LION is looking for coaches with experience in revenue growth

If you want to work with independent news publishers to help them strategically assess revenue-generating opportunities, we want to hear from you.

LION Program Coach – Planning for Revenue Growth

Status: Independent Contractor

Point of Contact: Senior Manager of Coaching

Location: Remote within USA

Engagement Type: Short-term contract, with variable working hours, from October 10 – December 12, 2022

About LION Publishers

Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit professional journalism association for independent news publishers. While most of our 400+ members across the U.S. and Canada run local news businesses, we also have members who serve larger regions and specific identity-based communities across geographies. LION provides teaching, resources and community to independent news entrepreneurs as they build and develop sustainable businesses.

Project Summary

The 2022 GNI Startups Lab: Planning for Revenue Growth is an eight-week program launching in October. The aim is to help independent news businesses strategically assess revenue-generating opportunities, align finances with goals and understand what it takes to make them happen, with the ultimate aim of helping them progress down the path to sustainability.

It will provide news businesses with:

• Training to understand how to assess an opportunity and identify how ideas align with market forces, audience needs and capacity
• An understanding of the operational needs that precede revenue growth
• One-on-one coaching to implement training and produce program deliverables 
• Direct funding to execute deliverables

We’re looking for independent contractors to provide coaching who:

• Are familiar with the systems, policies, processes, resources and workflows you need to have in place before launching a new revenue stream or growing an existing revenue source
• Are familiar with revenue trends and revenue opportunities for news businesses
• Have an understanding of audience and market research 
• Have an understanding of budgeting, forecasting and risk assessment as critical aspects of assessing financial position and informing future plans
• Have experience working with, or have themselves been, entrepreneurs running small teams
• Have a breadth of expertise with journalism entrepreneurial challenges and opportunities
• Share our vision that holistic sustainability lies at the nexus of journalistic impact, operational resilience and financial health 
• Are comfortable coaching around both big picture strategy and specific tactical approaches, but know they don’t need to be an expert in everything 
• Can curate the LION community, industry knowledge and their networks to help publications prioritize their most urgent needs
• Can balance the delivery of empathetic encouragement and reality checks to resource-constrained publishers

Coaching project 

The coaching contractor will have two primary responsibilities:

• Through weekly coaching sessions, support and guide four participating news businesses as they implement training and produce the following program deliverables: Revenue operations checklist and Revenue plan.
• Document coaching sessions to inform programming and to help LION gain a deeper understanding of what news businesses need at different stages. These insights will be shared at regular coaching team meetings and through light-lift weekly coaching reports. 

Coaching goals and deliverables

• Participating news businesses report that they felt supported as they produced their program deliverables
• Weekly coaching reports for each participant
• Your feedback on the program and your coaching experience through our offboarding survey 

Time commitment and important dates

The program runs the week of October 10 through the week of December 12, 2022.

Compensation

Coaches will be paid $10,000 for the project, which consists of roughly 50 hours of work. Half will be paid upon signing the contract and the other half will be paid upon completion of the final deliverable. 

LION is an Equal Opportunity Employer

LION believes that a team with diversity of backgrounds and experiences will generate the most innovative ideas and ultimately do the best work in support of our mission. This is why we welcome contractors, vendors, staff and board members who contribute to a diverse, equitable and inclusive work environment. We understand diversity as multi-dimensional and intersectional, encompassing aspects of our identities including race and ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, ability, class, geography, lived experiences and more. We welcome and encourage all qualified candidates to apply to opportunities at LION so that we build a team that reflects the diversity of independent news entrepreneurs we wish to serve.

We know there are great candidates who might not check all the boxes listed below or who possess important skills we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself. 

Application materials

Submit your materials using this form by 11 p.m. Pacific time on September 20. You will be asked to provide:

• Your resume
• Any online links that show your work (a Twitter profile, a portfolio page, a LinkedIn profile, etc.)
• Answers to the following questions:
  • Why are you interested in coaching with LION?
  • How would you describe your coaching style?
  • What do you see as the biggest challenges facing independent news organizations when it comes to revenue growth?
  • Tell us about a time when you helped someone align their ideas with reality. What was the situation and how did you approach it? What did you learn?
  • Please tell us anything else you’d like us to know about your background, experience or skills that speaks to your ability to do this role.

If you have questions about this role, reach out to LION Senior Manager of Coaching Elaine Diaz ([email protected]) to learn more.