A tactical, practical guide to implementing membership, including best practices, step-by-step advice, and case studies
Produced by the Membership Guide team. Published by the Membership Puzzle Project and the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, with support from Google News Initiative.
We needed to turn 3+ years of global research into a useful tool.
Membership had gained a lot of traction, but establishment of best practices was still nascent and U.S.-centric.
Our field scan revealed that:
There was little implementation-focused membership research out there
Case studies rarely followed a “try” long enough to see if it worked, and rarely dug into process enough for others to try it at home.
And then there was the pandemic.
The Membership Guide challenge
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Avoid abstractions. Focus on real-world insight and applicable knowledge for DOING membership.
Clearly differentiate membership strategies from donation and subscription strategies.
Address diversity, equity, inclusion, and privacy throughout, not as a standalone section.
Emphasize changes in editorial orientation required for creating robust membership programs.
Widen definitions of how members can contribute resources beyond money.
Guiding Principles prior to user research
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Six categories of users with distinct needs, constraints, and opportunities
Independent regional and single-subject nonprofit newsrooms
Small local newsrooms, likely digital native
Public media organizations (largely local NPR and APM affiliates)
Legacy metro dailies
BIPOC-run and focused newsrooms
Newsrooms with membership outside U.S. and Western Europe
User research process
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What does the word “membership” mean to you and to your organization?
What’s your role, and who held it before you?
Where does your role fit in the organizational structure?
How is membership performance measured?
What do you and your organization find most challenging about implementing membership?
We asked them questions such as…
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As publisher, [name] wants to know how to assess whether a “try” will be worth the investment before launching so that they can make smarter decisions about how to invest resources. They are looking for support in predictive analytics and user research.
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A few user research findings
They want to know the “right” way to staff their membership efforts.
They want to know what metrics to pay attention to. They understand there are few definitive answers, but hope to make more educated guesses.
They feel a tension between their commitment to equity and defining “member” as only those who pay.
They want to know if theirmedia market need to be a certain size or have a certain average income level for membership to be viable.
They want to know how to frame membership in countries where being a member is a political/anti-government statement.
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Review Committee recommendations
Clear advice on adaptation for single-person newsrooms
A more expansive definition of member
Deeper probing between the exclusiveness of membership and a commitment to inclusion and equity
Simpler advice on tech and benchmarks
A detailed, practical look at what it means to be a member-owner (a case study of cooperative ownership)
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Goals: What is the value proposition of MPP? What problem are you trying to solve? What is your primary goal? What is your secondary goal? What will success look like?
Competitors: What do you like about their work? What don’t you like?
Inspirations: What do you like about these inspirations?
Creative directions: What will this handbook offer? How do you want them to feel? What should this look like?
Design discovery process
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Problem to solve: Membership research and best practices remainpiecemeal, disjointed, and scattered across the internet. This handbook will bring essential knowledge into one container, designed approachably enough so newsrooms can educate themselves.
Primary goal: Create a modular membership handbook that allows users to chart their own journey. It should be an interactive tool rather than a static report, and it should help newsroomsfeel empowered to lead their own membership discovery and implementation, without a consultant.