Earlier this year, Greater Public began convening the digital revenue readiness council. This panel of innovative thinkers from inside and outside the industry had the task of creating a roadmap of actionable steps that GMs and CEOs can take to prepare their organizations for digital revenue success.

The panel’s results were revealed at PMDMC 2015:

The illustrated digital revenue roadmap

With a business model that has served us so well over the years, reimagining our future revenue feels daunting at best. We are often told that other non-profits are envious of our audience’s loyalty and willingness to support our work but also that we are behind in monetizing our digital platforms. With limited resources and time, how does anyone know where to begin? How can we move forward without hurting what works?

These are the questions that many public media General Managers and CEOs have been asking about digital revenue and, frankly, they’re good ones. Where does any media organization find real revenue in the fragmented and ever-changing world of digital? In our quest to find some useful answers we stumbled upon a common challenge. Many, if not most, traditional media organizations may be putting the cart before the horse. They have entered a race with little to no training, gear, or coaching and rightly feel unprepared and anxious. We would not expect a marathon runner to get very far without the physical and mental preparation needed to succeed and yet the we often assume that the path to digital revenue—which may very well be harder and longer than a marathon—has money waiting just on the other side of the starting line.

How can any organization expect to monetize and grow an area that has not been set up for success? With that in mind, Greater Public set out to determine if and how others had done it. What could we learn from those inside public media who had experienced success? But even more critical, what foundations had been laid and strategies deployed on the outside? What can we learn from those who are ahead of us on this path?

In an effort to tackle this problem, we assembled a blue-ribbon panel of leaders from a variety of organizations, but went a step further. We not only wanted forward-thinking CEOs, but content leaders, revenue and sales leaders, and digital strategists. Why? Because we started with a key assumption that we needed to test: Digital revenue is a station-wide effort, starting with the CEO. The panel of experts that made up the Digital Revenue Readiness Council included:

David Minkin – Executive Director, Revenue Operations, The Atlantic
Shazna Nessa – Director/Journalism, Knight Foundation
Chip Giller – CEO, Grist
Allison Lichter – Social Media Editor, The Wall Street Journal
Jim Brady – CEO and Founder, Billy Penn
John Davidow – Executive Editor, WBUR
Christian Chabot – CEO, Tableau
Melody Kramer – Visiting Nieman Fellow
Paul Jacobs – GM, Jacobs Media
Dick McPherson – CEO, New Donor Strategies
Roger Ogden – Former CEO, Gannett
Tom Mara – Executive Director, KEXP
Shane Guiter – COO, KCPT
Matt Lieber – Co-Founder, Gimlet Media 

The six-month process included lengthy interviews with the council members on a variety of key questions. How were they organized? Who was in charge of digital revenue? What kinds of strategies have proven results? How did they pay for it? Did they experience failures we might learn from?

The council then met for a day-long, in-person session to review overlapping ideas, discuss disparities in our approaches and hone in on our recommendations for CEOs and GMs. It was a fascinating discussion with clear commonalities and some unexpected surprises. In the end, there was little disagreement. This group was clear on what they wanted our system leaders to know but we needed to answer a few questions first.

What IS digital revenue?

This was a critical question going in. If we are unable to define it, how can we expect to grow it? Of course, this is not a new question and certainly not unique to public media. It is easy to find in-depth studies and lengthy recommendations as to how other media companies have struggled to define just what is digital money? While there are obvious buckets for things like digital ad sales, are member dollars collected through digital platforms digital revenue? Is funding for digital projects digital revenue? Being aware that this could be a stopping point at many stations, we addressed it right away.

The council found that, much like the diversity in recommendations that currently exist, their approaches varied. Most had their own definition of digital revenue but more important, they had a process in place at their organizations to assess it. That was the takeaway: How each organization chose to define digital revenue was not a key indicator of success. The council believed that stations should define it however they want, but once they do, commit to growing that number. While this may appear to be a vague finding, we believe it should also be liberating. You can find multiple definitions from KEXP to The Atlantic and there does not appear to be a right or wrong answer. However none of these successful organizations saw the definition as a barrier to revenue. The council believed this one is in the individual organization’s hands and that each should define it to be consistent with their own individual growth strategy.

Integrated or siloed? The digital question extends to revenue

I can tell you this one surprised me. I have been preaching full integration or death for as long as I have been talking about digital. But it turns out there are different successful models of separating or combining broadcast and digital when it comes to revenue. More than one definition or model works and this did not appear to be the key indicator of success. This question seems to be at the core of foundational discussions and disagreements when it comes to digital generally. On one side of the argument is full integration. Positioning our organizations as truly multiplatform, where digital is not a separate department, line item in the budget or extra, but simply a new layer added to the way we do business. On the other side is considering digital as a separate, new business with its own strategy, profit and loss responsibility and accountability.

KEXP’s Executive Director, Tom Mara, shared how he has grown digital revenue to exceed two million dollars by taking the second approach. In the station’s early days of digital, online was still a department and had a director that reported to the top. Mara explained that, while they were mildly successful and had some digital staff, they lacked strategic focus. He later asked the question, “If we are really in the business of developing impact, and we have this department, what do we have to do organizationally to let the audience know that we’re investing in our mission online?” That’s when he developed the idea of business unit and elevated the online department to the online service unit with its own General Manager with P&L responsibility. He did the same with the GM of the broadcast service and created a cross-functional station strategy that required each unit to work collaboratively to reach their individual unit goals. Mara was quick to call his structure anything but siloed but rather two groups that are deeply connected. “Under a traditional structure with a GM, three or four directors etc., there are too many opportunities to point to other departments as to why yours isn’t doing well. That assumes that you are being held accountable at all. What our model does is put the commitment not on just the performance of the department but on everyone. Everyone gets to see the plan and must work together to be successful.”

Jacobs Media General Manager, Paul Jacobs, considered it this way, “Look at it as a separate business and build it up from there,” he said. “Define the business and then decide how to build it because all the data shows that you have no choice and that radio advertising is predicted to be flat at best. If you want to grow, it’s a must. I’m not saying it’s a separate silo, but to start, think of it like a new business with a strategy, business plan, budget, etc.”

Other council members held fast to the full integration model. Executive Director of Revenue Operations at The Atlantic, David Minkin, believes in telling the story of The Atlantic (which also means selling it) as one organization. “One of the ways I think we were able to successfully transition to digital and primarily driving revenue there is we stopped distinguishing where the dollars came from. We have internal ideas of where we think the revenue is going to come from (print vs. digital) but it was important to free up our sales team to not be thinking about where the dollars came from and to be platform-agnostic. We worked in an organic way of where our audience was going instead of a forced way of clinging on to a legacy model.”

Other council members mirrored the full integration model but most felt that no matter what the organizational structure, it was the overarching strategy that was most important. With a thoughtful strategy in place that aims to grow both traditional revenue streams and new ones, the structure that works best for your organization should follow.

Garden hoses replace the fire hose: RIP the three-legged stool

One idea that resonated with our council, and successful digital organizations overall, was the idea that future revenue will come from many different sources rather than just a few. Instead of the three-legged stool we have leaned on for so many years (membership, underwriting, federal funding) digital revenue will be realized through many different, and likely smaller, revenue sources. Former CEO of Gannett, Roger Ogden, likened it to replacing the fire hose with many garden hoses. Digital revenue is unlikely to come in fire hose form like our traditional fund drives but rather from multiple sources and streams that may grow and decline over time.

This led to a discussion of the importance of constant testing and learning and the understanding that we are not necessarily looking for a new model to swap out the old. Jim Brady, CEO of Billy Penn explained, “the idea is not to set yourself up leaning too far one way or the other on one thing because the game is changing so quickly in terms of the success of local advertising, events and the rise of native. There is always so much uncertainty especially when it comes to local that we want to have a diversified revenue stream. Then you might find out that you can get a crazy amount of money in one of them then you are in a position to move more resources into them.” Brady emphasized the safety net aspect of this approach. “I guess I’m of the philosophy that says if you’re dipped into four or five revenue streams it is easier to ramp one of those up than it is to start from zero.”

Our council agreed that all of their organizations were consistently testing and learning from their audiences both on the content and revenue sides. Some ideas will bear fruit and grow, and some will not, but with many garden hoses going at the same time, the ability to adjust and grow increases.

Council Recommendations

People. The first stop on the path to new revenue. 

In every conversation about success with digital revenue, time and time again the conversations with the council shifted from platforms and technology to people. In my discussions I referred to technology and platforms as “all the things.” “The things,” very generally speaking, are ways in which our audience finds us on digital platforms such as social media, mobile apps, etc. to the underlying technology of CRM, mobile giving and targeted advertising. While the things are critical to long and short-term success, these leaders made a clear recommendation:

Technology alone is not enough. It must work hand in hand with a well-executed strategy.  That means ensuring you have right people and skill-sets, starting with you. 

Before we move on from “the things” many council members mentioned that digital revenue does not need to be technologically complex. “Our digital audience does not need us to solve every problem and offer every bell and whistle and, in fact, the simpler and easier the better.” Making simple, user-friendly technology is no small task but the hope is that we will see the myriad of opportunities before us, simplify and focus. None of this, however, can happen without a well-conceived and executed strategy, which starts with the CEO or GM. While this statement may sound obvious, our council believed unanimously that if the CEO or GM doesn’t understand or make digital revenue a priority it simply will not happen. “If the CEO doesn’t set the expectation, and set clear goals, expectations, and budget focus then the staff will be left to figure it out for themselves, which isn’t a good thing, because these are very uncharted waters.”

With that in mind, our council thought a good starting place would be to ask some foundational questions of the CEO: Do you have a good understanding of digital and do you really want digital revenue? In other words, is this something you are eager to explore and try or is it something you feel forced into because you are told you have to? It’s a tough but fair question, they believed, knowing goals are rarely successful if they are not truly understood or desired. Perhaps even more challenging was the question, are you willing to change the way you do business in order to get it? Just like the marathon runner who expects to compete with little to no preparation, are we expecting new revenues without changing our business plans or at the very least our own thinking?

One common thread that came up in regard to digital revenue growth was how it was tied to the universal interest in growing audience. Every leader wants more audience and more revenue but they felt it was important to look atwhat strategy do you have in place right NOW to grow your current and future audiences? Once you are able to define that then we can hone in on the important question of, “does your business plan include digital revenue and if so, does it include growth goals?”

Goals and accountability

There was a unanimous understanding by our council that digital revenue will not truly be realized without specific goals and regular accountability. A key action item for our GMs was to ensure that you:

• Develop attainable goals that are assessed and scrutinized regularly, not annually.

Too often we create a strategic plan with annual goals that sits unattended until the end of the fiscal year or next strategic planning process. Our leaders stressed the importance of regular assessment of these goals, which should occur monthly at a minimum, and weekly in some cases. Then, have a clear understanding of who is responsible for those goals.Is it the sales team only? While digital sales may provide some portion of your digital revenue it should only be one component of your digital revenue strategy. It is important to:

• Identify one leader who will oversee your digital revenue goals and strategy.

The council also relayed the importance of CEOs setting their own digital revenue goals that are shared with their team. Every successful leader on our council not only had a strategy for their team, but a strategy for themselves to grow revenue with the understanding that these should be revisited and adjusted just as regularly. How do you do that?

• Identify community resources, partners, and allies in your community.

One of the best ways to move your station’s digital efforts forward is to reach out to your community for help. One of the most exciting themes coming out of the council’s work is the idea that there is unlimited potential for partnership, collaboration, and flat-out volunteerism if we just go out and look for it. We are good at getting volunteers for our broadcasting efforts, why not look at digital volunteers? Is there another like-minded organization in your community that could partner with you to lift all boats? Could you share technology? Staff? If nothing else, the CEO should take the lead in making those connections, finding those allies and giving their station more options on the road to meeting their goals.

• Consider your involvement in new, digital events.

Events! Ever thought of events being part of your digital revenue strategy? If not, it may be worth a second look. I was surprised to hear how large of a role events played in the digital-only organizations on our panel. Why are events considered digital?

Jim Brady believes that when it comes to millennials, the target audience for his start-up Billy Penn, events connect the virtual world to the real world. “This is a generation that has grown up connected to the Internet and a lot of the research that’s out there today talks about how they want in-person experiences. Being online to them is the status quo so there’s nothing unique to them in that way. It’s like water and air. Getting people physically together in a local space works. Letting people have a connection to what you are doing in person.”

Brady believes it is much easier to do at the local level because your audience is all there unlike the national media organizations that do not have that luxury. Events can build loyalty in your audience that would be hard to find otherwise. He also stressed that this is about members of our community meeting each other and facilitating their needs, rather than an opportunity to talk about our station’s interests This has been a hard transition for anyone in legacy media: Imagining an event that does not revolve around our agenda.

The promise of this idea lies in the knowledge that young people will pay for events and experiences. “Paywalls won’t work for this generation but they will pay $10 to go meet someone they’ve been talking to or following online all month,” Brady explained. “The more they come to these events, the more they like you, the more they come back to your site, the more page views they generate the more revenue they generate from pure advertising. You can connect it to digital revenue but it’s really about loyalty.”

Executive Editor John Davidow of WBUR is working on that very idea. “We do a station meet-up once a month with a low-key name to talk about what people are talking about. We did one on medical marijuana and gambling but they were all high engagement topics”.

Building loyalty through unique experiences your community could not have without you has the potential to open doors to new audiences and new revenue. It also highlights the idea that a viable digital revenue strategy is largely a long game. Tableau CEO Christian Chabot had three words for the most common mistake he sees leaders make when trying something new: Lack of patience. Building new relationships and loyalty that will hopefully result in new revenue takes time, which is why it is even more imperative to start now. Why would this be included in your personal goals? Because it is an opportunity to connect and learn about an audience we may not know. Research is wonderful but nothing can replace learning from in-person connections to those we hope to serve.

• Make digital data integral to your work.

What assumptions are we carrying over into the digital space? When thinking about the future it is important to clarify our assumptions, whether that is pledge or our website or mobile app. Data helps us evaluate if those assumptions are true. CEO of New Donor Strategies, Dick McPherson, mentioned, “we’re making assumptions about membership, what they like etc. based on a traditional broadcast model. Could you think about what other ways we might define being a member? Are there other digital relationships? Should we challenge the idea of what people want to give to?”

Grist CEO Chip Giller relayed that being able to speak about audience behavior as well as your organization’s progress through specific data points is critical to conversations with donors and foundations. Making the case for the impact on your community is certainly important and being able to talk metrics and outcomes goes even further with would-be funders. Giller has also developed a company-wide practice of examining information that can help inform how they are doing across the board. One example that has provided layers of information is a pop-up window on their site that asks if the reader has changed their behavior based on what Grist is doing. Many respond and give specifics as to how and why. Not only does the content team use this to inform their work, but Giller then has real data about impact in addition to specific examples of success.

Director of Journalism at the Knight Foundation, Shazna Nessa, made clear the importance of sharing data with your own staff, where possible. “The data will provide insights into what you should focus on and what you should discontinue. Pay attention to mobile data because that’s where more and more people prefer to experience their media. Don’t only focus on what people say they want, observe their behaviors and what they are doing.” Using targeted data points to elevate top-level conversations led the council to another conclusion:

• The future of digital revenue requires telling a new story, starting with the CEO/GM. 

As all of us consider shifts within our organizations, and implementing new strategies, how will we relay those ideas to our members, underwriters, and larger community who have yet to know us? Even further, how do we articulate our vision to our boards and staff? Our council believes that future revenue sits squarely behind the CEO’s ability to talk with clarity about how they are going to serve their communities in new and innovative ways in the future. While our current audience may appear to be ok with our traditional strategy, it is more likely than not that they will begin to change somewhere down the line to say nothing of the audience behind them. How can we ensure that the story we are telling is the right one?

• Enlist the help of your digital leader. (More on that later.)
• Consider how your efforts will lead to community IMPACT and tell that story.
• Consider the storytellers within your own building. Could they help you craft a powerful narrative?

Still stuck? No digital leader?

• Identify a community partner (tech, communications, digital marketing companies, universities) that could help you articulate your vision.

We cannot emphasize enough the power of our communities to help us regardless of our individual station capacities. Whether you are looking for technical support, someone to help you imagine your new strategy, or relay it to your audience, there IS help out there and none of us have been very good at asking for it. One idea was the use of college students—whether you are a university licensee or not. Could they help you think through and test new ideas? These are potential solutions to address the elephant in the room during most conversations around digital, which is money, and the lack thereof. Knowing this is the case, I ensured the question of monetary resources was front and center of all of the council interviews. One clear takeaway emerged:

No organization has extra money.

When any of us talk about digital revenue we end up in a familiar place. You usually have to at least spend some money to make money. We do it consistently with our fund drives, direct mail, membership staff but often when it comes to digital one of two themes emerge. “I don’t have the money to invest in that” and “even if I did it’s not enough.” When I asked the very largest and smallest organizations on our council, “how did you pay for that?” They all had the same response. “I had to go find the money.” Many meant find money from an entity or person outside of the organization but others meant find it in their own budget. Their message was clear: You must reallocate resources and/or develop a strategy that someone or some organization might fund. There was clear evidence and working examples of funding waiting for good ideas. Foundations and many major donors love funding innovation and there were consistent examples of that from our group. Shazna Nessa relayed that the Knight Foundation supports innovative journalism regardless of station size. “The key is to be nimble, flexible, experimental, and have big ideas that are iterative and focused on learning along the way.” The council felt very strongly that it was the CEO’s responsibility to go find the money to support the future vision or to make the hard choices to find it within the organization.

Think research and development not always return on investment

Because we know that successful organizations find digital revenue through consistent testing, innovation, and adaptation to audience needs, it was important to ask how comfortable are YOU with experimentation and failure? Instead of being purely focused on ROI could you think of your digital efforts as a R&D department working on building a sustainable future? It is a tall order when we have a business model that has served us so well, but based on the council’s collective experience, it is clear that digital revenue will be minimal without new ideas. The Wall Street Journal’s Social Media Editor, Allison Lichter, emphasized that we can’t wait for people to come to us. “We need to go to where people are active just for the sake of experimenting and we are learning to be flexible and uncomfortable with the status quo. We have to imagine that in 10 years Facebook will be gone but we will have exercised those muscles and our content can transition to the next platform.”

So where to start?

• Develop a list of innovative thinkers. Who will you will look to internally and externally for new ideas?
• Ensure a process to test those ideas and a leader to allocate (or reallocate) resources.
• PRIORITIZE what you will test on which platform. 

None of our experts had all of the answers. Far from it. They were, however, good at looking outward for new ideas and open to trying new things. The list above came from experience where the ideas existed without a process to test them. If you are lucky enough to have staff that is coming up with new ideas, have you created an environment where they can be tested and potentially implemented? And finally, have you given someone the authority to oversee that process and provide support? Once that happens it is important to consider what YOU are doing to support/evangelize digital growth internally and externally?

Like what?

• Reward, celebrate and share digital successes.

Our council was quick to point out that while we should certainly consider incentivizing digital sales the same way as we do with our broadcast sales staff, celebrating success does not always need to be monetary. A pizza party, extra day off, or simply station-wide recognition of a great idea may be enough. Visiting Nieman Fellow, Melody Kramer, did just that during her time at NPR by creating the Social Sandbox. “It highlighted good things going on but also supported those doing innovative things. We were praising what was happening and everyone wanted to be mentioned in it. It was a low-tech way to build digital strategy organically.” Our council emphasized that rewards really do work and not nearly enough leaders use them as part of their strategy.

Your staff – the key to your future.

Running a close second to the CEO’s investment in digital revenue was the importance of staff and their understanding and investment in digital. Our roadmap asks: “What percentage of your staff embraces/supports digital?”
Keeping in mind that “I understand it’s important” and “I understand digital” are not the same. However many you think are already on board, our council believes that all organizations should prioritize growing that number.

How do you do that?

Arguably the lowest hanging fruit is re-examining every open position. No one, in any organization we talked to, felt that they could afford to auto-fill legacy positions in the current environment and that being nimble started with a constant reassessment of the positions they needed to succeed. Perhaps you will come to the same conclusion and find this continues to be a critical position. Perhaps you will realize you need to add a skill set that was not previously required. Or perhaps your organization and audience has changed so much that the job needs to change completely. Gimlet Co-Founder, Matt Leiber, relayed the importance of hiring the best people. “It’s an amazing time to be in the business and it’s a great time to try. Talent is incredibly important and they have more options than they ever had. Work on getting the best people and work on keeping the good people you have.”

This goes hand in hand with evaluating your current staff and positions and identifying those +1s and -2s. A +1 is consistently adding value and a -2 is consistently losing value. It sounds harsh, but every organization has them.Do they serve your current goals and strategy? Acquiring digital revenue necessitates new strategies and new skills and the effective leaders in our group were able to identify when they did not currently have these skills in house. New gains could be realized by hiring a force multiplier: Someone who brings new energy, passion and enthusiasm to the job and inspires that action in others.

This is arguably one of our greatest challenges in public media. Many, if not most organizations have staff that have served us well for decades but either possess a skill set that is now less in demand, or are in a position that has simply not adapted to current needs.

One of my favorite thoughts from our council is the idea that all legacy media organizations are terrible atthinking through options for graceful and respectful exits. This group was against the “my way or the highway” approach and felt that we needed a way to honor the great work that got us here as we move to the next level. Could we consider ways to transition some staff over time? Are there other incentives we could offer? While there were not any common recommendations, the feeling was strong that moving forward does not mean disregarding all that came before.

There was heavy emphasis on setting goals and timelines for professional development to existing staffand on moving beyond conferences. Along those lines, many recommended—you guessed it—using community experts! Could someone in your local community help you or your staff learn about the industry and local digital market? Is there something you could offer them? The council also felt that developing a schedule of regular cross training between teams was a rarely done but highly successful approach to staff development. Do you have interdepartmental brainstorming sessions or training?

Your digital leader: The linchpin to digital revenue.

Perhaps the most critical and powerful recommendation from our council was ensuring that you have you identified and/or empowered an effective digital leader. If you believe you already have this person at your organization, it was important to assess whether they were the right person with the right level of authority. The checklist includes:

• Do they report to the GM/CEO?
• Do they have budget authority?

What we can say with complete certainty is that successful digital revenue organizations have a “C” level digital leader. COO of KCPT, Shane Guiter, explained, “As we try to convert our organizations it is critical that we have a digital leader/strategist/champion that reports directly to the CEO. Across public media you see digital staff at very low levels as part of the marketing team or engineering team or content team but way down the ladder. When everyone is in charge of digital strategy then you really don’t have one.” A digital leader on the management team signals importance and investment and is critical to buy-in and change. If you want to elevate your digital revenue, elevate this position within your organization and ensure they have budget authority. Without it they will be decidedly less effective. If you have this person in place:

• Are they responsible for Digital Revenue? 

Digital revenue strategy impacts all areas of the organization and requires innovative, diverse thinking across a variety of departments. Many organizations have digital revenue buried in their sales departments only. Again, while digital sales should remain an important component of your digital revenue strategy, our council believed a leader who worked across all departments would be most effective. And then a familiar theme emerged:

• Do you hold them accountable for growth goals?

Rather than thinking of accountability as some kind of productivity scare tactic, our leaders felt it really should be seen as a safeguard for success. Instead of setting unattainable or uniformed annual goals that are never adhered to, why not set incremental goals that are assessed and adjusted regularly so they have a chance of working? Our council sent the reminder that strategy minus goals and accountability equals the status quo.

• Do they share information/ideas across the station?

This is one area with huge potential. For any effort to truly be successful it requires organization-wide understanding and buy-in. Compare it to the “all hands on deck” approach we take with our fund drives. Nearly everyone has a role to play and all understand its importance and significance. How could we extend this commitment to digital revenue? One easy way is to ensure your digital leader is communicating their ideas, goals and outcomes across the station. Even if we are not siloed in our organizational structure, too often we are siloed in our communication. Do your sales and content teams ever meet? What about marketing and events and your digital team? Do they understand each other’s goals? Your digital leader should not only be a convener of cross-departmental conversations, but your internal evangelist for how to work together on a sustainable future.

No digital leader?

In some cases the ability to enlist the help of such a leader may be challenging based on size. If you have a station with 10 people on staff who are already doing three different jobs to keep the doors open, hiring a digital leader seems next to impossible. In those cases our council continued to reflect the power of utilizing your community and looking for thought leadership outside your own building. For those who are in the middle, however, our council posed the following questions:

• Can you achieve your audience growth and digital revenue goals without them?
• Are you confident in your current staff to execute your strategy?
• What skills/resources/specific tactics will you use to reach your goals?
• If you have a head of content or sales, are you willing to expand or redefine their role?

Your audience is waiting on YOU

One final thought that lingered in our conversation was the idea of what is really happening with our individual audiences. It is sometimes easy to comfort ourselves with the knowledge that we are still paying our bills, we have a pretty good website and are streaming our broadcast. That is pretty good right? It is pretty good and, again, many organizations would love to have the long-standing support public media has enjoyed. The concern is the evolution and expectations of not only our future audiences, but also our current, loyal ones. They are changing right before our eyes.  They are making, or have already made, digital an integral part of their lives and they are expecting you to do the same. More and more major donors, foundations and underwriters want to attach themselves to an organization that has their head up and is finding new, innovative ways to adapt to their audience and community’s needs.

Better yet, it is not as terrible as we may think and Shane Guiter believes we are well positioned to make it work. “If you look at the history of our business the people who built this were entrepreneurs and pioneers. We have reached the point now where we need a generation of people who want to rebuild it.” The biggest thing he would say to a GM who needs to make these changes is it’s fun! “It’s so much more fun than looking at a budget that’s not balanced or making the same shows you’ve made year after year. It’s fun to create an organization with fun, energetic, smart people that inspire other staff and leadership.”