Financial Management for News Entrepreneurs
About this Course
Why is budgeting important for a news business and how, exactly, do you do it? This course will demystify financial management by exploring why budgeting, forecasting and risk assessment are critical to understanding your financial position and informing future plans.
In this course you will:
- Understand how to create a basic annual budget and track financial activity over time
- Understand how to determine your financial position to inform strategic decisions
- Understand how to identify, monitor, and mitigate sources of market and non-market risk in your budget assumptions
About the Instructor
Harry Backlund is the Executive Director of Operations at City Bureau and the founding publisher of the South Side Weekly, a volunteer-run community newspaper in Chicago. More on Harry.
Course Lessons
Introduction to Financial Management for News Entrepreneurs
In this lesson, we’ll discuss what we’ll cover in Financial Management for News Entrepreneurs.
How to Create Your Budget
In this lesson, we’ll discuss how to get started creating a budget for your news business.
Your Budget as a Report
In this lesson, we’ll discuss how to monitor your budget against actuals.
Your Budget as a Model
In this lesson, we’ll discuss how to use your budget to make financial decisions.
Resource: Projecting Cash Flow
This resource will provide a template for projecting how much cash is flowing through your news business.
Your Budget in Practice
In this lesson, we’ll discuss how to use your budget to calculate risk.
Resource: Calculating Risk
This resource will provide templates for calculating risks to your news business.
Financial Management for News Entrepreneurs – Course Summary
In this lesson, we’ll summarize what we learned in Financial Management for News Entrepreneurs.
Testimonials
Keri Mitchell
Dallas Free Press
“This should be a J school course. I found it immensely helpful, especially as a news entrepreneur with a journalism background. I loved that Harry provided both the context of what a budget is and how we should think about it as journalists. I walked away with a much better understanding of both the science and the art of budgeting.”
Amethyst Davis
Harvey World Herald
“I was an administrator at a university in a past life mostly dealing with state and federal financial aid. So, when it comes to crunching numbers, I’m true to this, not new to this. But even then, building an operating budget for an entire company is still a different ball game that I was worried about when I launched a small newsroom in Illinois. The financial management videos offered for my Tiny News Collective cohort were a great financial planning resource that I occasionally rewatch when budgeting for the Harvey World Herald.”
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