Resources

An About Us page highlights your mission statement and company values, plus any other information that will help people understand who you are and what you’re building. Here are some examples:

A Contact Us page explains how readers, advertisers, and other stakeholders can get in touch with you as an organization and/or as individual staff members. Examples:

A media kit summarizes your audience demographics and product offerings for advertisers and other prospective clients or partners. Examples:

A business plan and pitch deck can help you explain your business idea to funders, partners, and other potential stakeholders. Here are examples of two business pitch decks and a business plan:

If you are launching your business with another person, a founders’ agreement will help you set clear, detailed, and legally enforceable expectations for how you’ll share ownership and decision-making authority. You should hire a lawyer to review whatever you agree to together, but this guide from the University of Pennsylvania's Carey Law School can help you get started.

The legal process and requirements for founding a business vary between countries and states, but online services such as NOLO can help you navigate those complexities and find resources specifically for your situation.

The Current shared this scope of work contract that it uses with its advertisers.

The Beacon shared this agreement that it uses with freelancers and other independent contractors.

City Bureau’s Harry Backlund created this budget template for a LION Skills Series.

The Google News Initiative’s free data tools help news organizations make data-driven business and editorial decisions.

WhereBy.Us’s Rebekah Monson created research templates to help with three types of user research: interviews, surveys and usability tests.

The Membership Puzzle Project created a library of more than 70 possible survey questions to ask your current or prospective readers.

The GNI Reader Revenue Playbook helps established digital news publishers develop and refine a strategy for earning revenue from its audience.

The Membership Puzzle Project’s Membership Guide helps established digital news publishers design, launch, and grow a successful membership program.

The Trusting News Project collected dozens of examples of how newsrooms built trust with their readers through audience engagement and education.

Consultant Emma Carew Grovum wrote a post on how to be an ally in the newsroom and created this template to think about what allyship looks like for an individual and for a newsroom.

OpenNews published a series of posts detailing how newsrooms “hacked” their hiring process.

The Institute for Nonprofit News offers specific resources for starting a nonprofit newsroom in its Startup Guide.

When COVID-19 hit, the Project Oasis team created a template to help publishers answer the question, "What steps can you take to maximize cash and, thereby, extend as long a time frame as possible that you’ll be able to operate during the crisis?" Here’s how to use this template.

Townsquare Media offers a detailed guide on leveraging broadcast radio to launch standalone local news sites.

A comprehensive recap of the inaugural GNI Startups Lab in North America, which documents the learnings and strategies which the graduated publishers are using to build their businesses.

A comprehensive recap of the inaugural GNI Startups Lab in Europe, which documents the learnings and strategies which the graduated publishers are using to build their businesses.