Monika Bauerlein believes the nonprofit model is a win-win for news organisations – “we have all the same revenue opportunities that a for-profit [outlet] has. The only difference is that we can put all the revenue into the mission and the sustainability of the organisation, and are not forced to take another slice off the top for someone else”.

While this doesn’t work out for every news organisation, in recent years there’s been more interest in exploring the nonprofit business model for publishers as they are struggling to monetise journalism. Founded in 1976 as an American nonprofit magazine focused on investigative reporting, Mother Jones has been a trailblazer in navigating this model.

Mother Jones, a left-leaning publication, has been noted for breaking nationwide stories like the scandal over presidential candidate Mitt Romney dismissing half the country in his private remarks or, more recently, stories about Donald Trump’s attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election that he lost. Unlike many of its peer magazines, the Mother Jones successfully navigated the shift to digital, even though it still publishes a print magazine with circulation of about 200,000 alongside its digital audience of 8-9 million people monthly.

The bulk of the publisher’s revenue comes from readers; Mother Jones brands itself as “the only reader-supported, investigative, national news outlet in America”. According to most recent financial data, reader support accounted for almost 60% of the organisation’s $16.8 million revenue.

The Fix spoke with Mother Jones’ CEO Monika Bauerlein about the organisation’s model and the lessons it can offer for other nonprofit publishers globally.

How Mother Jones operates and makes money

Mother Jones was founded almost fifty years ago as a print magazine, named after activist and labour organiser Mary Harris Jones. While the print product still comes out, the audience today is predominantly digital, reached through the website and social platforms.

Bauerlein says that some 10% of Mother Jones’ readers come from outside the United States. Close to 85 people work for the publisher full-time; of those, over half are in the newsroom. Monika Bauerlein leads the organisation as the Chief Executive Officer, reporting to the NGO’s board. Her direct reports include editor-in-chief and senior leaders responsible for operations, financials, HR, development, fundraising and media sales.

Bauerlein believes the nonprofit model has served the publisher well – they enjoy all the upside of not having to answer to shareholders motivated by financial profit, while not facing any restrictions. The only limitation, specific to the US context, is that NGOs are not allowed to endorse political candidates (as US media often do, though some have started giving up the practice amidst concerns over trust in news media).

According to the last published financial report, in the fiscal year 2020/21 Mother Jones made $16.8 million, with almost 60% of revenue coming from reader support. Other sources of revenue include foundations support and advertising. According to the report, at the time the outlet had “49,000 individual donors and a paid magazine circulation to more than 185,000 subscribers”.

*Mother Jones’ revenue in the fiscal year from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021 (image: Mother Jones)*

Fundraising is a major part of Mother Jones’ operations. Monika Bauerlein told The Fix that the fundraising strategy makes an emphasis on the importance of free and independent journalism as a public service, crucial to a vibrant democracy. “We make the case to our readers that journalism is part of the civic infrastructure that they need for the kind of country that they want to live in”, Bauerlein says. She notes that investigative journalism is in particular a public good that cannot be sustained by commercial means – something Mother Jones conveys to its readers as part of its fundraising strategy.

A 2019 case study by Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) and the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School credits Mother Jones’ fundraising strategy and early emphasis on membership revenue under Bauerlein’s leadership as some of the key reasons why the publisher managed to “grow its audience, revenue and reporting staff in a period when most news magazines downsized, and many closed altogether”.

Lessons for other nonprofit outlets

The nonprofit news industry has been growing over the past years. As more publishers are experimenting with the model, Monika Bauerlein distils a few lessons from Mother Jones’ experience that could be useful for other news organisations.

The obvious, necessary start is creating great journalism that would bring value to its readers. Then it’s about thinking about how this journalism can have an impact – and bringing it to audiences where they are.

To illustrate the latter point, Bauerlein gives an example of Mother Jones’ presence on various platforms, from print magazine to TikTok. Unlike analogue magazines, TikTok videos bring virtually no monetisation – and provide little conversion to other platforms. However, as a nonprofit Mother Jones thinks about how it can reach potential readers and viewers where they are, particularly audiences who aren’t voracious news consumers. (Sometimes, though, difficult decisions have to be made – Bauerlein says Mother Jones paused its news podcast because “it was very difficult to grow the audience for it in a crowded space”).

Perhaps the most important lesson is what Bauerlein calls “making the case about why the journalism [you create] is possible because of support from readers and then being consistent about following up” – in other words, building a sound fundraising strategy that prioritises effective communication with supporters.

“The fluid exchange between the business and editorial sides, often described as church and state in journalism-speak, is a clear strength for Mother Jones. By sharing the work of fundraising, the entire organization is oriented around the goal of raising money to serve readers”, the case study by INN and Shorenstein Center notes.

Mother Jones’ fundraising appeals often come from journalists and are held to the same standard as journalism produced by the newsroom. Baurlein says the team tries to think about different messages for different audiences – from short and catchy texts to longform explanations – and test them continuously. She is personally involved in crafting fundraising messages.

“In the past, in legacy media organisations, the marketing department would be very separate from the newsroom and from the journalism. And as a result, you had very different voices speaking to the audience. We tried to speak with one voice”, Baurlein says.

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How Mother Jones successfully operates a nonprofit national news outlet in the US