Education, Coaching, and Services
Using the Audit to better understand our members’ needs and eligibility for programming, we focused on providing offerings that will help members move toward sustainability.
Following a successful 2024 pilot, we kicked off the year with our first full Sustainability 360 cohort of 40 participants. This provides LIONs in the Building or Maintaining stages with free, hands-on back-office support and strategic coaching for one year. We also opened applications for a second cohort of 20 participants that begins in January 2026, thanks to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Another MacArthur Foundation-backed initiative was the Growth Grants, which will distribute $100,000 to 15 LION members over two years to help turn their Audit recommendations into transformational action. We received over 220 applications, which underwent multiple rounds of review by staff and an external review committee.
With support from the Google News Initiative, we piloted our Back Office program for 20 members in the Preparation or Building stages. This program focuses on make-or-break HR and finance tasks that lay the groundwork for future growth.
And we hosted our first-ever Virtual Vendor Fair, open to the first 100 LION and/or Tiny News Collective members. Ninety publishers signed up to hear from nine vendors specializing in audience engagement and analytics, content management systems, revenue and fundraising tools, and more.
Eighteen percent of live participants completed our attendee survey, and 89 percent of respondents would both: 1) recommend this event to other publishers and 2) attend another fair.
In January 2026, we’ll launch a new coaching program in New England, funded by the Barr Foundation. We will also convene two cohorts of nonprofit newsrooms to receive HR and finance consulting through our Press Forward Infrastructure Support program.
Independent News Sustainability Summit and LION Awards
A highlight of our year was welcoming hundreds of independent publishers and supporters to St. Louis for the 2025 Independent News Sustainability Summit. Here’s a snapshot (see our sponsor impact report for full details):
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421 tickets sold
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84 speakers
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19 sponsors
This year, we emphasized inclusive program design, launched a new interactive attendee app, and introduced a vendors’ fair for the first time.
Like previous years, the Summit featured our annual LION Sustainability Awards Ceremony & Dinner. We received 239 total award entries, plus seven nominations for Community Member of the Year (a membership-wide vote produced four outstanding finalists for this category). We sold 212 tickets to the ceremony, where we honored our 51 finalists and 21 winners. Thanks to our sponsors, we awarded a total of $60,000 in cash prizes and provided $650 travel stipends to 100 attendees.
Sound like fun? Join us September 9-11, 2026, in San Diego for the next Summit. Tickets will go on sale early 2026.
Our Work in Canada
In 2023, LION engaged with newsrooms in Canada to map the local news ecosystem and better understand the needs of independent Canadian publishers.
- This year, we invited 13 experienced publishers and news leaders to join our training program for Canadian coaches. These coaches met with newsrooms that requested coaching hours throughout the year. The program, designed and led by Katie Mercer at Blue Engine Collaborative, was later expanded, and 14 additional newsroom leaders attended training sessions designed to help them implement new strategies to support their team.
- Understanding analytics is also often a top request from publishers, and we piloted a new Web Optimization Training program for Canadian publishers with the Google News Initiative. Ten newsrooms, both LION members and other independent publishers, took advantage of GNI's group training sessions and 1:1 support.
- LION opened our programs in Canada to non-members in 2025, inviting independent digital publishers to join one of three peer learning groups led by member publishers and to take advantage of the opportunity to complete a Sustainability Audit and receive free coaching.
- Although publishers in Canada and the U.S. share many of the same challenges, Canada's unique regulatory and funding frameworks must be addressed in any coaching or training programs. LION hopes to continue working with Canadian-based organizations to share resources that can support independent publishers, such as the Sustainability Audits and peer learning models that we have developed in recent years.
Our Impact
"As someone in the current [Sustainability 360] cohort, I cannot recommend this program strongly enough! It's been such a game-changer for Sioux Falls Simplified, and even just a few months in, it's helped me shift my perspective on revenue goals and think BIG for the future!”
— Megan Raposa, Sioux Falls Simplified
“Thank you to LION for creating a space that uplifts diverse voices and inspires newsroom leaders to keep building a more equitable and sustainable future for local news.”
— José Luis Castillo, La Esquina TX (talking about the 2025 Summit)
“The LION coaches helped walk us through best practices, and then went the extra step and created the documents needed to implement them, from employee handbooks to succession plans to salary tables.”
— Joe Rivano Barros, Mission Local (on the Sustainability 360 pilot)
“This was, hands down, the most useful and impactful news business program I've joined. It's nice to have an honest conversation with someone who isn't judging past failures. The business plan I left with was much more realistic and doable than the one I thought I had when we started. Now I know we'll make it as a business and where we can grow.”
— Pat Davis, New Mexico News (on the Sustainability 360 pilot)
