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News Revenue Hub, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that helps news organizations build financial sustainability, has announced the launch of a pilot program partnership with the Diversity Pledge Institute (DPI), an organization helping newsrooms achieve greater diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility
The collaboration, open to newsrooms in the U.S. and Canada, will actively increase diversity and test and modify DPI’s Inclusive Journalism Survey through a collaborative process within the journalism industry — starting with NRH’s newsroom clients.
Participating publishers include Mountain State Spotlight, Carolina Public Press, Bethesda Beat, American Journalism Project/The Ohio Local News Initiative, and all Hub newsrooms involved in the pilot program will be connected to a pool of vetted candidates from the DPI network.
To help create lasting change within the industry, pilot participants will make three commitments: pledge to diversify their newsroom, participate in DPI wraparound services (including 360 check-ins for both hired journalists and hiring managers and help create inclusive job listings), and complete DPI’s inclusive journalism survey.
Across the industry, many newsrooms say they want their staff to be more diverse and represent the audiences they serve, but they don’t tend to walk the walk very well. That’s why the work of the Diversity Pledge Institute is so important—and why we’re so happy to partner with them to help our clients lead in this area.
Tristan Loper, News Revenue Hub Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer
Real inclusion means empowerment
In addition to helping newsrooms recruit candidates from diverse backgrounds, DPI will also provide the guidance and tools needed to improve internal policies and processes. This approach helps ensure people from diverse backgrounds are empowered in the workplace, and not just ‘included’.
Larry Graham, DPI Founder and veteran journalist, told WNIP that the pilot program will be scaled up if successful, “I’m a huge ‘Lean Startup’ fan, so we’re actually hoping to try multiple pilots for the Inclusive Journalism Survey with the hopes of measuring the results and learning what actually works best. In that regard, one of our secondary goals for the pilot is to improve what we’re already doing, only faster. In short, to learn how to scale.”
When it comes to finding good homes/newsrooms for journalists, we’ve already placed at least a dozen journalists this calendar year and provided hundreds with various degrees of emotional, financial and professional support.
Larry Graham, Founder, Diversity Pledge Institute
Headquartered in San Diego, The News Revenue Hub is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization funded by individual donations, member fees, and foundation grants. A few of its funders include The Democracy Fund, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, The John & Florence Newman Foundation, The Granada Fund and The Knight Foundation.
Christina Shih, Senior VP of Revenue, News Revenue Hub told WNIP, “We thoroughly vet each applicant before admitting them to the Hub. Because we do much of the heavy lifting, we expect partners to embrace a culture of experimentation, our recommendations, and the membership model of fundraising. We also choose partners based on their ability to leverage our economies of scale.”
For more information about the pilot program, interested publishers are invited to contact either the Diversity Pledge Institute or News Revenue Hub.
