Sustainability Audit
The Sustainability Audit collects a member publication’s operational, financial, and journalistic impact data and pairs it with an interview led by an Audit analyst. This industry expert then compiles a personalized report with recommendations for how the publisher can move closer to sustainability.
Since 2021, we’ve completed more than 500 Audits and Progress Reports, 36 percent of which were completed in 2024 after receiving more than 350 applications. This year, thanks to generous support from the Google News Initiative and Knight Foundation, 175 participants were awarded $20K each to help them implement their report recommendations.
Interest in the Audit only continues to grow, so one of the goals in our strategic plan is to ensure that any LION member who wants an Audit can get one. That’s why we also spent this year working on the program’s next iteration, a self-service, scalable version that will launch in 2025.
In addition, we forged new partnerships with the Wichita Foundation (via a Press Forward Locals initiative) and Blue Engine Collaborative to uncover data-driven insights and set publicly available benchmarks for sustainability. This furthered another one of our goals: making our Audit an industry standard.
Our Impact
98%
Of Audit participants feel more confident in their organization’s ability to achieve sustainability.
The NC Local News Workshop published this article highlighting how NC-based news outlets have benefited from the Sustainability Audit program.
“I reviewed several applications for Press Forward's [first] open call, and it was immediately apparent which news organizations had received a LION Sustainability Audit or had participated in a similar program.”
— Scott Klein, Newspack and Knight Election Hub
LION members accounted for 41 percent of all organizations that received funding from Press Forward’s first open call.
“This entire [Sustainability Audit] program has been transformative for us. When we first started in 2022, our budget was around $40,000; we had one staff member (me), no formal budget spreadsheets, no documentation, and few processes in place. Now, our projected budget is between $400,000 and $500,000 by the end of this year. We have developed comprehensive spreadsheet budgets with different scenarios, and we've expanded our team to six part-time staff members. The coaching, structured support, and guidance from this program have been crucial in helping us build a solid foundation.”
— Ryan Sorrell, Kansas City Defender
