Local Independent Online News Publishers

Member education programs (formerly News business programming):lion-gni sustainability audits & funding-the sustainability audit program selected 100 lion members to shareoperational, financial and journalistic data about business, which we assessed with industry experts to deliver custom reports detailing opportunities and recommendations to help the News businesses on their paths to sustainability.gni startups labs-the 2022 gni startups labs provided 48 lion members with coaching, trainingand funding to support their growth in one of three areas: managing money and risk, building and managing a team and planning for revenue growth.lion-meta revenue growth fellowship-the revenue growth fellowship subsidized the cost of hiring a revenue-focused staff member in 12 newsrooms. This two- year program will wrap up in 2023, and we'll be using what we learned to generate insights for other members.

Membership experience programs (formerly membership):lion's membership grew another 13 percent in 2022 and we ended the year with 454 members in the u.s. and canada. In december 2022, we created a new "micro" membership tier that offers a more affordable membership option for current News Publishers and aspiring News entrepreneurs earning less than $50,000/year. The 2022 lion Local journalism awards was our first in-person awards since pandemic. Lion awarded $68,000 in cash prizes across 20 winners.

Field building (formerly industry strengthening): lion partnered with News revenue hub and revlab at the Texas tribune to gather 500 Publishers and other industry leaders in austin, Texas, for the inaugural Independent News sustainability summit. Lion acted as the fiscal sponsor for the event, and provided $55,000 in travel scholarships to more than 100 people to help them attend. We produced a second season of the News guest podcast and grew our weekly newsletter to nearly 4,800 members.