Double the data leads to big changes for LION’s Maturity Model for digital publishers

We first shared our maturity model for independent news publishers in 2023 after delivering 200 Sustainability Audits. LION Publishers has now delivered 450 Audits and launched the newest version –  a self-serve survey that automatically generates a report with recommended next steps and resources. With more than twice as much data, we’ve refined these stages, expanding the scope of the Preparation phase, better delineating the Building and Maintaining phases, which we’d previously called the “messy middle,” and putting greater thought into the relationship between Growing and Sustainable, and the way an organization may oscillate between the two.

Over the last two years, we’ve found that aligning our programs and services with our maturity model has helped us share the most relevant resources with our members at the right time. In addition to assessing an organization’s overall stage, LION has started assessing an organization’s stage within each of the three pillars of sustainability. This allows us to present strengths and opportunities for each organization with more specificity. It’s also allowed us to more clearly communicate who we feel we’re best positioned to serve, prompting meaningful partnerships with organizations that support news businesses across the maturity spectrum. 

Additionally, it’s provided a framework for measuring our impact. For organizations with multiple Audits, we can see that 45 percent of participating organizations progressed in the maturity model between surveys, making progress toward our strategic goal of helping 100 organizations reach the Growing stage by 2029.

Without further ado, here are the current profiles for LION’s stages of sustainability:

Preparation

• Framing question: Where do I start? 
• Characteristics: News businesses in the Preparation stage are working to establish foundational operational and financial infrastructure while identifying productive revenue streams and journalism products that work in their market. Preparation-stage businesses are often driven primarily by their founder(s). 
• What we learned: We used to consider all Preparation stage organizations to be pre-launch. However, the data shows that some organizations with an MVP (minimum viable product) have yet to build out many foundational practices. In the updated model, many Preparation organizations are pre-launch; this stage also includes organizations that are post-launch and still building foundational processes like registering as a business, setting up a bank account, and formalizing a balance sheet. Importantly, many of these organizations have yet to hire anyone full-time, which often means the founder isn’t making a salary from this work. 

Building

• Framing question: What should I do? 
• Characteristics: News businesses in the Building stage have established foundational operational and financial infrastructure but still require development, likely across all three pillars of sustainability. Many businesses in the Building stage are focused on growing audience and revenue to a level to hire staff beyond the founder(s). 
• What we learned: We were looking to better differentiate between the Building and Maintaining stages. We found that Building organizations are all post-launch and, on average, are more advanced in the Journalistic Impact and Financial Health pillars, reporting modest revenue and audience figures. However, these organizations are still laying the wider operational groundwork to grow beyond a founding team. 

Maintaining

• Framing question: How should I do it? 
• Characteristics: News businesses in the Maintaining stage have advanced beyond foundational operational and financial infrastructure, but are still seeking long-term viability (the ability to sustain operations and generate profits consistently over time), likely through development in at least two of the pillars of sustainability. 
• What we learned: Maintaining organizations have reached a level of traction, reporting small teams beyond the founders and more substantial revenue. This is the stage where over 50 percent of organizations begin to report key processes and systems in place; for example, 83 percent of Maintaining organizations have a Budget, compared to only 49 percent of Building organizations. They also, on average, have made the jump from one primary revenue stream to two. 

Growing

• Framing question: How should I do it at scale? 
• Characteristics: News businesses in the Growing stage have achieved foundational and mission-critical operational and financial infrastructure. Growing-stage businesses have reached a level of viability across the three pillars of sustainability and are often working to scale or establish clear plans for succession and future stability.
• What we learned: Growing organizations report robust business operations, having implemented a vast majority of the key systems and processes surfaced in the Audit. They also have more robust revenue models, with a majority of organizations reporting three or more primary revenue streams that contribute to a balanced financial picture. Follow-up data from organizations in the Growing stage shows the resiliency to navigate a challenge within at least one pillar of sustainability.

‘I’m an independent publisher. Where do I fit in?’

The below benchmarks are a great starting point if you’re interested in understanding where your organization might fall on the maturity model spectrum, and they provide an industry-level view of what progression typically looks like. Note that these are medians, and a variety of factors, from market size to editorial and revenue strategy, impact where an organization may land in proximity to these figures.

	Median Age	Median Full-Time Employees	Median Paid Contributors	Median Previous Year Revenue	Median Digital Average Monthly Users	Median Newsletter Subscribers
Preparation	4	0	1	$16,000	5,250	1,133
Building	5	1	5	$74,300	18,884	2,451
Maintaining	6	5	12	$417,000	43,352	7,490
Growing	9	17	27	$1,890,341	175,000	23,500

Here’s a glimpse at what this looks like within each pillar:

Operational Resilience – Key Indicators

Financial Health – Key Indicators

Journalistic Impact – Key Indicators

Interested in more benchmarks, an assessment of where your organization stands within this maturity model, and a list of recommended resources? Take the Audit! It’s available at any time to all LION members. If you’re not a LION member and would like to learn more about the Audit, contact andrewrockway@lionpublishers.com.