will be up in your DMs, I will be writing emails and say like, Hey, you know, we'd love for you to consider this role. And if not you, you know, can you share it with people, you know. And then finally, you know, and this goes along with what Lisa was saying, uh, fit is such a part of it. Um, I'd say the few times when we've made a hire that didn't work out, it was because it wasn't a great fit for El Timpano. And for us, you know, one

of the biggest things that has meant is in terms of fit is it's not just mission alignment, but it's also we're a small and growing Nonprofit essentially a startup. And so we're looking for people who are ready to grow with us ready to build ready to really roll up their sleeves. Um, and so that may mean that, you know, the person with the most experience. isn't necessarily the great candidate if all of their experience has been in organizations where there are already systems set up. Um, but we

're looking for people who, you know, are ready to kind of fill in gaps or create systems and processes and aren't really afraid to do that. Yeah, just to reflect on that really quickly. I'm like, in a startup, if you will. And, uh, I think there's a big hurdle there for people who aren't accustomed to being in a place without systems in place and processes and, you know, sort of process for all of these things that you would might, you know, Take, take for granted, for instance, filing expense

reports. It seems to be the last thing that sometimes founders think about. Um, I I wanna follow up with a question about sort of the bringing the people on, on your staff though there. How did you go about hiring people who don't look like you, but look like the community that Elano serves? What did you learn during that part of the process? Yeah. Um, you know, there are a few ways to answer this question. Um, I, to be clear, I'm white. I'm not Latina. I'm not an immigrant. And so it has always

been a commitment of mine to build an organization that really does reflect the communities that we serve. Um, and, you know, it's even more important because I myself as the founder, I'm not from that community. And so, you know, long before we had any funding to hire, our work really started by building relationships within Oakland's Latino and Mayan immigrant communities and designing our mission, designing our strategies, really in collaboration with the community itself. And, you know, and

Latinos, immigrants, and Latino journalists saw that. It didn't matter that I was white, it mattered that we were doing journalism that they wanted to do or they wanted to see, um, because of their own experiences as immigrants or as children of immigrants, and so um, so Long before I had any funding to, to hire people, I started receiving cold emails from Latino journalists who wanted to work with El Timpano and sent me their resume. And, you know, those were, were the first informational Inte

rviews that, that I took. Um, and so I think that really shows that, you know, integrity and actions really speak louder than, a DEI statement. Um, people will see your work and your values and, um, if that aligns with them, then, then they want to be a part of that. And so just doing the work has really helped attract people who, who are from the communities that we serve. Um, You know, but apart from that, we've also established processes to support equitable hiring. So, you know, we know that

people of color are more likely to be paying student loans. We know that immigrants or children of immigrants are more likely to be supporting other family members, um, as adults. Um, you know, Carla Murphy did this great survey of journalists of color who have left the industry a few years ago, I could drop it in the chat, um, and a big part of it was simply that they couldn't afford the poor salaries that, that were paid, um, in journalism jobs. And so, you know, added to that. El Timpano is

based in the region of the country with the highest cost of living. So, um, you know, people have told me, wow, you, you actually pay really well. Um, but we pay so that, you know, people can afford to work here. Um, uh, we also, uh, take into account the fact that You know, for a lot of newsrooms, speaking Spanish or being bilingual is a plus for us, for most of our jobs, that's a necessity, um, and that does really dwindle the number of, of qualified applicants. So we really want to pay to, yo

u know, to account for that, to, uh, to really take into account that for. Um, so, so pay is a big part of just making sure that we're able to attract the, the sort of people, um, that we want to, to be a part of the organization. Understood. Thank you for that. Um, I'm going to pivot just here just a little bit. No pun intended. Susan, I wanted to ask you about the challenges, some of the common challenges that you see when you're talking to organizations about bringing people on and how to fin

d talent. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? Um, I think what we have here is, I think very much a startup kind of conversations with the panelists, et cetera. Um, You know, the newsrooms that are young are started by journalists, and, um, they tend to hire, uh, very much on the editorial side, and that's your core mission, right? Um, but, and then they'll hire someone on the operations, uh, business side, often that team or that person gets overwhelmed really quickly. There's not an un

derstanding necessarily because that's not what the founders did for a living, but how do you build the infrastructure and processes for an organization? So I see a bias towards the headcount growing very significantly on the editorial side, and then, um, an underestimation of what it takes. To put the infrastructure together and a lot of pressure and stress on the business people who are the operation side of the house. So, what do you suggest as a solution to that? Because I, I, I, I think eve

rybody's nodding their head in agreement. Yeah, that is an issue. Yeah, so 1st to recognize that maybe not hire as much on the editorial side and you have to maybe make some hires. Or, or get some resources. On the business operations side of the house, I've seen people say, okay, we need a fundraiser, we need operations. Well, we'll have the fundraiser do the operations too. Doesn't, it's overwhelming to people. Um, so I think that, um, recognizing that this is important too. Um, and then, say,

seeing, well, what type of person do we need next on the business side? Well, you have to look at who's your starting team. Are they, are you just one founder? Are you two founders? Are you three founders? Is there someone on this starting team that has a little bit more experience in this area? Um, people haven't talked about the board yet, recruiting a board. So, I think there was an advisory board comment. Are you all 501c3s yet? We are. You are? Uh huh. Both of you? El Tiempo No is fiscally

sponsored. Fiscally. Okay. So whatever it is, you can also get people, I see a lot of the startup boards or advisory boards, also a lot of journalists, but maybe to target people in the community who can act as evangelists, but bring certain skills to the table. So that's recruiting, not staff. But that's recruiting maybe a lawyer who's in the community, a PR person in the community, a finance accounting person on the community. So that's another way to start to get skills and insights. And jus

t like we're talking about bringing a committee together for recruiting, that group of people can really be a sounding board and bring skills and resources to the table. Thanks Then it's like, okay, what's the next critical hire, um, can we outsource it? So you don't need a full time accountant per se, per se. You know, so figuring out, you know, who you have on the team, who could maybe do a little of this work, what are the critical pain points right now on the infrastructure side? Also recrui

ting board or advisory board members. So you're like putting. Pieces maybe in a different places and not just be like I'm hiring this one person to do everything that makes sense at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And thank you. I think there was a few gems in there in terms of realizing board members, advisors and people of that sort to help with some of these issues as well that come up in these newsrooms, particularly startup newsrooms. I think, I think the startup newsrooms, I mean, I really see the

people on the business side get crushed, and it gets really stressful for them. And then it ends up like, as the newsroom can get burnt out too, because if there's not the infrastructure for them to do their job too. Yeah, so you're very much in this startup phase, but, you know, as you start to scale, I mean, going to 12 people really quickly. You know, you start to have to get processes in place and having a good operations manager is generally a good thing to hire for eventually. Who can mana

ge some of the vendors are part time consultants too. Yes, let me let me come back to you, Madeline here real quick because you just dropped some stats in the chat I think here about your staff, your staff is now 95 percent BIPOC 75 percent Latino 95 percent women 12%. LGBTQ plus and 50 percent either immigrants or children of immigrants. Um, so very interesting. You've recently expanded as we just discussed. You're at 13 members. Not all of your staff are reporters. What was your first step in

rounding out the team? Did you have an initial vision in place? Can you talk to us about that? Yeah, it's, um, it's so hard. I mean, as Lisa said, like, You're trying to do it all you need. You need everyone. Um, at once. It feels like, um, You know, we really built out our organization based on both our editorial and our revenue strategies, which are interconnected. And so, um, for El Timpano, that means that before hiring any reporters, really, we really hired outreach staff, to, because that'

s really a part of our strategy is really starting by building relationships with the communities that we serve, who then contribute to our journalism. And so, So our very first hire even before myself was a part time community outreach coordinator, who was out in the community every week, um, letting people know about El Timpano, signing people up for our text messaging platform and really growing our audience. And this was in 2020 when. The sort of information that we were providing in Spanish

was really life or death, um, sort of information during the pandemic to help people navigate what was going on. Um, when it, you know, as I mentioned, once I was able to step down from my day job and be the first full time staff member, It took another year to raise enough funds to cobble together to hire a second full time staff member. And the person I hired, um, she actually just passed her two year mark with us, um, and she's very different from myself. She's, she doesn't have a journalism

background at all. Um, what I really liked about her is that she has a background in nonprofit administration and operations. Um, she has built things up. So she worked with a local community clinic and really kind of built a new arm of the community clinic. So I could really see that she was a builder. She also has a finance background, which I don't have. And so she just brought a lot, um, that, that could really compliment my skills. And she's worn and she's worn like four different hats now

, um, and has been so integral to the growth of the organization. So it wasn't until after she came on and really built our community outreach team. Built a revenue strategy and, and really started to lead and implement a revenue strategy that's attached to that community outreach that we then had more funding that we could start to devote to the editorial side of our operations. And, um, I mentioned earlier that I have, uh, sorry, I'll just finish this thought that I have a digital whiteboard o

f like dream candidates. I also have a digital whiteboard that I'm always Um, and so I'm always kind of looking at Okay, how are how are we going to grow? What's the right time for this? Who, you know, like right now, actually, we're hiring three people for the newsroom, which is really the biggest growth for our newsroom thus far. But part of it was because, you know, we knew we wanted more reporters, but, But if we were only to hire the reporters, there would be too many people for our current

editorial director to manage. And so we first had to hire a new managing editor. So just like kind of holding all of those pieces in place and having an org chart that you can really look at and, and continue to shape and reshape on an ongoing basis has been really helpful for me. Can you tell us how you were able to find the funding to support that payroll and that onboarding process? For those initial hires, I mean, you expanded pretty fast there. Where did you get that initial funding to get

, uh, get those kind of hires on board? Yeah. Um, that was hard. That's probably the hardest part. Um, and honestly, it, um, what allowed us to make that first First, that first higher there, the second higher after myself for a first time for a full time person. That was actually a major grant that we got from our local public health department. So, um, because grants we were getting from, uh, You know, at that point, we're we're mostly quite small, and it was very hard to kind of cobble togeth

er enough small grants or project grants again, especially in the Bay Area when salaries are pretty high, and it was very hard to cobble together enough grants to make a full time hire. And so it wasn't until we got. A major two year grant, um, that has since been expanded to be a three year grant from our local public health department that enabled us to make that higher, and I've written a little bit about that, you know, what has really become, uh, a big part of our, uh, growth and revenue st

rategy is to, um, Civic partnerships. So a lot of grants that we've received from government agencies, uh, sub-grants from nonprofit service providers who really value El Timpano's ability to reach, you know, quote unquote hard to reach communities with our work. Um, and I can drop some of that in the chat as well. That would be wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for that. Lisa, I want to come to you here because The Pivot Fund recently made an investment of about $150,000 into your org. Now, you w

rote that these dollars will support the Beat in securing a new staff member. How did you approach this process when you got the money? With a CFO and an arts and culture editor on staff, what skill sets were you interested in in bringing to the Beat? I was interested in somebody who knew the kind of reporting that we were doing, you know, we're not like the banner or even the Baltimore Sun where you guys do a lot. I mean, you guys do a lot of everything, but like a lot of the daily reporting. S

o I wanted somebody who knew how to do kind of more featurey things, but also had an interest in doing investigative reporting. I knew that it needs to be news. Terry Henderson, who does our arts and culture, Coverage does an amazing job. So that was that's it. Um, I I was thinking when Madeline was talking about how much the hiring process feels like fundraising when you when you really think about it, because sometimes it's not just going out. Like you can't you can't hire a fundraiser. I thin

k they're just gonna go out and come back and bring all this money to you. Sometimes it is it's it's having a few in face conversations with potential funders. It's looking at somebody who's like, okay, I see them funding these other organizations that are like us. How can we kind of start getting in there? So there's a lot of it. Yeah. Invisible labor that goes into fundraising. And I think that there's also kind of invisible labor that goes into hiring. So it's knowing the folks who are kind o

f aligned in that way who are already doing that work person who we hired when I sat down with her, even though she's comes from a more Mainstream journalism outlet. She I was very, very impressed with how much she knew about nonprofit news and specifically the kind of nonprofit news that I did, and I was already familiar with her work. I've seen her at other conferences. So I knew that she was, we were both kind of on the same vibe with that and that really went a long way with knowing feeling

like I could trust her with with our news coverage. There goes that word again, alignment. I love it. We've heard it a few times here. Um, I, I want to, uh, sort of hit on another aspect of this and this, this question is for Susan. So there are several hyperlocal BIPOC led news works that, uh, have been supported by The Pivot Fund. Um, again, they're all sort of scrappy, passionate two to three person operations. After they get that funding, what benchmark or criterion can they use to determine

their readiness to expand? What's that, what is that thing that you're looking for, for them to expand? Well, I mean, part of it is, what are their goals? You know, so what are your goals, what are you trying to accomplish, if it's certain beats, if it's certain whatever it is, and then do you have the people to do it? Um, I've already talked about just having someone who's attentive to core operations, even if that's someone who's on a, you know, wearing different hats, but, what are you tryin

g, what are your pain points and what kind of resources do you need? And what kind of. Again, assessing who can do what on your team already, and how can you bring people into the fold that aren't necessarily full time employees, because you're not going to have all the money that you want for all the positions that you're going to need. So you need to be very creative. I mean, any startup is the same way. You know, can you get someone to do pro bono work for you, building your advisory board? C

an you share? uh, some resource with another nonprofit in the, in a startup nonprofit. Maybe they're not news or something, but it's someone who maybe does data science, data analytics. I mean, I see, um, or tech, you know, as it's very hard to hire a CTO early on in the process, but most of these organizations are digital news organizations. They're digital and you can, you know, Get tech stats or whatever, but you're still going to have to have some technical expertise at some point. So you ha

ve to think creatively about volunteers, interns. Um, but what are, what is your plan? What are you trying to do? And what are the pain points or key critical path items to get there? And not the nice to haves. So being very, very focused, because a lot of people say, we, well, we need this, we need this. You're not, you need to, um, really be focused and prioritize what I'm trying to do. Am I going to put this money or resource into another? I'm I need to get someone or a consultant in to start

looking and doing the data analytics, like these are the trade offs all the time. And then how can you start to bring in some other resources without maybe a full time headcount. But I can't, that's where it's always, there's no, um, generic playbook for some of this. It's really looking at where you are, what talents do you already have. On the founders and beyond and then what are you trying to do? And what are you trying to do to make a mark so you can also get more funding. For example in B

altimore, maybe the arts beat is so important. Like that was a critical To make a mark. So you I assume you're very strategic about this is how we're going to wedge in and we're going to add some value to our community. So we're going to invest in this person right away It might be something very different for another community, what their needs are. They might have an eco disaster on their hands, and so they're going to get recognition and focus on building reporting in a certain area. So it's

all just thinking about your situation, how you differentiate, and what needs and resources you need to have at the moment. And then I think this whiteboard is that, yeah, it is fluid. But the organizational structure. You know, um, any CEO, it's always resource allocation at the end of the day, right? It's like if I invest here now, I can't invest there now, you know, and then having headlights into the future I'm making this higher, but I know i'm going to need this person soon and networking

and you know trying to get ahead of the game a little bit but being flexible. There's a couple areas where I think people underestimate their needs Um, I think the community engagement area is really, really, really important. I, I, I don't know if you're familiar with LAist, the public radio station. They have, um, Ashley's incredible. I've interviewed her a couple times, community engagement. That has been such a boon. While she reports into the editorial side, she's really a hybrid person bec

ause she's getting into the community, what are their needs, then doing newsletters, and then all of a sudden, the development people are like. Oh, we can get people to fund that newsletter. So, she's become a fundraiser, marketing, now she has an audience, development manager, but she's like the go between with the marketing, the fundraising, and the editorial team, and building this bridge, and it's, the payoff is audience growth, and then bringing in funders as well. So, I liked hearing about

the one of your first hires, Madeline, being the community person, you know, who had all these other skills too, but that role seems really, really, um, if you can get someone who thinks like that, they go into events, they can get sponsorships, they can know what reporting you might need that you haven't thought about. It can really propel growth if you get the right person in that area. Thank you, Susan. Lisa, I think you had something to say on that with respect to the tech solutions. I also

have another question for you when you're ready. Sure. I mean, I just feel like every time Susan talks, my brain is going in 5 million ways. So, um, so thank you, Susan. But one of the things I was thinking about when you were talking about, um, being creative. So our CFO really takes joy And figuring out ways to make life easier for folks like me, just in general, he, this is the thing that he wants to help kind of with other people like me all over the country. So he's found a place, like, yo

u know, he's the one that hooked us up with news pass. So that, so that's a website that's very easy. Like if I don't, luckily I don't have to do anything with it, but if I could, I It's very easy for me to do that. He's found software that helps us get our freelancers paid quickly on both ends. It's not me or somebody else kind of juggling a bunch of people sending emails looking for money, but also on their side, they're not waiting three or four months for payment for them, you know, getting

paid in July, but then it happened last September. So, so finding those solutions, knowing that we had a very limited amount of funds has taken us a really long way. That's a great person on your team. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Pivot Funds partnership with JustWorks, which just helps with the payroll and HR as well for teams like yours. So that's, uh, that's really good. The question I wanted to follow up with you, Lisa, about was how did you determine you were ready to bring on

and sustain additional staff? Like, what was the determining factor for you? By mental health. It was just, it's really, you know, when we lost those two team members, it was unexpected. And so I had to pivot and quickly because we have a, we have a set schedule. We are a paper that comes out every other week. That's what it is. That's how our budget is laid out. You know, that's what happens. So no matter what, we still had to meet that goal. And so when we had that unexpected loss, it meant th

at I immediately had to start shifting and writing some things we have, like I said, It's a priority. It's as important as important as the content we put out is making sure that we're giving young writers an opportunity, but that also means that that slows us down because it's teaching as we go. So that meant that again, I'm the most experienced writer sometimes, and I knew that that could not be. I knew that it could it would not sustain us because my brain is best put to use when I am forward

thinking when I'm creating a path for us to continue to exist. So that was very easy. It was also very easy for me to hire Terry because again, I'm kind of operating the footprint of a of an alt weekly and all weeklies. always have been known for their great arts coverage. And with Baltimore Beat especially, there's so many minority, um, artists that don't get regular college coverage that we're providing a specific need for that. So it's because we're so small and limited. Those needs are very

pronounced. If I could just ask you the same question, if you would go ahead. Yeah, I mean, something, um, both Susan and Lisa said made me reflect on, you know, one way we've, we've kind of found a creative solution, um, in hiring and especially when it is so hard, like when you're, I mean, in El Timpano's first four years or so, we were run mostly from one project branch to another. And at some point I had to, uh, start rejecting actually like they were a lot of them were coming to us asking

us to apply. And I said, you know, we need core support because this is unsustainable. We can't do one more project that won't allow us to hire a full time person when it's just me managing another contractor while writing the grants while doing editorial and everything and managing different projects. And so that's why it's so important to just kind of know what your vision is so that you can then determine whether a project grant does fit within that. And when it, it just doesn't make sense an

d will take you away from, um, the, the resources that you need. Um, there is one project grant that we did receive that it was a, a very sizable grant, didn't yet allow for hiring a full time person, but what we did was, You know, it was for civic science, and I knew we wanted to incorporate civic science into our work. I knew we also wanted to incorporate more artistic collaborations into our work, and had a little bit of funding that we could devote to that. So we created a position, called S

pecial Projects Manager that would both lead the civic science work and lead artistic collaborations kind of under the umbrella of special projects. Um, and found a great person to, you know, to hire full time and has really thrived in, in that position. But it does take a lot of that sort of just like creativity in terms of how, how to make, how to make it work. I mean, you're pointing to an issue that I think is prevalent in our industry, which is these restricted grants and sort of how to dea

l with that. And I think that's a good, creative solution to that. Yeah, sorry, it's in every nonprofit since I work across all the different and people always want to get to directly to the mission. Right? So it's restricted for this program. If it's. New choreographers, or this, or whatever it is, but, um. General operating grants are much harder because they're not as sexy. Um, but to even in the restricted grants to figure out that there should be some amount for general operating. And I don

't know, 20 percent or so. And some startups, you know, haven't articulated that we're going to need this much to go for keeping the lights on and that sort of thing as well. So I just wanted to add that, which you probably already know, but, um. Um, if you restricted grants or just nonprofit challenge in general, it's not just journalism. Absolutely. Absolutely. And this gives us a good sort of transition here. Um, oh, I want to your comment. Um, 1 thing very quickly I think that 1 of, Lisa may

be said it, something that I knew I knew I couldn't do this, right? Right. Is that to know thyself, to know what you can do, what skills you have and what you don't have. And that's okay because as a founder, you feel so responsible to do everything, but you're not going to be able to do everything. Even if you have every skill, just you're going to stress out and have a nervous breakdown, but knowing yourself. And what are what are the complimentary people and skills that you need is really imp

ortant. It seems so simple, but it's really important as a founder. Great point. Uh, we spoke a little bit about some strategies to sort of expand our teams here. I want to know, Lisa, are there any tools and strategies that you think you'd like to point to or highlight that would be worthwhile for people to consider? Um, so I didn't, I don't know if I touched on it, but the Beat, like I said, used to be a for profit paper and we were dropped by a publisher and we spent some time figuring out no

nprofit, the nonprofit world. And the first place we found was Lion. And, and so I think that reaching out to other folks. has been such a lifesaver for me. Like, you know, like, like I said, and like Susan underlined, you cannot do everything. But the thing that I found is that there are always people that are willing to help. And, and give you information. And I think organizations like what, what Tracie's doing with Pivot, um, INN, all of those organizations are just amazing resources that ev

en if you're not like with INN, maybe you're not, you aren't even officially a member yet. We just became members. There's still just like great people that I've just chatted at, chatted with at conferences and just seeking out other people that can help and give you information has been a lifesaver for me. Madeline. Was there anything that you had to add with respect to tools or strategies that you might suggest to folks? Yeah, um, I was thinking about this tools question. There are a few I wou

ld, I would name one just in terms of setting the salaries for our hires. I've used the MIT living wage calculator. That's just a good way of knowing what is a living wage where you are. Um, Another one, we use Airtable across our organization for various things, including our hiring process, just to kind of keep track of candidates as they're coming in and the whole pipeline. I've mentioned a digital whiteboard. I, I like Miro, so I have a few whiteboards on Miro. And then one thing Susan was t

alking about, just like finding ways to outsource some of your operations for El Timpano, um, that's been our fiscal sponsor, so we are blessed to have an excellent local fiscal sponsor called Independent Arts and Media. And I kind of think of it as a outsourcing a big chunk of El Timpano's operations and administration. Um, and so we could really focus on the programmatic and editorial and engagement work that we do. And so, you know, that said, I've heard of many bad experiences with fiscal sp

onsors, so if that's something that you're looking into, I definitely encourage looking into it. Not every non profit needs to be an independent 501c3, but ask around, get references, talk to people. That's really how I learned about our fiscal sponsor, and because we've had such a great relationship with them. We've been able to grow without having to build our own governing board and kind of start all of those operational payroll processes and everything from scratch. Thank you. Thank you for

that. Um, I know we're getting close to time. We do have a couple of questions in the queue, but I wanted to make sure I got to Susan. Actually, you're, you're raising your hand. I'm coming right back to you right now. I wanted to make sure I got to Susan because I had a couple more questions for you, but did you want to add something on that last time? No, I was just going to, uh, sort of, uh, air table is great. I mean, some of these things just make it so much easier and people apply. Okay. I

will say that, you know, recruiting takes a lot of time, right? It just takes a lot of time. And, um, generally the LinkedIn, people post on LinkedIn, you're, you'll be inundated usually with lots of people who may not be qualified. So I think being selective in where you post the position and of course in, you know, peer groups or things, but, um, sometimes these platforms, they look really great, but it can take a lot of time to sift through Um, and that you will not review it unless they hav

e some, or a letter of some sort. That is a forcing function for people who are not just serious or whatever, you know, just apply. Making it too easy to apply is not necessarily a good thing, because you have to sift through all of that. So I just wanted to add that. But I like Airtable for organizations a lot, a really streamlined thing, you know, so. Also a big fan of Air Table. Um, so let me just ask you real quick about the pivot funds grant that went into rural parts of Georgia, and this i

s specific about rural communities and how they reach so much. Uh, competitive and attract competitive talent. Um, you know, so much of what we're discussing is about, you know, the tools and strategies for findings. I mean, at the end of the day, sometimes it's really hard to just bring people into your community. Can you speak to that? What, what is the strategies for something like that? Well, I also think it gets into, you know, Who do you need to be in your community, maybe, and who, where

can you get talent out of your community, is the first question, right? So, um, if you're a community news, civic news organization, you probably need reporters who don't live in Idaho, if you're covering a town in Georgia. But there's other parts of your organizations where you can attract talent from anywhere. Um, it, it, they don't need to be on the ground. So, an accountant. Um, a chief of staff, um, that may be ahead of you a little bit, but, um, someone doing data analytics, um, you know,

you don't need everyone to be local. So the talent, how you think about talent, if you're in a place where there's less talent, where do you, like on the reporter side, that's a different question. You're probably going to need someone locally, um, and so where do you find that talent? Well, I don't know, you know, writers. Um, ad agencies, uh, people who, local universities, people of journalism backgrounds, um, I, but I think on the business and operations side, marketing, revenue, fundraising

may be more local, depends, you don't think that it all has to be local. I guess it's my main point. Look at each position and say, where can I open the net and where do I need to keep it local? Absolutely. Absolutely. I want to turn to these questions in the Q and A. And if there's anybody that wants to drop another one in, by all means, please use the Q and A function. First one came from Renata. I hope I pronounced your name correctly. My apologies if I did not. What is your top suggestion f

or transforming a solopreneur news biz into a nonprofit? Maybe Susan, you can answer that one. Into a nonprofit? Yeah, solopreneur news biz into a non profit. Well, I think we have someone, you know, a couple of people on the team here. But yeah, Lisa certainly has been through this. They can start with a fiscal sponsor. I mean, states can make it, you know, a long haul to get your 501c3 status. It's not a simple thing. It costs money. It costs effort. So starting with the fiscal sponsor. Um, an

d then, you know, a nonprofit means you have to raise money. So, you have to have maybe someone who's can you can you break down what a fiscal sponsor is for us real quick. Just in case the members in the audience don't understand, it's usually an organization that acts as your 501 C3 in a way. So it has the status and then checks are paid to them donations to them. Because you can't accept it yourself. So, being a non profit means you are not taxed on the money that's coming in the door. Right?

So, the government doesn't want anyone to set up something that's really like a for profit, and it's not really a not for profit. So, like, That also gets into your earned income versus your charitable giving, right? So, if you're a start up and you have people paying ads and membership, or paying for the newspaper, you're not going to be a non profit, right? You need to get philanthropic dollars in the door, but a starting point, instead of going through all the rigmarole to get the government

approval, is starting with an organization that serves as your anchor Non profit and they provide other things. I think madeline talked to that already They can provide some financial oversight and all that sort of thing, too. You have to give them money for that, too You can typically find them. They're usually some of the largest nonprofits in your community. I just think of the Boston Foundation and, and, uh, organizations like that who serve as this sort of top four or larger ish nonprofit

that gives to other nonprofits in the community. Um, Catherine has a couple of Giving it to other nonprofits versus that they're not necessarily fiscal sponsors. They're Not necessarily nonprofits, at least not at a 501 c three. Yes. Catherine had a couple of questions. I think she just deleted one, but she wanted to ask for advisory boards, startups, should they form community advisory boards? I think yes, I community engagement. If you're a community, if you're a local news organization, the m

ore that you can get community members engaged, um, the better. Because they're going to have insights as well as to bring resources to the table. You know, so, um, advisory board people who are behind this, again, and to be strategic maybe about your outreach. There may be some people who want to come but like, Well, we really need a lawyer. Can we get, you know, a young lawyer who wants to do pro bono work for us? I think advisory boards, um, are terrific. And then if you're a 501c3, you, you

have to have a board and you report into them, by the way, they're the fiduciary, you're, you're, as the head of it, you report to the board of directors who have the fiduciary responsibilities. I'll just add to that really briefly because El Timpano is fiscally sponsored. It means that we don't have a governing board and so, um, but a lot of grant applications ask about your board and so, but they allow us to instead describe our advisory board. So it does show kind of who is the wider communit

y that's a part of this organization. Um, so it helps both in that respect and in all the other ways that Susan mentioned. I've really just. Um, being kind of other expert advisors, um, to to have kind of on your wider team, and I think it's good to get. I mean, the resources, but it's part of the growing process. A lot of organizations, they don't rely on a fiscal if they grow and they're successful, they become independent 501 c threes. So dealing with an advisory board, you're getting the pra

ctice of doing that for when you transition to being an independent 501 c three that must have a board. Absolutely. Great, great suggestion there. Um, Catherine's other question here. What are some examples of unrestricted grant programs we should consider? Madeline, maybe this is something that you've experienced looking into. I don't know. I'm sorry to say it took us, um, earning a lot of project grants before we were able to really raise a core support funding. Um, you know, uh, I, I think th

at is kind of standard practice from what I've seen of like small nonprofits. A lot of the foundations really kind of want to see your work and maybe support you through smaller grants, um, until you're bigger that they will make an investment in core support. Um, that has been, uh, our experience at least. Um, but in terms of, you know, especially our initial core support funding and the funders that were some of the early, um, supporters of our work back when, when we were still just the one p

erson team, um, a lot of it actually, you know, None of it was from journalism funders. Um, a lot of it was actually from health related funders because they really saw and valued the importance of media, um, that serves, uh, communities most impacted by health disparities. So I really encourage folks to look, you know, well beyond journalism funders to see who else would support the sort of work that you're doing. And if I could quickly add. Um, if it is very restricted, it's okay to not pursue

that, like there's because I'm so small, like there are certain there are certain Lots of money that it's not worth me to go after because it comes with so much extra labor. I also would like to complain. I wish I could remember, but someone just did a survey that showed that people tend to offer less unrestricted money to black and brown. Organizations. But yeah, don't feel like every grant that lands on your desk is something that you have to pursue because you have to look at overall, where'

s your energy going? And sometimes, unfortunately, it's not worth it. Thank you for that, Lisa. We are at time and I do want to thank our guests, our attendees who have put in questions and have stuck with us here. Thank you all for joining us and I want to thank Tracie and the Pivot Fund for putting together this Amazing group of people. Thank you. And I want to thank the Knight Foundation again for supporting important conversations like this. So thank you all. Take care, everyone. Thank you.

Thanks so much.