2019-20 Annual Report of The Devil Strip Local News Cooperative

2019-20 Annual Report

photos from the inaugural annual meeeting of the devil strip local news co-op by ashley kouri

"I

don't care who runs akron. just so somebody runs it.

IT'S TOO IMPORTANT T O B E L E F T A L O N E ."

— John S. Knight, akron beacon journal publisher

(but what if we all could help run it?)

2019-2020 ANNUAL REPORT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

02

our mission and purpose

04

founder's notes

05

Meet our Staff

08

our plans for 2020...

10

the pandemic pivot

11

Member Drive 2020

06

Meet our founding Board

12

Community Partnerships

07

2020 Financial picture

13

what's next for tds?

Photo from signal tree fest 2019 by ashley kouri

OUR MISSION & PURPOSE

THE DEVIL STRIP ANNUAL REPORT

WHY DOES THE DEVIL STRIP

E X I S T ?

Our mission is to help more people care more about Akron and everyone who lives here.

that's because Our purpose is to make this a better place to live by building community with our neighbors.

HOW WE MEET OUR MISSION:

#1

WE HELP YOU UNDERSTAND OUR CITY Investigative reporting is important, which is why we do it. But akron is bigger than its problems. we focus on local arts, culture, music and entrepreneurship to give you a more complete picture.

#2

WE HELP YOU FIND YOUR PEOPLE humans are wired to connect, and stories are a great way to do it. we work hard to show you what's cool and inspiring around akron because that's where you find the most unique people — and we want you to meet!

#3

WE HELP YOU GET INVOLVED information is important, but if we want to see real and lasting change, more people have to do their part — in ways big and small — to help make life better for ourselves and our neighbors in Akron.

what we owe to each other This is what community looks like.

by Chris Horne, founder & President nnyw enahs yb otohP

Let’s start here:

We want to make life better in Akron.

That’s our goal, and it’s the foundation of The Devil Strip’s purpose, mission and work. From the very beginning, this great and meaningful but really vague aspiration became the common ground where likeminded people have met as readers, contributors, staff, clients, partners and now, member-owners.

If you want life to become better here, you’re one of us, even if you don’t know it yet. (Tell your friends.)

Our really vague goal remains unrefined, and that is about to change.

Of course we know a lot about who we are, what we do and what matters to us. We publish stories about Akron and the people who make it unique. If that were the goal we set for ourselves, we’d be doing well.

But you’re here because we set our sights higher. If we’re serious about making life better here, we need to be serious about understanding what that means and what our role is in it.

This past year put everything in a blender, and that’s enough reason itself to step back to understand what Akron and its people need from us now.

The “we” and “our” here can’t just be our staff and board. It has to include you, our members, too.

There hasn’t been a better time to do this.

Our team has produced our best work to date on the page and behind the scenes, despite several of them joining us in the early days of the pandemic and facing those challenges ever since.

Our membership has doubled, and we’re getting more input. Our founding board laid the foundation for a stronger organization so we can support our mission to serve.

We just have to establish what that service means for us going forward as a whole—not just for our journalism but in all aspects of what we do.

With six new board members and a new editor-inchief coming, we have the opportunity to reset from the past, disorientating 15 months.

It will be complicated because we’re all coming from different places and will differ on what exactly “better” means. Even as we define that, we’ll debate the who, what, how and even the why.

Bringing this many people together with so many voices and perspectives will get messy.

But if we keep coming back to that shared goal, we’ll get there. Together.

And that’s kind of the whole point.

YOurs, for akron —

2019-20 Workers

the devil strip staff

assembly

Meet the 2020 team

Aja Hannah Andrew Leask Anthony Boarman Bill Stone Brittany Nader Bronlynn Thurman Charlee Harris

Chris Horne

Rosalie Murphy

Floco Torres

Charlotte Gintert

Founder & CEO

Editor-in-Chief

Audience Development Director

Chris Zacheese Claude Christensen Dave Daly Emily Dressler Heather Braun Ilenia Pezzaniti Jessica Cherok Josy Jones Justin Phillips

Jessica Goldbourn

Anna Adelman

Sonia Potter

Membership Director

Client Solutions Director

Digital Media Manager

Noor Hindi

H.L. Comeriato

Abbey Marshall

Reporter,

Reporter,

Reporter,

Equity & Inclusion

Public Health

Economic Development

Chris Harvey

Allyson Smith

Derek Kreider

Art Director

Client Solutions

Distribution Manager

& writer-at-large

& writer-at-large

Keeven White Ken Evans Kris Morrison Kyle Cochrun Lisa Kane Marc Lee Shannon Mark Schweitzer Marissa Marangoni Megan Combs Meghan Goetz Nic DeCourville Nick Petroski Robin Stevens Sandy Maxwell Shane Wynn Shannon Wasie Sophie Franchi Steve van Auken Svetla Morrison Ted Lehr Yoly Miller Zaire Talon Daniels the workers assembly are community members who earned a lifetime share as co-owners through their contributions.

OUR COMMITMENT “We want the community to understand that we're more than just a print magazine, and that our intention is to be more. ...I think it's intimidating for people to reach out to a news organization, but we’re just people, we’re actual people behind the screen — normal people. We’re here to serve the community. They own part of the magazine and if they want input, they can contact us, and we want them to feel comfortable enough to do that."

— jessica goldbourn

OUR WORK “We’re trying to expose readers who don’t come into contact with folks who are living in unsafe conditions or who are unemployed. In a time when we can’t interact or meet with people, this is a way to make people understand how policy, or what the city is doing, affects people’s actual lives, especially if they aren’t people that run in your circle or people that you would just meet."

— Abbey Marshall

OUR VISION "Covering public health during this pandemic has made me rethink our relationship to journalism and how we can better do this work in community with people. ...After a year, I also have a much clearer vision of how to do this work equitably and not just my work in terms of journalism, but to do the community work we do as an organization equitably."

— H.L. Comeriato

ADAPTING TO THE NEW ABNORMAL “We would have been outside a lot more, talking to people on the ground. I think that we pushed the Neighborhood Outreach Plan that Rosie led, but I think that we would have implemented that a lot earlier rather than waiting until 2021, and I would hope to believe that would have helped us with the member campaigns little more because we would have had boots on the ground and not have to do everything virtually,” — floco torres

OUR SUCCESS “Just considering the way that our numbers grew, from a data-driven point of view, we did really well. The newsletter more than doubled in size. Our social media followers went way up. I think that everything that I set out to do with advice from Rosie and Floco and Chris and everybody, I think it panned out really well."

— sonia potter

ROOM TO GROW “I would have wanted to meet in person with the sales team and talk about who our clients are currently, who we want to add, how we can get there, and start getting out into the community to meet those folks face-to-face and start building relationships with them — and also strengthening the relationships we have with people already.”

— anna adelman

FOUNDING BOARD OF DIRECTORS it's already hard enough to do something no one else has attempted, but throw a global pandemic in the mix and the task seems impossible. shortly after our member-owners elected our founding board of directors, the world shut down and made the challenge of organizing, formalizing and overseeing the nation's first local news co-op that much harder. so we thank the directors not just for their commitment and work but also their perseverance.

Audrey Worthington

Philathia Bolton

Sharetta Howze

Board Chair

Vice-Chair

Secretary

Rita Kelly Madick

Hillary Stewart

Dominic Moore-Dunson

Interim Treasurer

Past Treasurer

Working Artist Seat

April Couch

Emily Dressler

Bhakta Rizal

Small Business Seat

Workers assembly Seat

Member-at-large

2019-20 Annual Report

BEST

LAID

PLANS...

how we thought 2020 would go

by Allyson Smith + Chris Horne

to understand how we handled the pandemic, it helps to know what we planned for 2020 as The Devil Strip evolved into a co-op. our flexibility as a team helped as we made adjustments to serve our mission, our readers and members.

FOUNDING BOARD OF DIRECTORS

We planned an in-person retreat for mid-March 2020 to get our newly elected directors acquainted with each other and our team, learn more about TDS culture and set an agenda for the year, including an outline for drafting the bylaws with a roadmap for the transition to cooperative governance. Instead, they never were in the same room together, but still managed to do all the big things—just with a few more headaches because it was all through Google Docs and video calls.

MEMBERSHIP

Building on the 2019 Member Drive, Jessica Goldbourn developed a retention and recruitment plan that would create new ways to help connect members to each other through in-person meet-ups organized around shared interests—like movie nights at The Nightlight, beer tastings at local breweries or conversations with artists and performers after their shows.

By making our membership more of a service to Akronites that could stand on its own, we planned to attract more people to support The Devil Strip's journalism. The more member-supported we become, the less we have to rely on grants and advertising, which makes us even more independent than we already are.

EDITORIAL & AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT

With our members' support, we committed to growing as a local news outlet that regularly produces deep, thoughtful reporting on weighty issues that our readers made clear are important to them.

We formed a reporting collaborative on housing issues with the Beacon Journal, WKSU, NewsChannel5, the Center for Investigative Reporting and Your Voice Ohio.

In June 2020, we welcomed two full-time journalists through Report for America —

2019-20

ANNUAL

REPORT

EDITORIAL & AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT, CON'T

Abbey Marshall and H.L. Comeriato—and Noor Hindi came aboard full-time after years of contributing as a writer and editor.

In March 2020, we added four part-time staff—Sonia Potter (Digital Media), Chris Harvey (Art Director) and Derek Kreider (Distribution)—to help us reach more Akronites, make our print and digital products shine, and improve our print delivery.

Our Editor-in-Chief, Rosalie Murphy, built "Spring Training" as a five-week, inperson program to equip Akronites who wanted to learn how to practice journalism.

She and our Audience Development Director, Floco Torres, also crafted a Neighborhood Outreach Plan to shine the light on the parts of town that don't get the love they deserve.

ADVERTISING & CLIENT SERVICES

Anna Adelman joined the team in March 2020 to stabilize our sales program, but with the on-set of the pandemic, her plans had to change. She's the key to making sure our revenue activities align with our mission to serve Akron the way our journalism already does. The Community Partnerships Program (below) is part of our pivot as one way we answer the question: How do we work with companies and organizations that have the means but don't feel the need to advertise with us?

The CPP is a focus on reciprocal relationships with community partners by first understanding what they need so we can do more than sell them ads. The goal is to help our partners connect with our readers and members to increase Akron's social capital by helping them all connect to one another.

COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY

PARTNERS

LEADERS

CATALYSTS

print + web recognition needs + digital audit job board listings highlighted business directory profile magazine subscription Discounted ad rates

$200/qtr or $600/yr

2019-20

ANNUAL

REPORT

partner level perks, plus:

leader level perks, plus:

as an underwriter, you make

you give partner perks +

our reporting possible

ad credits to 10 or more

Logo + message in section

local small businesses +

"why we support TDS"

nonprofits of your choice.

story on our social media

annual report listing

$400/mo or $4000/yr

starts at $10,000/yr.

2020 BY THE NUMBERS

are either nonprofits or small locally-owned businesses

12.7% advertising revenue

based in the greater Akron area — And their budgets were all hammered by the pandemic.

As such, Understandably, our advertising revenue dropped to about 20% of our initial

13.2% membership revenue

expectations, a trend that lasted for several months.

late in 2019, we received a two-year $200,000 investment from the knight foundation

0202 ni eunever

only works with clients that

latot fo % sa

the devil strip intentionally

74% grant + donor revenue

that they allowed us to use for general operating support

we grossed $1,135 from merch sales in 2020

in spring 2020.

that, coupled with a $18,252 ppp loan, which has since been forgiven, and a $35,000 grant from the Summit Co. COVID-19 Arts and Culture Emergency Grant Relief Fund, helped keep

+52.4% more new members joined during 2020 member drive compared to 2019

our team intact so we could continue pursuing our mission as we worked to pivot.

+39.7% gross revenue increase during 2020 member drive over 2019 member drive

2020 BY THE NUMBERS BUDGET NOTES:

2020: added three full-time reporters, two full-time non-editorial staff and

Staff

three part-time revenue-supporting staff

grants

Facebook grant required spending on membership program marketing that had to be used by dec. 31, 2020 and won't repeat in 2021

clients

revenue and distribution were limited by closures during the pandemic so we developed community partnerships program to attract new revenue in 2021.

LARGEST EXPENSE CATEGORIES

Staff Payroll (56.2%) Freelancers (19.5%) Print & Marketing (11.1%) Operations (8.5%) Office + Software (4.7%) $0

$50,000

$100,000

$150,000

$200,000

Operations includes legal, bookkeeping, intern, subscription and bank costs.

philanthropic financial support for a full breakdown of all philanthropic support, visit thedevilstrip.com/our-donors

2019

2020

$2,500 - Considine Family Fund

$7,500 - Akron Community Foundation

$5,000 - Maynard Family Foundation

$34,400 - Report for america

$50,000 - GAR Foundation

$18,252 - PPP Loan (Forgiven)

$200,000 - knight foundation

$100,000 - facebook journalism project

$22,000 - NewsMatch

(via Lenfest Foundation)

$35,000 - county of summit gov't (COVID-19 Arts and Culture Emergency Grant)

prior to 2021, the devil strip didn't have a formal budget so the founding board established a process for the rest of this year to provisionally approve the budget every two months as a way to monitor our revenue and expenses as we navigate the uncertainty of both the ongoing pandemic and our new revenue efforts while we learn how to make the 2022 budget.

2021

REVENUE GROWING IN 2021 despite concerns the pandemic would dampen our 2020

financial

member drive, both total new members and revenue nearly doubled over 2019's numbers thanks to membership director jessica goldbourn, audience

overview

development director floco torres and his team.

member rev.

recurring

2019

$28,272

$3,194/mo.

2020

$55,157

$4,367/mo.

change:

+95.1%

+36.7%

that growth has continued thus far into 2021 even though we've had significant problems with the membership tech stack that we're replacing in q2.

through april 30, 2021 2021 total 2021 recurring

change $14,287

+61.9%

$5,129/mo.

+17.4%

jessica collaborated with digital media manager sonia potter and contributing writer allyson smith to spark more quarter-to-quarter growth.

Membership

Q1 2020

Q1 2021

change

$7,545

$10,880

+44.2%

Q1 2020

Q1 2021

change

$5,140

$22,773

+343.1%

advertising

client services director anna adelman's hard work has paid off as advertising revenue has grown almost 4.5x

2021

over the same period last year, and we have only just launched our newest revenue effort, the community partnership program.

just like membership and client services, our online readership has continued increasing, which we expect will lead further revenue growth throughout 2021.

audience growth Q1 2020

Q1 2021

change

44,882 users

67,692 users

+50.8%

56,748 sessions

90,108 sessions

+58.8%

162,543 pvs

265,876 pvs

+63.6%

2021 PROVISIONAL BUDGET Projected expenses FTE Staff Payroll = 69.3% of budget freelancers = 14.6% of budget Operations: 6.8% of budget print & marketing: 5.7% of budget Projected revenue mix client services = 34% of budget memberships = 29.3% of budget grants & donors = 35.1% of budget merch & events = 1.6% of budget

financial overview