Deadline: 2-Mar-22
The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) has announced the applications for the Elevate: Helping News Businesses Thrive Programme.
Elevate, ICFJ´s news business hub, is a mind-changing global program focused on helping C-level journalists who are running small and medium-sized media outlets develop their business skills so that their newsrooms can become sustainable and grow.
The program is a “real-life MBA.” It is an opportunity for journalists to learn from global business executives and to receive funding, all with the purpose of taking their operations to the next level.
How it works?
Elevate is focused on solving news business problems that might be keeping media organizations from growing. The initiative will help participants by supporting their development in four tracks:
- Business Strategy
- Operations and Finance
- Technology and New media
- Communications and Marketing
Phases
- Knowledge sprint: During the first eight weeks, participants will attend weekly sessions on the four pillars of the program and, with the support of experienced mentors, will confirm that the issue they brought to be solved in the program is the most important (and needed) for their media outlets.
- Mentorship phase: For five months, participants will meet their mentors and come up with strategies to overcome the problem each one of them decided to address during the program. ICFJ will provide five top-notch sessions, with international specialists who will enlighten participants on how to better make business decisions.
- Grant phase: After the first month of mentorship, participants will be able to apply for grant funding to develop business solutions. ICFJ has up to US$100,000 available at this stage (individual proposals shouldn’t exceed US$25,000).
Who should participate?
- Elevate is right for you if:
- You are an executive in a small or medium-sized media outlet (C-level) and fully dedicated to it
- Your media outlet has been active for at least two years and has at least two people on staff
- Your media outlet has at least one active revenue streamline
- You are 100% focused on finding ways to turn your media outlet into a sustainable initiative
- You can easily point out at least one business problem your outlet faces today
- You are ready to commit to an eight-month program and dedicate up to four hours per week to it in the first two months and one hour per week in the last six months
- Elevate is perfect for you if you have fulfilled the previous definitions and if…
- You feel overloaded with business decisions and are struggling to delegate
- You have lost opportunities because you just didn’t have certain business skills
- Your competition has stolen your great idea and is thriving or you can’t keep up with your competition
- You’ve lost staff because your outlet doesn’t have a clear career policy or your salaries/benefits are poor
- You’re being publicly recognized (for good or bad) and don’t have a plan to handle it or profit from it
- You never thought you needed a legal team, but now you wish you had one
- You aren’t sure about your branding, your logo
- You learned that you are not charging enough for your products
- You feel you aren’t good in negotiations
- You are analyzing the odds of adding a new partner, a venture fund, or might be thinking of selling your brand/company/initiative
- You know how important it is to gather and track data to inform your decisions, but are not sure how best to do it
Eligibility Criteria
- Applicants can be from any country (this is a global program)
- Small or medium-sized media outlets only
- Applicants must have C-level positions and be fully dedicated to the initiative
- Media outlet must be officially active for at least two years
- Media outlet must have at least two people on staff (C-level + 1)
- Media outlet has at least one active revenue stream
- Applicants must be 100% focused on finding ways to turn their media outlet into a sustainable initiative
- The problem the media outlet is struggling with must be related to one of the 4 areas Elevate is dedicated to solving.
- Applicant must be ready to commit to a seven-month program and dedicate up to four hours per week to it in the first two months (May-Jun) + one hour per week in the last five months (Jul-Nov)
- Applicant must be fluent in English (spoken and written)
For more information, visit https://www.icfj.org/elevate