Reader-Owned Co-ops: Pioneer Sustainable Web News Business Model
Banyan's the 1st self-sustaining & replicable Web-journalism business model thanks to innovative use of consumer co-op ownership
About You
About You
First Name
Tom
Last Name
Stites
Twitter URL
Facebook URL
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Banyan Project
Organization Website
Organization Country
United States
Country where this project is creating social impact
United States
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
1‐5 years
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Innovation
Entry Form title
Reader-Owned Co-ops: Pioneer Sustainable Web News Business Model
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Idea (you're poised to launch)
How long have you been in operation?
Still in idea phase, but looking to launch soon
THE NEED: Describe the need for your solution and the size/dynamic of the community (ies) you will engage
Original reporting of news is collapsing along with newspapers, and hopes that new Internet forms will save the day have foundered: No nonprofit or for-profit Web journalism business models to date have proven both self-sustaining and, like newspapers, replicable from community to community. As a result many communities – particularly less affluent ones – have become news deserts. Without news as nourishment, their civic engagement starves – as does the informed electorate that’s so crucial to the already withering U.S. democracy.
Banyan offers a lasting remedy – a co-op business model that can scale massively and serve news desert communities from coast to coast. The pilot site is poised to launch in Haverhill, Massachusetts, a middle-income city of 60,879 whose daily newspaper and radio station have folded. The pilot city fits Banyan’s mission: to serve and activate the voices and civic energy of the broad public, not just the upscale readers newspapers focus on.
THE SOLUTION: Please explain what your solution offers and how it is innovative. How will you put your solution into the hands of users or beneficiaries? Be specific!
Banyan co-ops will be engaging community institutions that can thrive in news deserts, filling civic voids with original news and features and other reliable information that underserved people need to make their best life and citizenship decisions. Banyan’s publishing software will fortify this journalism’s civic nourishment by offering networking space and easy-to-use tools for readers to join together to work on issues of mutual concern.
The model is built on the sturdy foundation of cooperative ownership. Each Banyan community will have its own democratically run co-op, owned only by members who live or work locally; each gets a vote, a share of profits, and receives other benefits [see supporting document]. Thus, community members will own Banyan sites the way that depositors own credit unions and shoppers own food co-ops.
This approach opens a revenue stream that’s now untapped by journalism in the U.S. – continuing small payments from co-op members. Such payments help fuel long-established reader-owned co-op newspapers in Italy, Germany, England and Mexico. What makes the Banyan model sustainable is adding this stream to revenue from advertising, crowdfunding and other smaller sources. Pioneering the co-op approach in the U.S. is Banyan’s most innovative, and crucial, aspect.
THE MODEL: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference through use of information technology and media
The consumer co-op, the most inherently trustworthy of ownership forms, is ideal for fulfilling Banyan’s value proposition: Readers will experience the journalism as relevant to their lives, respectful of them as people, and worthy of their trust. Staff editors will ensure that the journalism – and the community-connecting conversations that blossom in Banyan software – meets this standard. The journalism will be published at no cost to anyone, a service from a community institution.
Many readers will find enough value in their Banyan co-op’s impact on their lives and communities, and in an array of other benefits including a share in profits, that they’ll buy a voting co-op membership – thus providing revenue crucial to sustainability. That all members are readers, and that they elect the directors who hire the editors, means that the editors are accountable to readers in the community, not to distant corporate executives. This ensures that editors cover the news from the people up rather than follow the legacy media tradition, which is to make coverage decisions from the institutions and experts down. Thus Banyan co-ops produce relevant, respectful and trustworthy journalism of that’s extraordinary useful – and thus engaging and valuable – to the community and its people.
THE MARKETPLACE: Who are your peers and competitors? What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
Banyan is designed to serve communities where other news institutions have folded or weakened to the point that they no longer come close to meeting community needs. Due to collapsing newspapers, and to other Internet-driven advertising changes that undermine almost all legacy media, underserved communities abound. In Banyan’s pilot community of Haverhill, circulation of the only weekly newspaper, which is not locally owned, is small and declining fast.
Once Banyan has learned from sites in news-desert communities, it will turn to communities with stronger competition – many in big cities – to further serve the huge but ignored less-than-affluent American public.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
FOUNDING STORY: We want to hear about your “Aha!” moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution’s potential to change the world.
At a new media conference at MIT in 2008, a panellist used the term “value proposition” and I immediately began formulating one. In two minutes it was crystal clear: What people yearn for in journalism is relevance, respect and trustworthiness. My imagination quickly shifted to what it would take to create an entity that would reliably deliver on this. The co-op form leapt to mind – an inherently respectful and trustworthy form. Aha! The Banyan concept was born even before the panellist had stopped talking.
As Banyan’s concept has solidified to the point of launching a pilot, it’s become ever clearer that co-ops, which form only when a valued service is otherwise unavailable, may be the only Web journalism business model that can be sustainable in many communities today – especially communities of the less-than-affluent people who advertisers (and thus newspapers) don’t value; these are the news-desert communities that most need Banyan.
Specify both the depth and scale of your solution’s social impact to date
The pilot site has yet to launch so, to date, there is no direct impact. The Banyan concept, however, has made an impact in the national dialogue about the future of journalism.
Once operating, Banyan can be deeply helpful to individual readers by delivering life-issue journalism that’s relevant to their lives and families – for example, personal financial guidance for people with very little money – the kinds of issues that make people lose sleep at night.
It can also make a huge contribution to a community’s level of civic engagement, especially among the less-than-affluent public that’s now so ill-served by existing media. Further, as Banyan scales it has the potential to serve hundreds of thousands of ill-served people in communities from coast to coast.
What is your projected impact within the next 1-5 years? Is your idea replicable? If so, how?
Because Banyan’s business model is untried, reliable projections are impossible. Presuming that the pilot site proves sustainable, it will be the first Web journalism model that’s both sustainable and replicable – and that should attract people from many communities who’d like to adopt it or learn from it.
Banyan foresees a federation of community journalism co-ops that licenses sophisticated software, a centralized and automated back office for processing co-op payments, automated membership marketing, and other services to member sites. Thus it has the potential to scale massively.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and mark growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Over half of Haverhill’s households visit site regularly & more than 10% of the engaged households sign up for co-op membership
Six-Month Tasks
Task 1
Get array of Haverhill community institutions with significant constituencies to commit to continuing promotion of Banyan’s laun
Task 2
Complete first release of software and go live
Task 3
Complete multi-stage crowdsourcing project that delivers major article of significant constructive value to Haverhill community
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Pilot site will be self-sustaining, leading to funds to upgrade software so Banyan can scale & add 2 more start up sites
12-Month Tasks
Task 1
Deepen penetration of those who visit site to 80% of households & engage a growing percentage of them in civic networking
Task 2
Refine marketing to maximize co-op membership sales, crowd-funding response, community donor gifts, and ad sales
Task 3
Show continuous improvement in community news coverage and in life-issue features.
How many people have been impacted by your project?
Fewer than 100
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
Sustainability
Explain how your company, program, service or product is structured
Non-profit
What barriers have hindered the success of your project to date? How do you plan to overcome these and other challenges as you grow your solution?
Banyan fits no existing mold and major funding has been elusive. The Knight Foundation’s journalism program is undergoing strategic review; meanwhile, at the suggestion of the journalism program officer, I’m pursuing a Knight Community Information Challenge grant. As a result of a strategic program realignment, the Ford Foundation, which had expressed early interest, has ruled Banyan out. I’m just opening a dialogue with the Open Societies Foundation.
Community allies and I am are the process of raising local money for the Haverhill pilot; presuming that the site succeeds, major funding should be less of a challenge
How do you see the information-technology and media sectors shifting over the next decade? How will your solution adapt to and/or drive that changing environment?
I can only hope that in a decade Banyan will be only one of a handful of self-sustaining and replicable models for Web journalism; if not, the chances of rebuilding democracy are slim. Media will shift more and more to handheld devices. Revenue to support quality journalism will remain scarce.
Banyan’s sturdy co-op model will remain strong in relation to models that are heavily dependent on advertising; perhaps Banyan will inspire other co-op models
Failure is not always an option. If your solution fails to gain traction in the next two years, what other applications of the idea could you explore?
Should the Banyan co-op model prove unsustainable, the learnings from the effort will surely fuel further thought that leads to further models. As a public-spirited venture, Banyan will share its learnings with all who can put them to use, along with its open source software.
Expand on your selections, explaining how you will sustain funding
Banyan foresees six revenue streams for community co-op sites: 1) co-op members’ payments; 2) advertising, particularly sponsorships by local businesses; 3) crowd-funding; 4) foundation grants for specific reporting projects; 5) “friends” donations beyond basic membership payments, and 6) ancillary sales.
Once Banyan scales, licensing fees from co-ops will fund the non-profit federation.
Tell us about your partnerships
-Lead community partner is director of Haverhill’s community access cable channel
-Community supporters: library, college, businesses, Rotary Club, TeamHaverhill civic leadership group & the city’s social service agency.
-We are working to pursue a grant from the Essex County Community Foundation
-Other supporters: Banyan's distinguished 26-member advisory board; the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard; & Berkman’s Online Media Legal Network and Harvard Law School’s Transactional Law Clinic, which have provided much pro bono legal work.
What type of team (staff, volunteers, etc.) will ensure that you achieve the growth milestones identified in the Social Impact section?
Staff: A superb Web developer who is passionate about Banyan’s mission; a community facilitator with deep Haverhill roots and strong relational and organizing skills; a talented and resourceful editor/reporter who can work productively with crowdsourcing, community college interns, and community volunteers. Once the pilot is successful it will time to hire a CEO, a part-time financial officer and a vice-president to deal with possible site licenses for aborning co-ops in other communities.
Volunteers: Each co-op will make expansive use of volunteers.
Changemakers is a collaborative and supportive space. Please specify any community resources you would need to grow and sustain your initiative. Select all that apply
Investment, Human resources or talent, Marketing or media, Pro-bono help (legal, financial, etc.).
Specify any resources you might offer to support other initiatives. Select all that apply
Marketing or media, Research or information, Collaboration or networking, Innovation or ideas.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren’t specified within the list
Banyan’s founder and advisory board have amassed a deep trove of knowledge and even wisdom about journalism’s future and would happily share it with others pursuing sustainable business models that would strengthen democracy and civic engagement
Summary
Define your company, program, service or product in 1-2 short sentences
Banyan is a reader-owned Web journalism co-op that thrives in news deserts providing reliable info & nourishing civic engagement
Identify what is innovative about your solution in 1-2 short sentences
Banyan's the 1st self-sustaining & replicable Web-journalism business model thanks to innovative use of consumer co-op ownership
 | 35 weeks agoTom Stites submitted this idea. |
