Recognizes a LION member that has made significant progress toward achieving sustainability through strengthening its operational resilience, financial health, and journalistic impact. 

Judges are looking for initiatives that show consistency across our three pillars of sustainability: operational resilience, financial health, and journalistic impact, as opposed to one-off efforts. Specifically, they are looking for:

• Operational Resilience: Evidence of recent implementation of policies supporting staff, promoting well-being, manageable workloads, and/or streamlining operations for efficiency.
• Financial Health: Strong evidence of financial management practices or strategies that positively impacted revenue growth or overcame significant financial challenges during this period.
• Journalistic Impact: Tangible impacts in the community resulting from coverage of crucial issues.

Recognizes a LION member — founded after January 1, 2025 — that exhibits, even in its very early stages, a clearly defined commitment to working toward achieving sustainability through operational resilience, financial health, and journalistic impact.

Judges are looking for organizations that show:

• Operational Resilience: Evidence of initial steps to establish culture, systems, processes, and/or policies to support staff, manage growth, and streamline operations for efficiency.
• Financial Health: Evidence of early planning for revenue growth, adopting financial management best practices, and addressing financial sustainability.
• Journalistic Impact: Evidence of the quality, reach, and relevance of journalism produced since launch, leveraging available capacity and resources to serve their audience and community.

Recognizes a LION member that has made significant progress toward strengthening its operational resilience by establishing processes, policies, and a people-centered company culture designed to support staff, manage growth, and promote sustainability.

Judges are seeking initiatives that demonstrate new or improved processes and policies designed to support staff, manage growth, and promote sustainability. We understand that building a healthy and resilient work culture takes time, and judges won’t be expecting perfect processes and systems. Instead, they will be evaluating the intentionality and results of those efforts. Specifically, they are looking for organizations that show:

• Strong evidence of recent implementation of policies or practices designed to support employee well-being and mental health and foster a healthy work environment and sustainable workloads.
• Efficiency and effectiveness in the operational processes established that benefit staff and the organization as a whole.
• Increasing engagement and satisfaction among team members within the organization.
• Strong evidence of implementation of policies or processes to foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging within the organization.

Recognizes a LION member that has made significant progress toward strengthening its financial health by developing a plan for earning revenue, managing a budget, and/or monitoring revenue and expenses to extend its financial runway. This can also include the development of a successful and creative strategy to grow or diversify revenue.

Judges are looking for initiatives that have a successful and creative strategy to grow or diversify revenue while positively impacting the organization’s financial health. The dollar amount isn't the only metric for success; your own growth against your goals is most important. Specifically, they are looking for organizations that show:

• Strong evidence of strategies for proactively managing financial health, including effective budget management, revenue and expenses monitoring, and/or cash flow monitoring.
• Strong evidence of strategies to increase net revenue and/or decrease expenses, which positively impact their financial health and advance their mission.
• Clear and demonstrable evidence of ability to plan and implement policies and processes to manage financial risk, including but not limited to planning for worst- and best-case scenarios, building and deploying reserves strategically, and diversifying their revenue sources.

Recognizes a LION member that has consistently produced journalism with meaningful and demonstrable impact in its communities and has held those in power accountable.

We recognize that there may be some overlap between our Community Engagement and Public Service awards. Community Engagement entries should place more emphasis on the process — actively involving communities in shaping coverage. Public Service, on the other hand, should highlight the outcome — the investigative work that leads to tangible benefits and measurable impact for the communities served. Strong journalism often embodies both, but this distinction should help clarify how each category will be evaluated.

Judges are looking for initiatives that demonstrate consistent efforts to produce journalism with a meaningful and demonstrable impact in the community, rather than one-off efforts. Impact Architects defines impact as the change to the status quo on the individual, community, and structural levels. Therefore, judges are looking for organizations that show:

• Clear, trackable outcomes resulting from the reporting, such as policy changes, increased public awareness, shifts in community behavior, or accountability actions at the individual, community, or systemic levels.
• Strong evidence of high levels of community engagement in several stages of the reporting process.
• Evidence that the organization intentionally produced and distributed its journalism so that its intended audience could access the news and information they needed.

Recognizes a LION member that has achieved general excellence in journalistic impact by demonstrating an intentional and systematized approach to community engagement that consistently tells stories for, with, and by the people they are working to serve.

We recognize that there may be some overlap between our Community Engagement and Public Service awards. Community Engagement entries should place more emphasis on the process — actively involving communities in shaping coverage. Public Service, on the other hand, should highlight the outcome — the investigative work that leads to tangible benefits and measurable impact for the communities served. Strong journalism often embodies both, but this distinction should help clarify how each category will be evaluated.

Judges are looking for organizations that:

• Show strong evidence of understanding their community information needs.
• Can make a strong case for the impact this work had on the community it serves.
• Go beyond traditional journalistic narratives to highlight solutions and opportunities for change using a range of innovative methods to gather information and tell stories.

Recognizes a LION member that has successfully formed a short-term or long-term collaboration with at least one other organization to positively affect their journalistic impact, financial health, and/or operational resilience. Entries can include both business-focused and/or editorial-focused collaborations; however, the most successful entries will be able to demonstrate a positive impact on more than one of LION’s pillars of sustainability (journalistic impact, financial health, and operational resilience). 

Judges are looking for initiatives that contributed to improving operational resilience, financial health, and journalistic impact. Specifically, they are looking for organizations that show:

• Strong evidence of the extent to which the organizations involved in the collaboration developed, implemented, or streamlined processes and systems to support staff by generating buy-in and facilitating agreement among all parties.
• Strong evidence of how the collaboration supported fundraising or enhanced the utilization of existing funds in a more sustainable and strategic way for all organizations involved.
• Strong evidence of how the collaboration enabled the organizations involved to cover more challenging stories, reach a wider audience, and/or share resources and expertise.

Recognizes a LION member that developed a successful and creative short-term or long-term product to strengthen its journalistic impact, financial health, and/or operational resilience. We use News Product Alliance’s definition of a news product: “A defined article, series, program, or other content created by a news organization to meet the needs of news consumers."

Judges are specifically looking for products that:

• Are guided by a deep understanding of how users and the community interact with the product and prioritize their needs throughout the development process.
• Are iterative by nature; that means including cycles of building, gathering user feedback, and improving the product.
• Advance an existing business goal or create a new source of revenue for the organization.