Larger contributions generally come in two flavors, with strings attached and without. The term of art for the former is “program” support and for the latter, “general operating” support. A program grant may specify the subject area of reporting, the type of reporting or a geographic focus, or it may be tied to some special project or specific unde

Old rule: Advertisers cannot dictate editorial content, and shouldn’t know about it in advance with any specificity. The practice in legacy media was also fairly clear here: Advertisers could choose the section of a publication or broadcast against which their advertising would appear. Topic pages or sections or broadcast segments were often create

There are many fundamental differences between for-profit and nonprofit organizations, but one of the most critical is that nonprofits cannot be sold. They can merge, or absorb other organizations, or even be given away, but you can’t buy them — there is no one to pay, and while nonprofits have balance sheets, they do not have what bankers might ca

I have come to believe strongly, as I said earlier, that all successful news organizations start with visionary editors. There are no exceptions. But funders will frequently have agendas on what deserves more coverage. It is a significant error to let them supplant your editors’ vision, and never ends well.

The principal job of a board, most of the time, is to ratify and help shape a company’s strategy. The strategy, of course, should flow from the mission (not the other way around) and indicate how the newsroom intends to fulfill that mission, particularly in the next few years.

Successful news offerings must be distinctive. It is no longer possible to prosper with a product or service that feels commoditized.

If your organization is its own 501(c)(3) — and it should be, as soon as feasible — your board is a “governing board,” and that’s a big hint of its most important role, to oversee the company and its finances: hiring and evaluating (and, if necessary, firing) the CEO or CEOs; preserving the company’s mission; approving (and, if necessary, refining)

Transparency is key in these relationships. Thus, it’s important, to begin with, to know who a publication’s advertisers are, and have some rough idea of what they are spending.

The next area in which transparency is critical is determining whether particular content a publisher distributes is advertising or sponsorship, on the one hand, or news, opinion or analysis on the other.