Report

The future of Philadelphia local news: Lessons from the Philadelphia Local News Sustainability Initiative

How revenue diversification, audience growth, leadership stability, and AI are shaping the future of local journalism

By Shawn Mooring

March 17, 2026

In 2023, The Lenfest Institute launched the Philadelphia Local News Sustainability Initiative, a two-year effort to help local news organizations strengthen business models, grow audiences, and build long-term sustainability.  

Eighteen for-profit and nonprofit news organizations from the Philadelphia area received core operating support or capacity-building funding. In addition, many of the participating news organizations received short-term consulting advice through the Lenfest Expert Network, which focused on operational strategy, revenue development, search engine optimization, and financial modeling. 

The news enterprises that participated in the Sustainability Initiative were:

• African Cultural Alliance of North America
• Billy Penn
• Chestnut Hill Local
• Generocity
• FunTimes Magazine
• Kensington Voice
• Love Now Media
• Newspaper Media Group
• Impacto Media
• Philadelphia Gay News
• PhillyCAM
• Metro Philly
• Technical.ly Media
• The Philadelphia Citizen
• The Philadelphia Tribune
• Trace Media Inc.
• Spotlight Delaware
• WURD Radio

The Sustainability Initiative wrapped up at the end of 2025, and we are using insights and lessons from the publishers to continue to inform our work. We’ll announce additional support for Philadelphia outlets soon, but the publishers’ experiences — from breakthrough growth to structural pivots — offer actionable insights for news organizations and funders in Philadelphia and beyond.  

Here are some of our top insights for both publishers and funders:  

Revenue diversification: From experiment to operational strategy

The strongest-performing newsrooms did not simply test new revenue ideas — they embedded them in their core operations. 

Across the cohort, organizations: 

• Strengthened or launched membership programs 
• Secured major gifts and sponsorships 
• Introduced recurring revenue events 
• Clarified advertising products 
• Invested in digital publishing infrastructure 

In several cases, newsrooms exceeded revenue targets by combining reader revenue, sponsorship, and event income. For example, The Trace generated more than $100,000 in net new revenue from its inaugural Safer Together Forum, an event discussing innovative gun violence prevention strategies amid a changing political landscape, demonstrating how mission-aligned events can both deepen community engagement and create a durable earned revenue stream. 

Impacto Media professionalized its advertising infrastructure and grew its monthly ad revenue by about 52% — surpassing its original targets and validating demand for bilingual community journalism. 

Publishers were also able to operationalize their revenue diversification by assigning clear ownership over projects, establishing actionable metrics, and developing repeatable systems to turn experiments into sustainable income. 

Actionable step for newsrooms: Conduct a 90-day revenue audit. Identify your top three revenue streams and assign a clear owner to each, choose targeted key performance indicators and introduce a monthly review process. 

Actionable step for funders: Provide multi-year general operating support that allows news organizations to invest in revenue staffing, CRM systems, and product development — not only editorial projects. 

From reach to revenue: User traffic alone can’t sustain a news organization 

Audience growth does not automatically translate into revenue growth.

Several outlets expanded newsletters and social reach significantly, but their revenue remained flat as monetization opportunities were not directly connected to audience strategy.  

Traffic without monetization does not translate to business sustainability. The publishers that saw success tied their audience growth to membership conversion, event opportunities, advertising, sponsorships, and donor cultivation.   

The Philadelphia Citizen, for example, significantly expanded its social following and engagement but maintained flat annual revenue, underscoring the need to better connect audience growth to monetization. Other organizations like Spotlight Delaware were able to tie audience growth directly to membership conversion and sponsorship packaging. 

Actionable step for newsrooms: Select one primary audience channel and document its revenue conversion pathway. Track conversion metrics (e.g., newsletter-to-member rate) monthly. 

Actionable step for funders: When evaluating proposals, ask grantees to identify the monetization pathway tied to audience growth. Consider funding experiments focused on revenue conversion, not just reach. 

Stable leadership drives sustainability  

Leadership transitions — publisher departures, board restructuring, ownership changes — often slowed revenue momentum. 

Stable leadership teams were better positioned to execute longer-term revenue strategies, build innovative cultures, and iterate as needed for success. Sustainable local news organizations require governance stability and leadership continuity. 

For example, Kensington Voice recognized that sustainability required funded leadership capacity and began exploring a shared-services model rather than attempting to scale without necessary infrastructure. By contrast, organizations like The Trace and Spotlight Delaware, with stable leadership and defined strategic direction, were able to execute multi-quarter growth strategies effectively. 

Financial strategy alone cannot compensate for organizational disruption. 

Actionable step for newsrooms: Create a written leadership continuity and succession plan that protects key revenue relationships and clarifies decision-making authority. 

Actionable step for funders: Fund leadership development, executive coaching, and board governance strengthening as core sustainability investments. 

AI can help build operational efficiency   

Artificial intelligence adoption emerged as a major theme across the Sustainability Initiative as participating publishers experimented with AI tools for SEO optimization, automation, project management, and more. Half of the newsrooms integrated AI into operational workflows, while others are exploring ethical implementation strategies.  

The most effective AI use cases focused on efficiency and workflow modernization — not replacing journalists. For example, Technical.ly Media built custom GPT tools to assist with SEO-optimized headlines, development of key objectives, and data analysis. WURD used AI-informed workflows to improve cross-department collaboration. Philadelphia Gay News leveraged AI-based newsletter tools to improve engagement and streamline operations. 

These strategies help resource-strapped newsrooms save time, improve efficiency, and redirect staff capacity toward revenue and audience strategy. As AI becomes part of the infrastructure in modern newsrooms, adoption should be intentional, transparent, and aligned with editorial standards. 

Actionable step for newsrooms: Pilot AI in one repetitive workflow for 30 days. Measure time saved and reinvest that capacity into revenue or audience strategy. 

Actionable step for funders: Support AI capacity-building grants that fund training, policy development, and ethical implementation frameworks. 

Targeted consulting accelerates results

Some newsrooms paired grant funding with tactical consulting advice through the Lenfest Expert Network, The Lenfest Institute’s cost-free consulting service. 

Engagements focused on a broad range of topics from financial modeling to leadership transitions, to experiments with social video, to audience development. News organizations that combined capital deployment with targeted consulting expertise moved more quickly from strategy to implementation.  

Through participation in the Lenfest Expert Network, we saw Generocity clarify its revenue positioning and add new revenue streams; Technical.ly Media refined its sponsorship underwriting model and advertising packaging; and Philadelphia Gay News launched its first reader revenue program in its 50-year history after participating in BlueLena Academy, which helps publishers monetize their newsletters.  

One of our key lessons, and one that should resonate with other funders, is that journalism funding is most effective when paired with operational support. 

Actionable step for newsrooms: Define a narrow 90-day objective before engaging consultants to ensure measurable outcomes. 

Actionable step for funders: Build structured capacity-building funds that bundle grants with access to vetted expert networks. 

Structural pivots and strategic adaptation

Not every experiment scaled. Some news enterprises faced revenue declines, governance instability, or unsuccessful product-market tests.  

Each newsroom took the challenges head-on. In response, they explored shared services models, adjusted staffing structures, explored becoming a nonprofit, or abandoned underperforming initiatives.

Newspaper Media Group tested language translation efforts, but data showed they would not drive engagement, and the team adjusted accordingly. Kensington Voice shifted from pursuing independent nonprofit status to exploring a shared-services model. WURD restructured its audience support model in response to political and economic headwinds. 

Pivoting does not equal failure. In fact, nimble strategic flexibility and a willingness to course correct is essential for organizational sustainability.  

Actionable step for newsrooms: Conduct an annual “Stop Doing” review. Reallocate resources from underperforming initiatives to higher-impact efforts. 

Actionable step for funders: Normalize adaptive planning and support strategic reassessment without penalizing data-informed pivots. 

A bright future for local news in Philadelphia 

Local news sustainability does not derive from a single breakthrough. It is the cumulative result of operational clarity, disciplined experimentation, and community-centered growth. 

We’re proud that the Sustainability Initiative has helped empower local publishers to build diversified revenue streams, monetize audience growth, build cultures of innovation, leverage AI tools to support their work, and, most importantly, continue to serve their communities with independent journalism.  

As this work continues, we are committed to sharing lessons that strengthen news, local publishers, and journalism funders nationwide.