LION is hiring coaches for our Sustainability 360 program

Strategic coach: Sustainability 360 program

Status: Independent Contractor

Point of Contact: Associate Director of Coaching

Location: Remote within U.S.

Engagement Type: Short-term contract, with variable working hours, from June 2025 until July 2026.

Compensation: Coaches will be paid a flat fee of $28,800 for the project, which consists of roughly 144 hours of coaching and administrative work. 50% billable upon contract execution, 50% billable upon successful completion of all contract deliverables.

Project Summary

At LION Publishers, we believe building sustainable news organizations starts with the people leading them. That’s why our Sustainability 360 program is designed to meet newsroom leaders where they are and help them build the infrastructure they need to grow their organizations.

Through strategic coaching, HR and finance consulting, and peer learning, we help leaders clarify priorities, strengthen systems, and connect daily work to long-term goals.

After a successful eight-month pilot, we’re expanding the Sustainability 360 into a year-long program serving up to 40 independent news organizations across the country. As a coach, you’ll provide personalized, high-touch support rooted in trust, collaboration, and respect for each leader’s experience.

The program includes:

• Strategic coaching: The strategic coach is the linchpin of this program and they provide 1:1 support to set clear priorities, align work with goals, and tackle common challenges like role overload and stagnant revenue or audience growth.
• HR consulting: Help organizations build essential people policies and systems — from job descriptions to hiring and performance management — often for the first time.
• Finance consulting: Build leaders’ financial skills through budgeting, forecasting, and tech tools — pushing back against the idea that small organizations can’t master their finances.
• Community of practice: Facilitate regular peer-learning sessions to share knowledge, build solidarity, and reduce the isolation many leaders feel.

If you’re passionate about helping mission-driven organizations grow and believe operational resilience is essential for any newsroom to thrive, we’d love to work with you.

Coaching Project 

The coaching contractor will coach four newsrooms and have the following primary responsibilities:

• Provide 1:1 coaching that helps leaders define clear priorities, align their daily work with long-term goals, and navigate common pain points such as role overload, revenue stagnation, and audience development challenges.
• Collaborate with assigned HR and Finance consultants to develop a customized action plan for each newsroom. The action plan will align strategic, operational, and financial priorities to support long-term sustainability.
• Document coaching sessions to inform programming and help LION develop a deeper understanding of what news businesses need at different stages. These insights will be shared at regular coaching team meetings and through short coaching reports 
• Participate in regular monthly meetings with LION staff and other coaches

Coaching deliverables

• An action plan for each newsroom
• Monthly coaching reports for each publication
• Feedback on the program and your coaching experience shared through an offboarding survey

Skills and qualifications for this role

• Have experience in strategic planning, including setting goals, identifying barriers, and developing actionable plans to achieve desired outcomes
• Can analyze quantitative and qualitative data and insights gathered during coaching sessions to inform program improvements and adjustments
• Have ability to coach multiple newsrooms effectively, providing personalized support and guidance to each publication assigned
• Knowledgeable about best practices to identify, attract and retain talent specifically for revenue roles within the news industry, including understanding the skills and experience needed for success in these roles
• Have an understanding of how to evaluate and analyze current revenue streams within independent news organizations, which includes identifying opportunities for expansion and optimization
• Familiar with various revenue models, such as reader revenue, ads and sponsorships, major donors, etc. This includes knowledge of best practices, pricing strategies, and value proposition development

Other skills and expectations

• Have experience working with news entrepreneurs operating lean teams
• Have a breadth of expertise with journalism entrepreneurial challenges and opportunities
• Have experience working with organizations facing historical institutional barriers to building a sustainable news business
• Are comfortable coaching around both big picture strategy and specific tactical approaches, but you don’t need to be an expert in everything
• Share our vision that holistic sustainability lies at the nexus of journalistic impact, operational resilience and financial health 
• Can curate the LION community, industry knowledge and their networks to help publications prioritize their most urgent opportunities 
• Can balance the delivery of empathetic encouragement and reality checks to resource-constrained publishers

Hiring process

• Candidates selected to advance to the next round will be invited to complete a written exercise in which they will be asked to apply their experience to a real-life situation (This should take no more than 45 minutes to complete)
• Finalists will be invited to a 30-minute Zoom interview with members of LION team
• We’ll also ask you to provide two references from current or former clients

About LION Publishers

Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit professional journalism association for independent news publishers. While most of our 500+ members across the U.S. and Canada run local news businesses, we also have members who serve larger regions and specific identity-based communities across geographies. LION provides teaching, resources and community to independent news entrepreneurs as they build and develop sustainable businesses.

LION is an Equal Opportunity Employer

LION believes that a team with diversity of backgrounds and experiences will generate the most innovative ideas and ultimately do the best work in support of our mission. This is why we welcome contractors, vendors, staff and board members who contribute to a diverse, equitable and inclusive work environment. We understand diversity as multi-dimensional and intersectional, encompassing aspects of our identities including race and ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, ability, class, geography, lived experiences and more. We welcome and encourage all qualified candidates to apply to opportunities at LION so that we build a team that reflects the diversity of independent news entrepreneurs we wish to serve.

We know there are great candidates who might not check all the boxes listed below or who possess important skills we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself.

Application materials

Submit your materials using this form by 11 p.m. Eastern time on May 16, 2025. You will be asked to provide:

• Your resume
• Any online links that show your work (a portfolio page, a LinkedIn profile, etc.)
• Answers to the following questions:
  • Can you briefly describe your experience coaching or supporting leaders of small or independent news organizations and how would you apply those skills to this program? You can read our first announcement here and our learnings from the first cohort here.
  • Many news leaders know what they want to do, but feel stuck because of limited time, staffing, or budget. Tell us about a time you helped an organization or leader build capacity or make meaningful progress even when resources were constrained. What actions did you take, what strategies or mindsets did you encourage, and what was the outcome?
  • Our coaching model is people-centered: we value meeting leaders where they are, while also holding them accountable to their goals. How have you approached balancing empathetic support with accountability to help leaders make tangible progress?
  • Please share anything else you’d like us to know about your background, experience or skills that speaks to your ability to do this role.