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Date: September 25th, 2009
Cate: Current Affairs, Journalism Theory/Analysis
4 msgs

Dear Warren Hellman

Dear Warren

You already know the setup: Today the Bay Area media scene just gained an 800lb gorilla. The news broke last night by the Bay Guardian was known by some a little earlier and had been expected for months. Details from The New York Times and Paid Content. Steve Katz and Alan Mutter chime in as well.

ba-hardly05_ph_h_0499243317Let me be the first blogger to tip my hat to you. Major kudos. There are a lot of folks with as much money as you – but they don’t give it back to their community the way you have. Nobody can argue that giving 5 million to start a nonprofit news organization is anything but classy. You rock!

A few months ago some of your consultants contacted me for advice. They reached out to many of my new media friends as well. Since my advice was solicited for two afternoons in that stage, I thought I’d continue and discuss the potentials that are ahead of you and the pitfalls that surround your path.

  • Build something new: You could very easily duplicate the SF Chronicle. We’d be a “two-paper” town again. But that would not accomplish anything in the long run. You’d have a failing business model. You’d be better off just donating 5 million to NPR, KQED or some other existing nonprofit and get it over with. I don’t think that’s what you want. You are bold. Imagine the SF Chronicle with an earnest citizen journalism effort to enhance their reporting. You can build that from the ground up. ProPublica had the wisdom to hire my friend and colleague Amanda Michel to tackle distributed reporting efforts. I suggest you do the same here on the West coast. Don’t be a flat news organization – by dynamic.
  • Hire new blood: The advice of old white men is great, but not as relevant as you might think. You want to make sure to be as diverse as the Bay Area itself in race, gender and age. Also: Hire people that think web first. Don’t just scoop up laid off newspaper reporters looking for a life line. So far, I think you are hiring a good and diverse core – keep it up!
  • If you do Fundraising: From what I understand you are going to do community fundraising. Hey, I know all about that space. If you ever want to do community funded reporting for projects – consider Spot.Us an ally (we will do it for you). If you are a closed organization, (which would be a pity – see advice below), you can go ahead and steal our code. You’ll get more kudos for thinking out of the box. The idea is that you should give transparency and control to the community about where their money goes. Not everyone has a spare 5 million. I have friends that might spare $5-$50 depending on what mood you catch them in – but they expect some control and transparency about that money.
  • Ignore the haters: There will be some. We aren’t all perfect, so keep an open ear and let them guide you – but don’t take it personal. The news consumer is always right, but you have to develop a thick skin.
  • Don’t be predatory: These are murky waters so I’ll be blunt and say what I think is on other people’s minds. A lot of smaller news organizations that have been doing good work feel a bit overlooked or stepped on. Many were contacted by your consultants and we shared our thoughts/ideas/ time receiving little or no reciprocity. I hope that is merely because there are no action items yet. In brief conversation with folks inside your now growing organization they spoke my language of “collaboration.” After all, the project is called “Bay Area News Project” and that sounds very welcoming and collaborative, almost like a coop. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt, so the only thing going against the consultants running the show is that they are outsiders to a tight knit media community. But we have open arms to anyone that reciprocates. I’m looking forward to giving the Bay Area News Project a big hug. I have detailed thoughts on news collaborations and more to share. I say this definitively: It is the future of journalism.
  • Bring folks together: There is a growing grassroots media movement here in the Bay Area. Your organization could be the spark that brings us all together or the police siren that sends everyone scattering. Being the first would be a boon to your organization and the entire Bay. You have some reaching out to do.

Finally, Warren – If you are feeling generous to the media scene – why not donate $20 to a Bay Area investigation of your choice? We will even match your donation to this pitch.

Date: August 22nd, 2009
Cate: Advertising/Business, My Work
3 msgs

Lessons in Crowdfunding

Written for Beth Kanter‘s blog.

Almost ten months ago I launched Spot.Us via a Knight Foundation grant which is trying to pioneer “community funded reporting,” the act of distributing the cost of hiring an investigative journalist. In short: I fundraise for independent reporters but not through foundations or grant writing. Spot.Us fundraises by making the argument to the public that this reporting will benefit us all. If we can get 30-50 people to donate $20 each around a specific topic – we are in business.

It’s often called “crowdfunding.”I grabbed the term (and the concept for Spot.Us) while I was the research assistant for Jeff Howe who coined the phrase “crowdsourcing.” While working on the chapter about crowdfunding I began studying Kiva.org, Donors Choose, Sell A Band and other organizations exploring this space. In many ways Spot.Us is my interpretation of the practices and principles they were employing for journalism.

So what are those practices and principles? What are the concrete lessons, mistakes, ideas I can pass along to others who might want to join this space? In truth there are countless lessons every day. But here are a few that stick very prominently in my mind.

  • Specificity and Transparency

Make sure all your ducks are in a row before you launch. It’s a natural inclination to launch the fundraiser the second you have the idea. We’ve done this on Spot.Us too many times. We always find that when we take the time to get our messaging, goals, and deliverables in a row first, we do much better.

A good example of this is the City Budget Watchdog series on Spot.Us which has raised $3,785. That series was originally called “City Budget Blues” and if you watch our quick video pitch you’ll see remnants of that title. It was only a week or two in that we realized our messaging was way off. “City Budget Blues” was a bit of a downer and while very on point wasn’t tied to the goal of the project – to be a watchdog of city hall at a time when others weren’t acting as the watchdog.

Make sure you’ve accounted for.

  1. A specific attainable goal
  2. The justification for that goal and why people should donate
  3. Messaging: Make sure all parties involved know the messaging.
  4. A clearly defined deliverable

From the donor perspective transparency means something else. It means you know exactly where your money goes.

What’s the difference between donating on NPR and donating on Spot.Us.

The images below should make the case apparent. And NPR has even improved recently in letting a donation be more transparent and accountable.

NPR’s Ask

Picture 4

Sot.Us’ Ask

Picture 2

Now imagine if both of these donations were for NPR.

In one case NPR would let you donate to the organization or a specific NPR affiliate near you. In the second case NPR would let you donate to a specific story. You’d have a bunch to choose from and you could pick the one that meant the most to you. Fundraising is nothing new. People have been doing it for as long as…. well…. people. What the Internet has allowed is a transparency and specificity in the act of fundraising that turns a donation not just into a “good feeling” but a statement and value judgment about who we are as individuals. It can be fun. The best Spot.Us pitches are those that give the donor that sense of ownership.

  • Deadlines and Concrete Goals.

Deadlines and restrictions are great. No joke! Whenever possible give yourself a deadline. It is amazing what we are capable of when put between a hard place and a deadline. Moreover deadlines give you and your collaborators in fundraising (the donors) something to rally against. It’s a battle against time. One feature set I know Spot.Us needs is a ticking clock that counts down the days left. Right now we don’t have that – but whenever we Tweet “x days left to reach y goal” we get a reaction. Knowing there is a time limit on something gets people moving. It also gives us a narrative. And that leads directly into……

  • Have Something to Cheer About.

In one of our more successfully fundraising examples we caught the attention of a local blog that covered crime in Oakland. Excited about the work we were doing they asked if they could send out an email blast to their list of 500+ about the reporting efforts we were undertaking. It worked out well – raising a few hundred dollars and spreading through a few other email lists eventually propelling us to our goal within 12 days.

What initially caught their attention?

A single Tweet I had done about a single blog post from the reporter. The blog post was just an update about their reporting efforts. Some might have even thought it mundane. But it gave us something to cheer about “hey – look at this, the reporting process in action.” Giving updates along the way, big or small, gives people something concrete to examine.

Many people will not donate the first, second or third time they hear about a fundraising effort. According to Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films it takes on average seven asks before somebody will become a donor. Okay – so how can one ask seven times without sounding redundant or annoying? Don’t make a direct ask: Just tell the story of your progress. Be a cheerleader and that does the asking for you.

In many ways Spot.Us is always trying to tell two narratives. The story of our pitches (the reporting) and the story of our site and the pitches (their progress). What are some interesting aspects of telling a story? Getting new and interesting characters. That’s where partners and collaborations can be huge.

  • Finding the Right Partners

It’s easy to want to partner with everyone. Hey, if you can just convince a few dozen people to join you right off the batt you’ll have some good momentum and coalition building can get lead you to think that everyone is a potential partner.

That isn’t the case and assuming right off the bat that your project will be valued by other organizations is a mistake that will jump back in your face. It certainly has for me when approaching disenfranchised communities. Even with the best of intentions other organizations, especially media organizations (even alternative ones), are viewed as with suspicion. Partnering doesn’t happen at the drop of a phone call.

What should you look for in partnerships? Here are the things we’ve found we need for all partnerships.

  1. Trust – we want to work with folks that we can trust and who trust us.
  2. The collaboration should be in the interest of all parties.
  3. “Buy in” with decision makers. They need to be on board otherwise it will hit the fan later.
  4. Key liaison – somebody from every party who is tasked to the project.
  5. Commitment of time/resources and/or money from both parties. It does not need to be all three.
  6. Money: Yes, it is the root of all evil, but a little money can grease the wheels. A commitment from each partner to try and fundraise x amount also works.
  7. The story/project. We are looking for good stories – that has to be at the heart of it all.

When you do find the right partner it can go a long way. Especially if you are able to land a big partnership. One article in the NY Times can raise upwards of $6,000. One newspaper many checkbooks.

Another central character in the narrative of your fundraising, what you can cheerlead about, is your growing community. These are your heroes. “I aint too proud to beg” was always a great quote (The Temptations). But that means you “aint too proud to thank” everyone and anyone. No donor is too small. You’d be amazed at what can happen when you give just a little attention to the smallest donor. The more personable and personal you are the more one-time donors become partners.

On occasion you might get a member of your community who will help cheerlead with you.

Picture-12

This one Tweet from Tim O’rielly brought in several hundred dollars within a matter of hours.

You don’t have to be the only cheerleader. Other people can join you – but they’ll only show as much enthusiasm and passion as you do. Somebody has to wrangle the project and lead by example.

Don’t confuse the medium and the message. Sure, it’s great that we can fundraise for independent journalists on a custom built site like Spot.Us. But we could also do it with a simple ChipIn widget.

  • You can get started with JUST a wiki.

Picture 2

That’s right: Spot.Us started 10 months ago using JUST a wiki. It was free to setup. We used a third party site, The Point, to collect money. There are countless sites that will collect money on your behalf. Facebook Cause, Kickstarter, First Giving and more. Rather than build an entire system yourself use whatever is already out there. You might also check to see if there are any sites that work around your specific niche like Donors Choose for teachers. I’d check out Social Actions to get a sense of other players in the space.

Just yesterday I found another reporting project on The Point.

Date: July 7th, 2009
Cate: Uncategorized
2 msgs

Conversation with Steve Katz, Part four.

Recently Steve Katz, who works for Mother Jones, and I have been having an interesting conversation about Spot.Us, nonprofit journalism, and other topics via our blogs.

I met Steve in 2007 at a Personal Democracy Forum conference and he has been a fantastic resource for brain picking. Now that our conversation has turned to the web it is an open brain picking session. Kudos to Steve for starting it up.

The recap

Steve: A Fundraising Question about Spot.Us

“the question, I think, is whether and how folks will shift their loyalty from the project to the organization (there’s a second question, too, which is whether this deeper level of donor loyalty matters for Spot.us-like organizations – maybe I’ll have to go have a conversation with Dave about this, huh?”

Steve: Coming up: A Conversation with Dave Cohn

This was the start of the more formal conversation between Steve and I. He laid out some questions about our approach and status.

My response to Steve: I thought I’d have fun and do it as a video.

Keywords are “transparency, immediacy, and control” (for the donor, that is).

I also ask Steve questions about whether or not Spot.Us is being naive or if we can learn a thing or two from how Mother Jones does its fundraising.

Steve’s Response to my video:

“So it’s not donor choice per se where Spot.us is innovating.

As Dave notes, it’s the possibility that interested community members connect with reporters on stories and issues they care about. Not only does that increase the possibility that people will actually pay for stuff they want, but it makes the reporting process more transparent (this was what made Chris Albritton’s Back-to-Iraq.com so damned exciting back then).”

And now for my response.

Steve actually brought something to light for me. I often say that “donating to journalism isn’t new – it is just having control over where your money goes that makes Spot.Us interesting.” In fact, I use NPR as an example all the time. They could blow me out of the water tomorrow by adding transparency to where donations go (and I would be totally fine if NPR did adopt community funded reporting).

Steve points out that what community funded reporting represents isn’t just participation through donating, it brings a new level of transparency to journalism.

Increasingly Spot.Us does reporter debriefs either mid-way or at the end of an article. We use BlogTalkRadio right now and we invite donors to get on the phone and chat with the reporter about what they are learning and digging up. There is an added service in here. The community in “community funded reporting” can get involved and as Steve notes the reporting is more transparent and accountable.

People often say that reporting for an ethnic newspaper is much more difficult than a large metro because the reporter is part of the community they are reporting on. They are more accountable. I’d say the same goes for a community funded reporter. In fact, I’ve been told as much. One reporter even printed out the list of donors and tacked it to their bulletin board as a reminder that he was responsible to a list of engaged citizens. The big step Spot.Us is taking, according to Steve, isn’t one of giving donors transparency, but it’s to make the reporting more transparent.

That sounds beautiful in a blog post, but as noted (and Steve conquers) it might be part of the reason why it hard to get other news organizations to adopt the Spot.Us model. They must be ready to put themselves out there in the open from day one. I have a million reasons why its a good idea to be transparent – but I’ll save my “pitch” for another blog post.

Let’s table that – but keep it in the back of our minds, because I’ll come back to it: “It’s hard to get news organizations to jump on board because of a cultural shift.”

Steve and I also discuss traffic. I still try and avoid traffic as a measure of success. But Steve is right in pointing out that it isn’t just a metric of success, it also measures impact. Impact is something that donors want. A good example: A recent Spot.Us story we did with AllVoices has a nice “number of views” metric. I can see that as of writing this blog post the video has received almost 5,000 views. That is a boon to donors. They want to know that the story they support is seen by others. When Spot.Us did a story with the Oakland Tribune, fundraising was easier because people knew the editorial would be tight and that the finished story would get distribution.

Raising traffic, however, is a beast in itself. One I don’t want to get locked into. Growing traffic can be self-defeating and from my Digg days I know how ugly and distracting it can be. I want to focus on making good journalism happen.

That’s why Spot.Us is also a platform that is designed to engage with partnering news organizations like Mother Jones, Center for Investigative Reporting, San Francisco Chronicle and others (The new Pocantico Watchdogs have me salivating).

In truth this goes back to Jeff Jarvis‘ saying: “do what you do best and link to the rest.” It goes for covering topics on the web but I also think it needs to be applied in how we run Spot.Us.

What we do best:

  • Create tools for fundraising of journalism projects via Community Funded reporting.
  • Do our own outreach on behalf of journalism projects.
  • Create a sense of community around journalism projects and expose the sausage making to those who are interested.

What news organizations do best:

  • The editorial for journalism projects
  • The distribution of journalism projects
  • Spread word within their own communities about how to get engaged.

I think some startups try to recreate the entire media sphere. That’s a mistake – one that Spot.Us has been cornered into from time to time (and will probably happen again) whenever we don’t have a partnering organization to share the load. Hence the irony of the situation above: What we do best requires a cultural shift and that’s why it is slow to find partnering news organizations when actually partnering with us is as quick as clicking a button.

Steve suggests another hire, somebody who can manage our relationships with other news organizations. I wouldn’t be against another hire at all ;) but we probably won’t for budgetary reasons.

Instead I want to build out the platform so that these partnerships can be more lightweight. Right now it is confusing for news organizations to know all the different ways they can partner with us. Increasingly that is a part of the biz/dev plan that we are working on that I think will be crucial.

It still goes back to the question: Are we a news organization or a platform?

I think we have to be a bit of both without falling into the trap described earlier of trying to recreate the entire media sphere. So what parts of Spot.Us are a news organization and what parts are a platform serving news organizations as a main customer?

That is something we are still figuring out. It is where we start to look a bit more like a nonprofit mediabistro. A community for reporters and news organizations to meet and work together – but they are doing so in public and that way we can bring community funding into the mix.

As for Steve’s advice on traditional fundraising: A spaghetti dinner is on the way. We don’t have all the details yet but folks who donated to the City Budget Watchdog pitch are invited to a meetup on July 13th at the Grotto where we will talk about the reporting we’ve done so far and what is to come next. Afterward we will meander to 21st amendment (details to come). And if you want to come but haven’t donated…. ;)

And now – back to Steve: In my first response I asked if there was something naive about the Spot.us model. It seems that it isn’t naive – just a little “out there” still.

But Mother Jones as an organization is already somewhat “out there.” You have been pushing the boundaries of running a nonprofit news organization for some time. Politics aside – nobody can knock what you have all accomplished.

But “when life is hard you have to change.” And times are tough. Even the NY Times is re-thinking itself. So my question is: How does Mother Jones, a much larger organization than Spot.Us, approach all this? Are there plans being plotted? Moves being considered? Are things pushing on as usual? What is on your radar that I’m not aware about?

Date: June 15th, 2009
Cate: My Work
1 msg

Spot.Us: Building a Plan to Release the Kraken!

Note: The most important link is this Google Form where we are asking YOU for feedback/goals/etc. As always to stay more current on Spot.Us development check out our blog (recently redesigned). Digidave.org will have occasional updates but otherwise will remain my personal blog to rant and rave.

Spot.Us recently had its second community advisory board meeting at Tech Liminal. We experimented with making the meeting more open by invitingnew interns, volunteers and people in the community, so that we could have an open discussion about setting goals. We felt it was important to get as much input into this process from different community members in order to create a conversation about the direction of Spot.us as an organization.

On the agenda: mapping out where we wanted to be in three months from now until we reach September 15, 2009. We received a lot of amazing and useful points to consider and are eternally grateful to our Advisory Board. Keep reading to learn more about what we hope to accomplish and how you can help shape our future.

Below is a quick recap of what we’ve accomplished and  the goals for the next three months, without any particular priority. We want you to help us prioritize them.

Are these the goals and activities we should undertake?
Is there an outside the box goal or activity we left on the cutting room floor?
Let us know via the simple Google Form at the bottom of this post.
You can also express your interest/vote for one of the goals that we have already put down.

  • What we’ve accomplished:

We’ve proven the concept of “community funded reporting.” The tricky part will be if we can build the platform and concept into a sustainable organization over the course of the next 1.5 years. Spot.Us has been labeled a “media darling” and, as alluded to in the six month “State of the Spot,” the challenge is to see if we can become a “media force.”Key to this, we believe, will be transparency – hence this post. This is a community site. The road to success is paved by including you in everything we do and how we create a viable and replicable model for journalism. So while the experiment continues, we do have to take root in firmer ground regarding what practices work and which ones need to rethought or reconfigured.

Mission Statement: To fund local, independent, original reporting.
(You thought we were selling shoes, huh?)
Goal: To Grow the community and launch Operation “Release the Kraken”

kraken

Activities to achieve the goal:

  • To create a bloggers network, like the East Bay Bloggers Network, that will the Spot.Us community grow and take root in the community’s flowerbed.
  • To build a volunteers corps, the “Kraken” of raw people force, that can move and support reporting projects, organizational development and more.
  • Create more opportunities for On/Offline socializing: The site doesn’t let folks interact. (This is also included under site development).
  • Highlight donation of talent so that volunteers can donate their skills and knowledge:  (This is also included under site development

    Goal: To create a business development plan.

Young speaker at a meeting

Activities to achieve the goal:

  • Work on a business plan. Our meeting and this post are intended to be step one in a five-step process to create a more solid business plan.
  • Create more infrastructure (what does this even mean?) Organizational structure of Spot.Us?
  • Make the Spot.Us model replicable and scalable. Asses the ability to replicate what Spot.Us does.
  • Assess cost per story: how much time does each story require from an organizational standpoint?
  • Marketing plan and brand: The marketing plan will emerge from a business plan, but Spot.us should have a more organized marketing plan. Editorial Note: David is always skeptical here, but a little organized marketing never hurt. So far we have been pure word of mouth and David’s shameless self-marketing.
  • To develop an expansion plan and come up with expansion criteria for the next cities to launch Spot.Us.
  • Micro-payment in other forms: Let people donate regularly instead of to just to a story.
  • Come up with a money and funding plan to support the organization‘s activities.

Goal: To fund more independent stories.

notebook_reporter

Activities to achieve the goal:

  • Manage our relationships to get the most out of them for our activities. (See “Grow community” activities.)
  • To create a story workflow and standards – a more standardized process.
  • To create or support journalism training programs that provide skills to Spot.Us freelancers and reporters to deliver their product.
  • Put out a paper product, perhaps by using Printcasting, http://www.printcasting.com/ or partnering with more papers or bloggers to deliver a print version.
  • Create and invest in more “outside the box” pitches in areas such as corporate reporting, beats, multimedia.

Goal: To form more strategic partnerships.
Activities to achieve the goal

  • Develop a finer grained editorial structure.
  • Increase and build relationship with publishers.
  • Expand to other regions: Los Angeles is in our line of site and we might have a strategic partner.
  • Get a technology partner, perhaps as part of the volunteer core, so we can get much-needed technical support to be donated.

Goal: To develop the Spot.Us platform and tool.
Activities to achieve the goal:

  • Redesign the front page. We need more activity on the front page
  • Implement some SMS text-a-tip service that makes it easier to get more tips for story ideas from the community.
  • Feature the donation of talent high up on the Web site so people should be able to get involved in the journalism easier.
  • Implement features that highlight what other folks are doing on the site.

Give us feedback on the above via this simple Google Form.

Your help is more important and appreciated than you could ever know!

Date: May 12th, 2009
Cate: My Work
6 msgs

State of the Spot – Half a Year Since Launch

It has been a year since Spot.Us was officially announced as a project and six months since our website launched. So it is time to reflect back on what we have accomplished, where we have succeeded and failed. It is amazing what can happen in six months!

It is far easier to look at one’s own project, their baby, and gleefully point out where it has surpassed expectations. Don’t worry, I will probably do that in this post. At the same time, however, I feel an obligation, perhaps with an extra critical eye, to point out where it can improve. This post will include the good, the bad and the ugly.

Why? The concept of “community funded reporting,” “community supported journalism,” whatever you want to call it – is FAR larger than Spot.Us. We are building an open source CMS so others can join us easily (Join our Google Group for discussion) but as we proved before our launch – anyone can do this with just a wiki. With that in mind – it is important for Spot.Us to convey the lessons we’ve learned. Strategies trump technology any day of the week.

I’ll break down our progress into four parts: Pre-launch, post-launch, maturing (the phase I think we are in right now) and the future. Then perhaps I’ll feel obliged to do a personal rant.

Pre Launch

During the pre-launch Spot.Us did a very good job of being open and public with our ideas and process of development. We uploaded our designs before they had been finished. We filmed some of the developers hard at work and we were very careful and analytical about the means by which we produced the final platform.

Having the most hindsight here I still believe this part of the project was handled very well. The biggest fault was not knowing when to change mindsets (I’ll get into that next) and not keeping our blogging of the process up. Part of what makes Spot.Us interesting is how open we want to be about everything, from how the project is made to what journalism projects we are tackling. On our blog we want to continue to open up the process of “community funded reporting.”

Post-launch: Setting up our weak spots.

By the numbers Spot.Us is doing very well. It has been 24 weeks since our “official” launch and we have funded 23 stories in total – with another two or three on the way. One story a week is far better than I expected. I cannot thank the community of supporters enough. In the end – this is not “my” project. It belongs to those that want to get involved – reporters, editors and community members.

Managing that growth: This has probably been the biggest problem for Spot.Us. With that many stories out we have had a tough time keeping a reign on them all. Especially while constantly trying to push forward with more stories, improve the platform, build out relationships, etc.

The initial idea of assigning peer review editors hasn’t worked perfectly. Some partners have worked out splendidly and in other situations Spot.Us has taken a larger managerial role than I initially expected.

I still want Spot.Us to be a platform for other organizations, but increasingly with independent freelancers we are taking a more managerial/editorial role in the process of a pitch forming into a full story, which includes some editorial functions and some technical support with video or audio.

From the moment a pitch is up – reporters should start working with or without a peer review editor. Thus things change as we go as we inevitably get more partners and every partner is different. Hence – collaboration is wet.

Increasingly it comes down to playing to our strengths. With a staff of two we must pick and choose our battles carefully. I’m not sure we have always done this in the past – but we are starting to think less like a web platform and more like a journalistic organization all the time.

Which brings us too….

The Types of Stories: Spot.Us needs to back off of “quick hits.” These are the classic newspaper day one article. We have funded a few of these and increasingly I find they have less added value. I want our stories to provide new information, views, etc – not rehash what is already out there. It comes down to what service we are trying to provide to those who donate. More thoughts on that here.

What pitches work: We have begun to see a pattern among the pitches that do and do not get funded (We’ve had five unsuccessful pitches and a sixth that was taken down for a reporters health issues). The best way I can articulate it is that stories which have a concrete anchor to a geographic or ethnic community do better. Stories that are lofty, more analysis based or consumerist tend to flounder. In short it comes down to relevance and original reporting. Nothing shocking, I know – but it is easy to lose sight of this.

A change in mindset: Recently I’ve had to make a conscious mind-shift from web-entrepreneur back to being a journalist. Obviously I want to grow the platform out more (we recently added PayPal) – but in the end it is a journalism project and reporting benefits from having deadlines, editorial feedback and more. I hinted at this above. It comes down to Spot.Us not just being a platform but a community site where Kara and I act as editorial managers as much as platform creators.

The Waiting Game: There is too much waiting on Spot.Us. We wait to get funded, we wait to get reporting and if we sell the story we wait to go through another editorial/publishers cycle. I’m fine if investigations take a long time to complete, but we shouldn’t be silent during that timeframe.

This is somewhat ironic because in past projects managing citizen journalists or volunteer reporters I found people to be very responsive and fast acting. Often in Spot.Us reporters are waiting for their pitches to mature (more money) and this causes a long lag time between initial pitches and reporting – a lag that I believe we must cut back on in order to better serve those who donate. I also think that if we treat pitches more like beat blogs, then ongoing reporting will be our best marketing. This is why we built blogs for each pitch.

They have been underutilized by reporters thus far – but going forward we are looking for individuals who are motivated by the journalism and not the money and will get started covering a topic right away. Obviously our goal is to fund individuals so they can make a living with their reporting – but it is a give and take. A “pull yourself up by your bootsraps” situation.

The Future – Potential Solutions – New Things to Try.

The Beat Pitch: A pitch that is also a beat. I’m excited to be working again with The Public Press on a pitch that isn’t a one-off story, but a three month beat to cover the city budget in San Francisco. We’ve quietly launched it this week. Reporting will start soon. Check out the “City Budget Blues.” Even better subscribe to the blog’s RSS and you’ll get updates on our progress and perhaps some incentive to donate.

Pitches Made by Spot.Us: We have fully funded a pitch that doesn’t have a reporter attached to it… yet. Now we can go out and find a reporter and because the money is already in the pot, our working relationship with this reporter will feel more traditional. The logisitics here are much easier for Spot.Us.

There is also the opportunity to shop this to a traditional news organization who will refund the original donors in exchange for getting first publishing rights. If it is a news organization of high caliber we will let them choose the freelance reporter. And with the money that is refunded – I hope we can do another version of this story in a different location with a different news organization! Perhaps the story will live on for two or three generations?!?!

More Selective in the reporters: In the beginning Spot.Us let anyone create pitches and we would take them down if they proved unresponsive or raised any red flags. While we still want to be inclusive (proof of it in this pitch from two high school students) we are putting reporters through a slightly more rigorous screening process.

Wonder why: Yes – we got burned. One reporter who we successfully funded has gone M.I.A. We will be writing about this more publicly later on the Spot.Us blog. This happens in all industries for all kinds of reasons. I won’t dwell on it, as this reporter wasted enough of our time already. But I will learn from it that reporters need to show a history of following through. We owe that to the community. The story in question will most likely be canceled (assuming the reporter doesn’t suddenly appear with a great explanation) and the donations will be returned via credits on the site. Hopefully these credits will be re-invested into a similar story we already have up with a reporter I can personally vouch for.

So we have a fine line to walk here. We want to be inclusive and will work with high school students, but those students had to prove to us they were serious by creating a one minute sample video. They did and so far they have kept to every deadline we’ve given. Expect the first in their two part series in the next week!

Time to stand up straight

Lately I’ve been saying that “Spot.Us has been crawling along.” At only six months we can even sit on our butt without our giant heads making us fall over!!!

But I suspect we are ready to stand tall very soon. With the right partnerships we could be funding and reporting on some very exciting and serious stuff rather soon. That is what we are aiming for and I will not rest until we are working with those organizations. This will allow Spot.Us to play to its strengths and rest assured that the editorial is being handled in the most serious of manners.

What to expect next?

More pitches that are formed like beats, created by Spot.Us or others organizations, with reporting starting right away. This will be the marketing material to help garner donations.

More in-person events. We enjoy them, we believe in “actual” social networking and we want to have a positive influence on the community.

Expanding to new regions. This is going to happen. Perhaps very soon – and potentially with some really cool partners. More on that if things work out.

More collaborations with really cool partners. No discussions were “off the record” but just in case I’d rather not name the organizations we are talking with. Instead I’ll just say – they would add a level of legitimacy and journalistic integrity that Spot.Us needs. I understand that I can be viewed as a “young punk kid trying something very cute” (thanks for the pat on the head), but that would be mistaking the messenger for the message. Community funded reporting has worked (23 times already) and if we can convince some of the more serious Bay Area journalism players to try it out we will figure out just how ambitious we can be. They will allow us to strive further and reach a greater audience.

With this next wave of pitches/stories almost finished and a new wave coming in (they really do come in waves, either by coincidence or a result of our small team taking on only so much at a time) our goal is to be as transparent as possible with our progress (more blogging).

More players to the team – NewMaya or Kara Andrade

It would be an absolute tragedy not to give sincere kudos, thanks, merits, badges and more to one Kara Andrade. Her title is “community organizer” but in conversation I refer to her as my business partner. She has been a perfect match. A Ying to my Yang. We have a similar energy but often different views on how things should proceed. The best part about this – she is never afraid to call me out on my B.S. That is precisely what I was looking for and although frustrating at times (everyone likes to think their B.S. is easy to swallow) I can’t thank her enough. The project would not have grown in the last three-four months since she came on board.

There are two organizations that have downloaded the Spot.Us code and are attempting to launch their own versions. I am in talks with at least two other organizations that might try the same thing. Taking the code isn’t as simple as clicking a few buttons to launch a WordPress blog – but the cost of launching a community funded reporting site using our code is far cheaper than building it yourself. As such – I’m offering any assistance I can to them or others that might attempt this. Hopefully we can get it down to a science in the future.

Up next: We have a resident blogger who will be introducing herself shortly on the Spot.us blog – so stay tuned!!!

Personal Rant Time

What can one really say once they’ve launched a startup? A nonprofit startup at that (two strikes). It is a roller coaster ride. I continue to stay as motivated as ever. Although I tire of giving the elevator pitch for Spot.Us (which I can say without thinking now) I try to put things in context. This project is attempting something very new, completely different and to some utterly mind-blowing. Even if we never “stand tall” it is an honor to be working on something that others take notice of if only to think to themselves “I do/don’t think that will work.” The fact is – nobody knows (me included) and so there is a sense of gawking at every decision we make. I gawk myself!

I am not 100% sure what the future holds for Spot.Us. If some of the changes we are going to make above will take hold. How we will manage the peer review process or if Spot.Us will only work with news organizations that defacto provide editorial support. There are just too many variables to predict an outcome.

But that is what makes this fun. Every day is different. Some days are spent hours on the phone, hours in meetings, hours answering emails, or hours trying to figure out where this community is trying to steer itself so Kara and I can help pave a road in that direction.

And so I leave us all with one word that mean ever-so-much to me.

Onward….

(p.s. who is coming with me?)

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