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THREAD: We hosted the final (!) Engaged Journalism Accelerator event #EELive19 a few weeks ago: 90 practitioners from 60+ community-driven news orgs in 20+ countries. The focus was 'building resilience'. So what do we mean by that? https://medium.com/we-are-the-european-journalism-centre/five-essential-ingredients-to-make-your-community-driven-journalism-more-resilient-acd0a0d4b38f /1
Resilience = the ability of an org to not only sustain its current work & fulfil a demand or need for content from its community, but also make a profit and/or grow over time, & adapt quickly to changes & exploit new market opportunities https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SBiII_VzNJAfHSHJHRU5bbuO03AJbesapw9DOLhjTZI/edit?usp=sharing /2
In the last 18 months of working with engaged journalism practitioners, we’ve identified 5 ‘key ingredients’ (internal & external) that make for resilient community-driven news orgs. We explored them in detail through 5 masterclasses at #EELive19 https://medium.com/we-are-the-european-journalism-centre/five-essential-ingredients-to-make-your-community-driven-journalism-more-resilient-acd0a0d4b38f /3
Leadership: building and leading teams in a way that recognises people's motivations, their individual skills and strengths, and the wider context of their work and the organisation. Leadership as a service to your staff /4
An internal culture of collaboration & participation: does your org work in an open, collaborative environment? Do employees feel like they can contribute to decision-making, business development and other processes, regardless of seniority or expertise in a certain area? /5
Pathways for participation: how can community members get involved in your work? E.g contribution section, a community council, an online platform, events. If you provide value and incentives, your supporters can become the best advocates for your work /6
Product thinking: Identify a problem/challenge your users have that your org could solve for them. What can you deliver that users will want to pay for (or also support in non-financial ways)? E.g a web app people can use to check their eligibility for a govt subsidy /7
Reader revenue: There are many ways you could ask people to give you money (membership, crowdfunding, community shares etc). Before you ask, consider the relationship you have with your community, the value you offer, who your competitors (and allies/partners) are /8
At #EELive19, participants went deeper into these ingredients to identify the next steps for their orgs. You can download & use all the templates used in the masterclasses, + other resources from @AmPress, @opennews, @membershippzzle, @lenfestinst https://engagedjournalism.com/news/engagement-explained-live-building-resilience-resources /9
I’m very grateful to our amazing #EELive19 facilitators – @zziomecka, @ZahraDavidson, @cecook, @rishadist and Przemek Gawrónski – for delivering these 5 sessions in a thoughtful and hands-on way, that gave folks actionable insights to apply back in their orgs /10
We are excited to follow the progress of participants in the next months, and we will continue to develop & add to these ingredients based on what we learn from engaged journalism orgs. You can sign up to the Accelerator community for updates 
https://engagedjournalism.com/join /end
https://engagedjournalism.com/join /end
