About LION

Local Independent Online News Publishers (LION) strengthens the local news industry by helping independent news publishers build more sustainable businesses.

We focus primarily on the business side of news entrepreneurship, since many other support organizations exist to help publishers level up their journalism skills.

Project Scope

Overview

As a grantee of Press Forward’s initiative to strengthen the infrastructure of local news, LION will launch a two-year program in 2026 to provide a total of 80 independent news businesses with back office support that will result in measurable progress towards organizational sustainability. 

The Press Forward Back Office Support program will serve a combination of LION members and members of other US-based independent news membership associations. These organizations are small news businesses, approx. 1 – 5 FTEs, in the Building or Maintaining stage of sustainability. The businesses served during this one-year contract will all be nonprofits, and the businesses served in the second year of the program will include for-profits. The program will match each newsroom with either a Finance or HR subject matter expert who will help them solve their pressing human resources and financial management challenges. These experts won’t just “coach” the news leaders, but will act as an extra set of expert hands to take work off their plate, and build out robust HR and finance systems.

There will be two cohorts of 20 organizations in Jan – Dec 2026 (one cohort for Finance support and one for HR support), and two cohorts of 20 in Jan – Dec 2027. The initial scope of this contract will be for the 2026 cohort, with the possibility of extension to serve the 2027 cohort as well.

Logistics & Deliverables

• Contract start date: Dec 1, 2025
• Contract end date: Jan 9, 2026
• Cohort size: 20 news businesses (2 cohorts per year)
  • Cohort members will select either support in HR or Finance (see details below)
  • Each cohort will run for 4 – 6 months
• Deliverables
  • The firm will
    • Provide dedicated consultants for HR and Finance support each cohort (“the experts”) 
  • The experts will
    • Participate in onboarding and offboarding meetings
    • Meet with the LION program manager at a regular cadence
    • Review collateral materials submitted by each news business to recommend which type(s) of support to provide within their area of expertise
    • Provide up to a total of up to 60 hours of support to each news business in the HR cohort, which could include approximately 8 hours of conversations with each news business’s leadership. Deliverables may also include, depending on the needs of the organization:
      • Provide or adapt a freelance or contractor agreement template
      • Create or review an intern offer letter and scope of work template
      • Draft basic compensation guidelines or pay rates for contractors or interns
      • Recommend or develop onboarding checklists for staff, including short-term or part time staff 
      • Review and suggest edits to existing independent contractor policies
      • Provide a simple framework for measuring success of contractor deliverables
    • Provide up to a total of 60 hours of Finance support to news business in the Finance cohort, which could include approximately 8 hours of conversations with each leadership from each news business. Support may also include, depending on the needs of the organization:
      • Chart of Accounts review with tailored recommendations to align with nonprofit best practices
      • Internal financial policy review and development, including templates for core policies (if none exist)
      • Budget improvement or development, including integration with accounting software and creation of budget vs. actual reports
      • Configuration or refinement of accounting software (e.g., QuickBooks), including setup of income and expense categories
      • Creation of a basic monthly budgeting template for internal planning and tracking
      • Development of a simple cash flow forecasting model
      • Setup of a system to track restricted vs. unrestricted funding
      • Recommendations for a sustainable bookkeeping workflow, including monthly close process and file organization
    • If any of the hours above go unused, experts will collaborate with LION staff on the design and delivery of group coaching sessions and/or resources (e.g. templates, how-to videos)
    • Submit brief progress reports to LION after each meeting with a newsroom
    • One HR and one Finance consultant will attend one day of the Independent News Sustainability Summit in 2026 (Sept 8 – 10) to deliver a presentation and/or hold office hours on their topic of expertise

Selection Criteria

• Please submit a proposal with the following information:
  • Your track record working with small nonprofits; experience with for-profit business models is a plus
  • The total number of consultants you would dedicate to this year-long program
    • Bio and/or resume for at least one of the consultants dedicated to this program (preference for all experts but we understand you might need to confirm availability etc.)
  • Budget:
    • Line item budget for the financial outlay for this contract
      • Clearly indicate consultant hourly rate
      • Assume the following for expert billing:
        • 60 hours of work for each news business (includes meeting documentation and communications with LION’s program manager)
        • 2 hours of prep for each news business (collateral review, intake interview, etc.)
      • Clearly indicate firm’s administrative oversight hourly rate and estimated total hours
  • References

How to Submit Proposal

Follow this link to submit your proposal by Sunday August 24, 2025. Lisa Hunter, Director of Finance & Operations, is available for clarifying questions (lisahunter@lionpublishers.com).