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Identifying Revenue and Sales Opportunities

As you plan for the launch of your site, you should think about how you are going to keep it going once it gets off the ground. You’ll need funds to pay for such things as your Web hosting service, software, telephones and some equipment, such as computers or a digital camera.

You also may want to pay someone to edit your site and help solicit writers. Or you may want to pay a small stipend to freelance writers, community members or students who contribute content.

Support for these costs can come from a number of sources including selling advertising, selling subscriptions, soliciting sponsors or donors, seeking grants, holding fundraising events, and even selling some content, such as photos.

The best rule of thumb is to look for a combination of revenue sources.

Soliciting Grants

To receive a grant, you often have to be a non-profit organization or nonprofit educational institution as designated by the IRS. The process of qualifying for nonprofit status is outlined on the IRS site. Be mindful that it can take several months. Another option for receiving grants is to find a nonprofit organization willing to be your fiscal agent and administer the grant money for you.

How do you identify prospective funders? One way is to locate the Regional Association of Grantmakers (RAG) in your state or area. They are likely to have a Web site with information on regional grant-giving entities. Another way is to do a national search. The Foundation Center in Washington, DC, offers searchable databases at www.fdncenter.org to help you identify supporters by topic or geographical area.

When you get a grant, think about crediting your funder on your site.

Seeking Donations

There are various ways to seek donations.

If you become a nonprofit, you’ll need to have a governing board. Consider inviting board members who can help your fundraising efforts, from planning events to making introductions to prospective donors.

In your planning phase, think about inviting local residents to a town hall meeting to get input on site content and possible writers. Or invite local doers to a brainstorming session to flesh out possibilities for your venture. We find that a core of committed believers often arises out of these gatherings. These people tend to be willing to join an Advisory Board, contribute stories, donate goods or services or help promote the site. You might persuade four businesses in town to be inaugural sponsors for a specified sponsor rate that gives them an ad on your site as well as a link from the list of sponsors.

Pay attention to in-kind as well as cash donations. Often, community businesses are willing to provide incentives for your users to respond to a community poll or provide prizes for a contest in return for a mention on your site. A local tech shop may donate a wireless card. A photo shop may donate disposable cameras to residents in an initiative to photograph community problems that need to be solved or community assets that make townspeople particularly proud.

A local college may have a marketing department that could help with a community survey, or journalism students who could crunch community data and report stories.

When The Forum (http://www.forumhome.org) citizen media site in Deerfield, NH, launched in the summer of 2005, they put up a free ad for a local pizza parlor that donated free pizzas to the winner of a contest to name the site. Also, a local band agreed to help them with a fundraiser next year.

Some sites, such as LiveFromArlington.com in Massachusetts, put up a tip jar, asking all users to donate.

Selling Content

Some sites can raise funds by selling some content, such as photos or copywrited articles.

The Spokane Spokesman Review does print and video tributes to people in their community who have died. Family members may purchase a CD of the tribute for $25.

Selling Subscriptions

A few sites publish a print edition that aggregates Web content and may sell subscriptions. Other offer tiers of online services. At VillageSoup.com, you can sign up to be a “Contributor for free,” which allows you to post to the community calendar, submit news and access the last 14 days worth of stories.

However, if you pay a fee and sign up as a ”Patron,” you get daily e-mail alerts of morning headlines, free classifieds and unlimited access to news archives. You can be a quarterly patron for $11.95 or signup for the year for $39.95.

Selling Advertising

Advertising is one of the most common ways to raise money. To sell ads, however, you have to identify potential advertisers, establish prices, and establish guidelines for content. Selling ads may also mean you need a sales representative or sales staff.

For more about advertising, read the next section.

> READ NEXT ARTICLE: Selling Advertising

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