Blue Engine Collaborative

50 teams. Six weeks. Let’s do it. ?? The Digital Product Development Journey, led by Blue Engine in partnership with the Google News Initiative, is entering its next phase and we couldn’t be more excited. Fifty teams from across Brazil, from organizations big and small, are ready to turn ideas into impactful digital products. Over the next six weeks, they’ll dive into a series of intensive discussions, mentoring and testing, including:? ?? Weekly guided discussions on product thinking, customer value proposition, feasibility, prototyping, go-to-market strategy, and much more! ?? 1:1 mentoring with our experts @Leonardo Stamillo, Talita Boros, Luciana Cardoso, Paty Gomes and Sabrina Passos Cimenti ?? Continuous testing, feedback, and refinement because product work doesn’t stop at launch. It all leads up to April 30, when teams will showcase their solutions. ?? For those who would like to follow along, you can view the program’s webinars online: https://lnkd.in/g278wVec Congratulations to everyone who made it this far! Time to get to work. ??

We’re going to break the benchmark frustration cycle. Our own David Grant was proud to present with BlueLena’s Ashley Woods Branch on building goals that matter at the NC Local News Workshop event in Durham. There, we premiered something we’ve long talked about at Blue Engine: the limits of benchmarks for building organizational goals. Don’t get us wrong; a benchmark can help you see if the tactic you’re already implementing could be improved – and it can be the basis for asking further questions. But usually when we get asked “what’s a good benchmark for X?” the following occurs: 1?? Your organization will be in only one of three possible positions: above, at, or below the? benchmark. 2?? You will either rejoice (above), feel nothing (at), or feel unnecessary shame (below). 3?? And then you’ll still wonder what the heck you have to do next. ???????? ???? ?????? ?????????????????? ?????????????????????? ??????????. To break it, we need to realize that our quest for a benchmark is usually because we aren’t pursuing a strategically chosen goal, or we don’t have enough context to make decisions. What can you do instead? ⒈ ????-????-??????.? Build backward from what you need to achieve. Think about what’s required – whether to meet certain financial targets, to meet audience or revenue commitments, etc. –? and plot a course to reach them. By figuring out what you need to achieve you’ll have a clear view of where you are, where you’re headed, and what gaps you need to fill. ⒉ ??????.? Across all the initiatives you could pursue, what’s the best use of your limited time, energy, and money? Use audience growth data and monetization potential for each potential course to build simple financial models, determine the likelihood of impact and sustainability, and select the best option. Now that you’ve chosen your highest-value path, your modeling will give you clear milestones to use as goals en route to your destination. ⒊ ?????????????? ????????.? If you’re looking for a sanity check, ask similar organizations about their metrics – but be very mindful that this data should be context, not a target. But also look beyond media. You can, for example, analyze local civic institutions and businesses to understand demand and competition by reviewing nonprofit disclosures, Chamber of Commerce reports, and Census business data. Then, once you’ve built your goals using one or more of these techniques, you can use SMART goaling and agile methods to break down that big goal into manageable, doable pieces for you and your team. Still hungry for “how am I doing?” metrics? Or have questions about how this process applies to you? Let us know at [email protected] or let us know in the comments. ??

In partnership with our friends at the Solutions Journalism Network, we’re thrilled to welcome the inaugural cohort of the ?????????????????? ???????????????????? ?????????????? ??????????????????????! This will be the first in a series of four programs designed to help news organizations prove the case that ???????????????????? ???????? ???????????? ?????? ???????? ???????? ?????????????????? ????????????. Over the next nine months, these participating teams will explore how to align their solutions-focused reporting and innovative sponsorship opportunities, through expert-led workshops, hands-on coaching, and peer-to-peer learning. The SJN team (led by Linda Shaw and Melissa Cassutt, will provide editorial coaching to help newsrooms strengthen their reporting practices and deepen audience engagement, and the Blue Engine team (led by Tim Griggs and Idalmy Carrera-Colucci and coaches Ryan Tuck and Kerrie Gillis) will guide participants in developing and refining sponsorship strategies, ensuring they have the skills and confidence to secure meaningful revenue partnerships. ?? Congratulations to the teams joining this journey: ??9 Millones? ??Arizona Luminaria ??Impremedia (La Raza) ??Input Fort Wayne ??Monadnock Ledger-Transcript ??Reparations Media ??South Dakota News Watch ??Verified News Network (VNN) Oklahoma A special thank you to our partners at Solutions Journalism Network, including Linda Shaw and Melissa Cassutt, for their leadership in advancing solutions journalism and supporting sustainable business models in news, and to Maribel Perez Wadsworth, Jim Brady, and Duc Luu at Knight Foundation for supporting these Accelerators. We can’t wait to see what these teams accomplish! ??

Audience loyalty is more than a single indicator of future revenue —?it’s a measure of impact. It shows whether our journalism resonates, how much people in our communities invest their time and attention, and whether they see our reporting and digital products as essential. And retention of paying subscribers/members/donors? That’s the real test: Are those who engage today still here six months from now, a year from now, and beyond? That’s why we were thrilled to design and lead the GNI Reader Loyalty & Retention Lab, with generous support from the Google News Initiative. Over six months, 30 news organizations across North America worked to transform audience surges — driven by elections, investigations, extreme weather, and major local stories — into lasting engagement. This Lab required a fundamental mindset shift — audience loyalty isn’t something that happens at the end of a funnel. It must be deliberately designed into every stage of the reader experience. From the outset, teams worked to rethink their approach to retention: ?? Who owns audience loyalty and retention in our organization? ?? Do we have the right systems to track and act on engagement trends? ?? What signals show habit formation — and how do we reinforce those behaviors? There is no one-size-fits-all silver bullet. Instead, teams refined what already works, identified engagement barriers, and ran experiments to improve visit frequency for key audience segments. From the very first session, teams were introduced to a “retention-first” mindset: ? ?????????????? = ???????????????????????????? – Organizations that turn first-time visitors into habitual users, and habitual users into paying supporters, are more likely to thrive. ? ???????????????? ???????????? ?????? ?????????????????????????? – Instead of celebrating traffic spikes, teams saw them as inflection points for building long-term relationships. ? ?????????? ???????????????? ?????????? ?? ?????????????? ???????????????? – We can’t treat loyalty as a hope and a prayer; instead, we have to be intentional. And, if no one owns it, it won’t happen. The most successful teams weren’t necessarily driven by singular big changes but by building repeatable processes — whether through newsletter habit formation, engagement-driven UX decisions, or improved segmentation. The organizations that made the most progress were those that didn’t treat retention as a ??????????????? but as an ?????????????? ????????????????????. Across the cohort, news organizations saw real progress: ■ Highly engaged readers grew significantly ? Users with 6-8 sessions/month went up by 43% ? While users with 9+ sessions/month grew 41% ■ Median monthly churn improved by 11% from the cohort’s baseline ■ Paid supporters grew by 8+% We’re deeply grateful to our partners at the Google News Initiative – especially Chrissy Towle and Casey Pallenik – for making this work possible. Here’s to more loyal, engaged, and committed audiences ahead. ??

We loved seeing you all. The Blue Engine team spent a productive and inspiring week with many old and new friends in Miami at #KMF25. Tim Griggs, Lynne Brennen, Cierra Brown Hinton and David Grant were on the ground to talk about geographic expansion, the business of local news and how we can all find a way to win together. Some reflections from David are below. If we missed you at KMF, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Drop us a line here on LinkedIn or at [email protected], and we’ll set up a time to talk!

In partnership with the Google News Initiative (GNI), Blue Engine Collaborative designed this program to help Brazilian news organizations strengthen their product approach — from identifying opportunities to building sustainable strategies. Over six live sessions, hundreds of participants from 270 news organizations joined us to deepen their product thinking. A huge thank you to our incredible coaches Talita Boros, Luciana Cardoso, Paty Gomes, and Leonardo Stamillo — led by the extraordinary Sabrina Passos Cimenti — for sharing (and learning!) so much along the way. ?? Phase two applications are now open! This next stage is all about hands-on workshops and exclusive coaching to test and refine ideas. Spots are limited – apply by March 6: https://lnkd.in/d_q4wGXB Key takeaways from Phase One: ?? Product and journalism go hand in hand Product development is not just about technology or design — it’s about impact. Well-structured journalistic products can contribute to business sustainability by improving both user experience and revenue potential. ?? Problems first, solutions later A product's success starts with a deep understanding of the audience. Investing time in identifying real pain points, mapping user journeys, and validating hypotheses ensures that every solution developed has a clear purpose and meets audience needs. ?? Test, learn, and iterate No product is perfect from Day One. Continuous experimentation — through prototypes, MVPs, and rapid feedback loops — is key to discovering what truly delivers value. Small, data-driven adjustments based on real interactions make all the difference in the long run. ?? Collaboration makes the difference A strong product is never built in isolation. Combining content, technology, design, and business teams allows digital products to be developed strategically, addressing editorial needs and financial sustainability goals. ?? A good pitch opens doors Communicating an idea is just as important as developing it. Crafting a compelling pitch means connecting context, strategy, and feasibility, highlighting a product’s impact, and engaging internal and external stakeholders. We can’t wait to see what these news organizations do next in stage two. ??

“Membership” for nonprofit news organizations is too often focused exclusively on year-end small-dollar fundraising. And while that’s rich and fertile ground, membership can (and, we’d argue, must) be a year-round pursuit. So we were particularly pleased with the results of the 12 forward-thinking nonprofit news teams and American Journalism Project grantees who recently wrapped a four-month Membership Accelerator. As always, the goal is for immediate return AND helping strong leaders build institutional muscle that will last far beyond the confines of any one program. What did they accomplish? ? A 62% average increase in recurring donors (vs. one-time contributions) ? A 12% average increase in average giving amount? ? A 10% average increase in Q4 donors year over year ? A 41% total increase across the cohort in member lifetime value All this in the face of challenging nonprofit donation headwinds. How might you learn from their successes? Among many other approaches, these teams… ?? Expanded donation asks across sites and newsletters to increase visibility beyond major drives ? Launched time-bound membership campaigns to rally community participation while setting the stage for future asks ?? Used engagement scoring to personalize outreach and deepen relationships year-round ?? A/B tested on-site and email messaging to fine-tune campaigns and evergreen appeals ?? Tracked retention curves to better support and sustain recurring donors ?? Deployed advanced segmentation and dynamic calls-to-action to meet readers where they are — anytime ??Quantified member lifetime value (also called “customer” lifetime value or CLV) to strengthen the case for ongoing support, not just one-time contributions ?????? ???????? ???? ???????? ?????? ??????????.?The strategies these teams developed throughout the Accelerator surfaced ~90 evergreen tactics that can keep driving membership growth throughout 2025 and beyond. A huge thank you to Ashleé Clark, MFA, Darrin Kerr, Lisa Heyamoto, Zainab Shah, and the team at the American Journalism Project for their partnership. And, of course, congratulations to the entire group: Block Club Chicago, Documented, Mirror Indy, Montana Free Press, Mountain State Spotlight, Outlier Media , Signal Ohio, Spotlight PA, The Texas Tribune, THE CITY (newsroom), VTDigger and WyoFile. ??

If you’re an ambitious #localnews publisher in New Jersey, we want to hear from you. We’re excited to team up with the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium (NJCIC) on The Growth Accelerator—a year-long program designed to help you tackle your toughest growth challenges and build sustainable revenue strategies that work for your newsroom. You’ll join a group of like-minded peers, with one-on-one coaching from our expert Blue Engine coaches, helping you turn ideas into action and make measurable progress on your goals. Big thanks to the folks at NJCIC for supporting some of New Jersey’s best newsrooms and helping them reach new heights! (That’s Ayinde Merrill, MPA, Chris Daggett, Madison McCool and Stefanie Murray, in case you’re wondering!) We can’t wait to get started. See all the details below ??

Ten years ago, over breakfast at Big Ed’s in Raleigh, the founders of EducationNC asked one big question: ?????? ???? ???? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ?????????????? ?????????????????? ???????? ???? ?????????? ????????????????? They didn’t start with a business model or a content plan. ???????? ?????????????? ???????? ?????? ??????????????. Fast forward a decade, and the EdNC team has built deep trust across all 100 counties, grown their audience from 20K to more than 90K monthly users, and now reach more than 1M people a year. They’ve scaled their annual revenue to more than $2.5M, all while staying true to their mission: providing independent, audience-driven reporting on education. At Blue Engine Collaborative, Colin McMahon and Hanin Najjar dug into ??????? they did it — what worked, what they tested, and what other organizations can learn from their success. ?? ?????? ?????? ?????????????????? ???????? ?????? ???????? ??????????: 1?? ?????????? ??????’?? ?????????? ???????? ???????????? ?? ???????? — ????’?? ?????????? ???? ?????? ??????????. The EdNC team has made showing up part of their DNA. They’ve traveled to every corner of the state (multiple times), slept in their cars to stay on the road, and built real relationships with communities. That deep engagement has fueled everything from audience growth to fundraising success. 2?? ???????? ?????????????? ?????? ???????????? — ?????? ???????? ?????? ????????. Instead of simply applying for grants, EdNC takes funders into the communities they serve — bringing them face-to-face with the challenges, solutions, and people their philanthropy impacts. Many of their most significant funders joined a lunch in late January to celebrate the organization’s 10-year journey together. These ‘go and see’ approaches shrink the distance between funders, policymakers, and those on the ground, turning financial support into a deeper, more informed commitment. 3?? ????????????????-?????????? ???????????????????? ???? ??????. They didn’t chase scale for scale’s sake. Instead, they focused on high-quality, relevant content, optimized their SEO strategy, and improved site performance — allowing them to grow their audience while deepening engagement through surveys, town halls, and community contributions. There’s so much more to their story. ??? Read the takeaways & download the full case study here ?? https://lnkd.in/gBavy6sM Thank you to Mebane Rash, Anna Pogarcic, Lauren Castillo, Nation Hahn, Molly Urquhart and the rest of the EdNC team for welcoming Blue Engine into your lives and along the journey over the last several years!

Want to ramp up your ad revenue? Applications are now open for the latest Newspack?Revenue Development Program track, exclusively for U.S. publishers on Newspack, focused on boosting revenue through sponsorships and advertising. Since launching last July, publishers have already added a whopping $500K to their revenue streams by simply tapping into the full potential of their tech stack. This new track kicks off at the end of March and spans seven weeks of cohort sessions and tailored coaching calls with Blue Engine. ?? Apply by February 21 here: https://lnkd.in/grjBCe2b Have additional questions? Get in touch with program head Kim Bode.