Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at around evening time by oso
It was social entrepreneur day at Stanford University on two Sundays ago as part of “Entrepreneurship Week” at Stanford. I wanted to go for a number of reasons. Global Voices is in the process of incorporating into its own Non-Governmental Organization. There are lots of NGO’s with weblogs, but I think we’re probably the first weblog to turn into an NGO [Update: nevermind]. And because we’re [almost] the first, we don’t have any other examples to look at for guidance as we form our bylaws and put together a board of directors.
Global Voices started as a project of the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School. Other funders included HIVOS, the MacArthur Foundation, and our main funder, Reuters. Each of those grants that keep the project going had to go through the messy bureaucracy of Harvard University which takes a small cut for “administrative” fees. We decided to roll out from the Berkman Center and become our own Non-Profit Organization so that we would have more flexibility in how we are funded and more structure in terms of how we are organized.
Like all non-profits, we discovered at the last Global Voices Summit that we have an abundance of great ideas and a lack of collective funding and personal time to get them done.
And so I arrived at the main hall of Stanford’s country club-like campus just in time for the “Financing Social Enterprises” panel with representatives from the Skoll Foundation, Good Capital, and the Draper Richards Foundation, all three funders of what they call “social entrepreneurs.” Behind the panelists, projected onto a giant screen, was Wikipedia’s definition of social entrepreneurship:
A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas business entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return, social entrepreneurs assess their success in terms of the impact they have on society. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors.
And all three panelists kept repeating the same philanthropy buzz phrases:
- large scale impact
- organizational and operational excellence
- long-term sustainability
It’s the last one that was met with a sigh every time a panelist muttered it. Funders these days want to cover the overhead costs of an organization. Then it’s up to the organization to find a way to pay its staff, cover its operational costs, P.R., and travel expenses. For Global Voices, sustainability means becoming a highly profitable blog. Here are some of the most profitable weblogs out there:
All of those blogs are from the Gawker Media network. They focus mostly on technology, gossip, and sex. The other profitable network of weblogs is Weblogs, Inc., which is more widely known for it’s $25 million purchase by AOL than any of its actual blogs. Still, if you look down the list, you’ll see they’re almost all related to technology or finance. And then of course there’s Boing Boing, “the world’s most popular weblog.” They are also profitable. And also focused on technology, gossip, and sex.
The obvious question is: can a blog focused on something other than technology, gossip, and sex support itself? And, for that matter, can international news support itself without the subsidies of front page headlines about X Celebrity’s Latest Affair? Most people think that Reuters as a highly profitable news agency. In fact, it’s an investor information company that uses its profits to subsidize money-losing ventures like Alertnet. The same is true at newspapers and magazines around the United States. Everyone agrees that international coverage is “important”, but that doesn’t mean people actually read it and it sure doesn’t mean that advertisers want to place their products nearby.
Most non-profits are exactly that (not for profit) because they provide a service that everyone agrees is useful and important, but that no one is willing to pay for. Which is why they depend on the gift economy and why the “self-sustainable non-profit” is an oxymoron.
Here’s a list of what I see as Global Voices’ options when it comes to funding other than grants. Please leave a comment if you can think of any other alternative(s):
- Ads (most the internet)
- Paid Archives (NYT)
- Subscriptions (Salon.com)
- Select Content (NYT Select)
- “Sponsors” (NPR)
- Donation (Wikipedia)
let’s talk more...
The public broadcasting system does it a little differently. It takes donations but offers membership gifts in return. The content remains free to the public, and the system is funded on the local level. Each local station pays dues to NPR and PBS for airing their programs. Those networks also sell sponsorships (branding without a direct sell message) to bring in a bit more.
In your case, there is no local station. Global Voices better fits the model as a network like Reuters. You’d have to package your content and sell it to someone. You’d need to be a news wire.
Otherwise, you could become a type of National Geographic online magazine. Push more photography and video media.
You could always sell Global Voices Cookies like the Girl Scouts.
This reminds me of the “Iron-Law of Oligarchy”:
Michels, Robert. 1915. “Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy.”
Among his ideas, is the fact that every organization’s primary concern, no matter how noble in its intentions, becomes its own survival. Michel felt that survival usually means compromising ideals.
I have no solutions for you (although I would buy Global Voices Cookies), but you need to consider what your priorities are and to what extent you are willing to compromise them: independence, dynamic perspectives, innovation, “market” share, etc.
My sister is a director of communications (read: head fund-raiser) for a non-profit in San Francisco (and has worked in the field, including some political campaigns, for quite some time). She might have better or more creative ideas. Let me know if you want me to put you in touch with her.
Hmmm. I think it might be more helpful if you think of them as “more than profit” organisations. Or social enterprises. There’s no reason why the social mission and financial sustainability can’t be combined (see Body Shop, Fair Trade coffee, Big Issue etc.).
Non-profit, strangely, doesn’t always mean the organisations aren’t making a profit (or surplus, in NGO speak) but just that they choose to reinvest any profits/surplus back in their work, rather than buying a Lear jet / having that holiday in Hawaii….
Far from being an oxymoron, these types of organisation are the future, as any forward-thinking CEO / venture philanthropist / charity director will tell you.
More Music - Less Blabbering
david, i share Nathan opinion… you could use the GV Network of people to “sindicate” Glocal content to networks, sites, or news agencies.
That could be not only a good source of revenue but a great way to give visbility to the people who contribute to GVO
Nathan,
I admit, I was way too simplistic about how NPR gets funding. In addition to donations, and “sponsorships” (ads), there is also federal funding (albeit less and less) and, like you say, the local affiliates.
I’m definitely a fan of the bake school business model. But seriously, I think you’re right - we need to start thinking about how we can package our content for other media. We do this loosely already, putting radio stations and newspapers in touch with bloggers we frequently link to, but we haven’t been good about pushing the GV brand beyond the internet.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism just recently rated GV as a “High Achiever” website:
Not surprisingly, the category that we ranked poorest on was “Revenue.” That’s because all of our revenue comes from grant-writing.
Xolo,
That’s exactly it: of course our primary concern is keeping the project going and in order to do so we have to figure out how to fund it without compromising our ideals and objectives. If we start charging for content in any way, then that’s content that we’re taking away from those who can’t afford it. Furthermore, much of GV’s “content” is actually just contextualization of what others have written. Which brings me around full circle: is there any way to fund new media besides grants and the pathetic amount of revenue that comes from online advertising?
SocialEntrepreurs,
I don’t mean to be offensive, but all I see in your comment are knee-jerk catch-phrases. Every corporation has always, to greater or lesser extent, been interested in social good just like every non-profit has always been interested in ensuring its financial survival. I don’t see anything new here.
Sparsh,
Soon man, soon.
Mariano,
I agree. It would be great, for example if El Clarín or The Week printed a weekly summary of what was written on Global Voices. But would they be willing to pay for it? And would it be ethical of us to accept money for it if most of what they are summarizing comes from bloggers themselves and not GV?
Perhaps a once-a-year webathon to solicit donations? We all have heard the campaigns on our local NPR stations that at times, guilt people into donating some cash. Global Voices has a lot of fans, but perhaps they don’t know how much we could benefit from some extra funds. During that week, GVO could have special coverage during that time.
We could also offer Global Voices membership, which would entail something, don’t really know what.
Either way, I think we could solicit funds from our many visitors.
two ideas Oso, neither of which is likely worth the electrons it’s written in…
- hold out until micropayments finally take over? (i still think it’ll happen someday, i’m just that kinda dreamer though
)
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980125.html
- a bit more seriously : Why not partner with the bloggers you profile? Push a bit of the impetus to make money onto them. You provide them with traffic / exposure, right? There’s a value there… like I’d have never found this cat -
http://dioceseofnorthernuganda.blogspot.com/
- if I hadn’t found him on globalvoicesonline. Ok! So… now he’s had a taste of some (quality!) traffic. Next time, you ask him for a small payment (or to place an ad on his page, or at least a friggin globalvoices link, or anything with value to you). Make sense? No way you make enough at first to fund the whole thing, BUT… on the other hand… what if?
good reading your blog again, it’s been way too long. Cheers amigo,
Coming to terms with this medium, it helps to look back.
The way, I have seen funded web logs emerge is through a proposal or pitch process. However, you are not limited to only one medium but can pitch it to Newspapers, magazines, T.V. and cable networks alike.
There is programing that will need to be filled as traditional mediums branch out to stay relevant. The unfortunate part is that the funding is going mainly to non-diverse men. So the problem of diversity even in the cyber sphere, has already emerged.
Found your site through Loteria Chicana, and really like the work you are doing here.
Suerte, lo
[...] commercial. I was invited to the first Economics of Social Media conference (EconSM) because of a post I wrote examining how serious online media sites (like Global Voices) can ensure financial [...]