Strengthening the local news industry
BY EMPOWERING INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS
2025 Impact Report
2025 Impact Report
We're LION Publishers, a nonprofit professional association committed to strengthening the local news industry by helping independent publishers build more sustainable businesses.
We’re leading the charge to make business sustainability a top priority for every independent publisher because we’ve found that when these organizations sharpen their focus on the business side, they have a much better chance of long-term success. And their long-term success helps ensure communities maintain access to essential local news and information for years to come.
We’ve defined what sustainability looks like for independent publishers, mapped a Maturity Model to guide their growth, and provide programs, resources, and industry-level insights grounded in these core concepts.
This report summarizes our work and impact in 2025, and outlines our big plans for 2026.
From Our Executive Director
Chris Krewson
The word we use in LION Publishers staff meetings to describe 2025 is “scale.”
We scaled up our Sustainability 360 program, piloted in 2024 with six publishers, to serve 40 in 2025 – matching qualifying members with dedicated support from both a coach and back-office accounting and HR experts.
We also scaled our signature product, the Sustainability Audit. We entered 2025 having completed over 450 Audits for more than 354 organizations over three years. We also set a goal for ourselves in 2023, to provide an Audit for any member organization that wanted one – and then set about building the technology needed to do so.
We rolled out the self-serve Audit this past June. And since then, through our Sustainability 360 program and our Growth Grants, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, as well as a partnership with Press Forward, we completed more than 400 Audits in five short months, for a total of more than 800 Audits completed.
We also scaled up our work – and had a tangible impact – on legislative policy in 2025. While I’m proud of our efforts in 2022 through 2024 at the federal level and in California, this work fell to me, on top of my other duties. We needed someone with experience and focus to drive these conversations with our members, so we hired associate director of policy and advocacy Chuck Corra. I’m thrilled at how quickly Chuck has started providing clear, actionable advice to members – particularly in Oregon. Look for much more of this kind of work in 2026 and beyond, as LION moves beyond playing catch-up on legacy industry-penned legislation and proposes solutions for our members, like civic information consortium bills gestating or working through legislatures in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, among other places.
We dedicated ourselves to scaling our help in 2025 because we hear, all the time, from our members about how big and broad their needs are – around funding, yes, but also around capacity. We’re hard at work building our programs for 2026, as well, which will also lead to a new LION strategic plan.
Our goal is to continue meeting members where they are with the right help at the right time, to keep their businesses moving forward. Here’s to a safe and productive 2026.
2025 Overview
457
Total LION members in the U.S. and Canada
That number includes 481 total publications or distinct URLs.*
* (Some members produce multiple sites, like our friends at Cityside, with Oaklandside, Richlandside, and Berkeleyside)
Three hundred thirty-six of these publications serve and/or represent systematically excluded populations, including BIPOC, LGBTQ+, rural (population less than 50K), and immigrant communities, among others.
48
U.S. states represented in LION membership, plus D.C., Puerto Rico, and six Canadian provinces
2600+
People employed by LION members. And 119 are solopreneurs.
136
New membership applications received, with 60 accepted
We’re currently developing a new onboarding process and creating resources and modules for each stage of sustainability.
~2,500
Estimated hours of coaching and consulting provided to program participants
Between our Sustainability 360 program, Back Office pilot, and Sustainability Audit program, we offered fractional support services in finance and HR to 66 members.
785
Unique organizations participated in LION programming
That’s a 30 percent boost from 2024.
This year, we saw an increase in nonmembers engaging with LION; for example, 42 percent of Summit attendees were nonmembers, as were a majority of participants in our Canadian peer groups.
Program Progress
In October 2023, we released a five-year strategic growth plan; now, more than two years in, we’ve achieved most of its goals* and adjusted others based on member and industry needs.
So what happens when you reach your goals much faster than expected? You go back to the drawing board, and that’s exactly what we’ve done. We’ve started working on a new strategic plan that incorporates feedback from our LION staff, board, and members, which we plan to unveil in 2026.
* Throughout this report, you’ll notice a checkmark indicating that a goal has been reached.
A key goal in our 2023 strategic plan was to make sure any LION member who wanted a Sustainability Audit, which provides a thorough assessment of a news business and its growth opportunities, could get one. In June, we launched the self-serve Audit, turning a cohort-based, bespoke program into a scalable, streamlined product. It’s now available to any LION member, anytime.
402
Audits were completed in the first six months after launch, compared to 450 Audits completed over the program’s three-year history.
Case Studies
LOOKOUT News
Since joining LION in 2023, Arizona-based LGBTQ+ newsroom LOOKOUT News has participated in several programs, including our Sustainability 360 pilot. In S360, Executive Director Jake Hylton worked with HR consultant Deb Brown to lay the groundwork for expansion as the organization transitions from a statewide model to a national network of regional bureaus. With Deb’s support, the team developed all the employee onboarding materials they need, ensuring compliance across the five states they’re expanding into. This exercise hasn’t just benefited LOOKOUT; the team has shared the templates they’ve created with nearly a dozen other news organizations. Most importantly, this work has helped LOOKOUT gain a clear understanding of who they are, what they do (both externally and internally), and where they’re headed. Bonus: LOOKOUT’s emphasis on community and collaboration led to the organization being nominated for two 2025 LION Awards and winning our Community Engagement Award in the medium revenue tier.
La Noticia
La Noticia, a family-owned news business serving the Latino community in Charlotte, NC, joined LION in 2022 to find a structured way to transition from a print-centric revenue model to a more diversified digital strategy. The team completed an initial Sustainability Audit, followed by a 2023 progress report that pinpointed where they had improved and where they still needed to grow. The assessments guided them to develop key operational documents, including a staff compensation policy and a budgeting process that tracks more granular metrics, such as cash on hand and average sale amounts. According to CEO Hilda Gurdian, “This financial discipline is helping us manage our business,” and the organization moved from an operating loss in 2022 to a 6.3 percent net profit margin in 2025. Additionally, a firmer understanding of their finances has better prepared them to present pitches to potential investors, armed with regularly updated Profit and Loss and Cash Flow statements. Hilda presented at the 2025 Press Forward Summit, highlighting stats from their most recent 2025 Audit, and said, “Having insights from a reputable organization like LION added significant credibility to my presentation.”
What’s Next
Here’s a look at our key initiatives coming up in 2026:
We’re creating a new strategic plan.
This plan will help us prioritize our work and set us up for success. Stay tuned for details.
We’ll strengthen the relevance and utility of the self-serve Sustainability Audit.
Plus, we intend to pursue additional partnerships and explore ideas for new Audit-style products to meet member needs.
We’re launching and expanding more programs.
This lineup includes an Infrastructure Support program funded by our Press Forward Infrastructure grant, which will support 40 nonprofit newsrooms in 2026. A second cohort of 40 for-profit newsrooms will follow in 2027. We’ll also introduce a second full cohort of Sustainability 360 with 20 member newsrooms. And we’ll support the 206 Press Forward Closing Coverage Gaps grantees with monthly coaching through Blue Engine Collaborative, and 40 more news businesses across six states in New England with Audits and coaching.
We’re hosting the 2026 Independent News Sustainability Summit.
Join us in San Diego, CA, where we'll also celebrate our eighth annual LION Awards.
We’ll continue to build community.
We foster connections with news entrepreneurs, both online and offline. We plan to offer regular webinars and group trainings, grow the NEC Slack, and kick off peer learning groups at the 2026 Summit.
We’re expanding our policy efforts.
We'll leverage existing relationships we built in 2025 to influence legislation and educate lawmakers about the needs of independent publishers. We also plan to coordinate lawmaker meetings and ‘fly-ins,’ provide counsel on legislative drafting, and build more strategic relationships.
Financials
Revenue
Unaudited actuals
Audited actuals
Audited actuals
Category
2025
2024
2023
Contributed Revenue
$3,416,037
$5,152,081
$1,653,994
Earned Revenue
$1,353,382
$6,768,509
$5,349,110
Net Assets Released from Restriction
$689,550
$(3,702,093)
$75,413
Total Support and Operating Revenues
$5,458,969
$8,218,497
$7,078,517
Expenses
Category
2025
2024
2023
Program
$4,244,537
$6,034,954
$5,667,528
General and Administrative
$944,970
$771,463
$661,459
Fundraising
$373,274
$359,584
$225,479
Total Expenses
$5,562,782
$7,166,001
$6,554,466
Net Assets
Category
2025
2024
2023
Change in Net Assets
$332,527
$4,754,589
$448,638
Beginning Net Assets
$7,798,196
$3,043,607
$2,594,969
Ending Net Assets
$8,130,723
$7,798,196
$3,043,607
Revenue Analysis
- In 2025, we diversified our funding sources and secured support for future years. We received an additional $1 million from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, with half going to the Tiny News Collective. (We recognized $4 million from the MacArthur Foundation in 2024, which explains the slight dip in overall foundation funding from 2024 to 2025 as we began to release those dollars from restriction.) Another $1 million came from a Press Forward Infrastructure grant; that funding will provide finance and HR support to up to 80 independent newsrooms over three years. We also established a relationship with the Boston-based Barr Foundation; that $265,000 gift gave us the runway to launch our first regional, Audit-based program in 2026.
- Most of our earned revenue came from contracts, specifically related to our work in Canada with the Google News Initiative. Dues revenue remains a small share of our earned revenue, at approximately two percent. Event registration and program entry fees also totaled just two percent.
Contributed Revenue (2025)
Category
Amount
Percentage
Foundation
$3,304,729
71.10%
Individual
$4,211
0.10%
In-Kind
$107,097
2.30%
Earned Revenue (2025)
Category
Amount
Percentage
Contracts
$678,309
14.55%
Events
$90,797
1.95%
Membership Dues
$101,797
2.18%
Sponsorships
$286,900
6.15%
Interest & Investments
$195,579
4.19%
Expenses analysis
- To better support our members and expand our work, LION’s team grew from 12 to 17 employees in 2025, increasing our programmatic, general, and administrative expenses. We provided about 2,500 hours of free coaching and consulting to our program participants, so contractor fees represent a significant share of our costs. We also awarded approximately $760,000 in direct funds to LION members.
2026 forecast
- We planned to invest $1 million from our reserves into our membership programs in 2025, but the total was significantly less because we received additional funding from the MacArthur Foundation. We plan to spend more funds from our reserves in 2026 to complete our Back Office Support pilot, deepen our policy and advocacy work, and support our organizational infrastructure.
- Our fundraising efforts will focus on place-based philanthropy partnerships, as well as on expanding unrestricted corporate, institutional, and individual giving across our strategic priorities.
Our Team
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, LION is governed by a volunteer board of directors that consults with executive staff on the organization’s strategic direction.
In 2025, the LION Board welcomed four new members — Richard Young, Ariel Zirulnick, Vania André, and Eden Fineday — and elected Cierra Hinton as chair, with Neil Chase serving as vice chair. After completing her three-year term and becoming the board’s immediate past chair, Gunita Singh took on the role of treasurer. Learn more about LION’s board.
Board Members
Cierra Hinton
Chair
Neil Chase
Vice Chair
Gunita Singh
Treasurer
Dan Hu
Secretary
Rebekah Monson
Governance Committee Chair
Vania André
Membership Committee Chair
Jamaal Glenn
Board Member
Eden Fineday
Board Member
Anita Li
Board Member
Mazin Sidahmed
Board Member
Richard Young
Board Member
Ariel Zirulnick
Board Member
Staff
Ipshita Abraham
Associate Director of Product
Chuck Corra
Associate Director of Policy & Advocacy
Jess deRivera
Membership Services Manager
Natalya Dreszer
Data and Evaluation Program Associate
Lisa Hunter
Director of Finance and Operations
Shelly Hunter
Director of Development
Chloe Kizer
Director of Data and Evaluation
Reshma Kothari
Finance & Operations Manager
Chris Krewson
Executive Director
Sarah Gustavus Lim
Director of Programs
Hayley Milloy
Marketing Manager
Andrew Rockway
Associate Director of Data and Evaluation
Dylan Sanchez
Data and Evaluation Manager
Padma Umakanthan
Finance Manager
Natalie Van Hoozer
Community Manager
Alma Washington
Manager of Coaching Programs
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the funders whose generous support makes our work possible
More than $5 million
$4.99 million to $1 million
$999,000 to $100,000
$99,000 to $10,000
Under $9,999
We also want to thank all the incredible people who partnered with us this year, including our members, program participants, coaches, Audit analysts, LION Awards judges, contractors, and Community Ambassadors.
Get Involved
Email hello@lionpublishers.com to get in touch, and follow us on LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, and Facebook.
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