INN’s Community Journalism Executive Training (CJET) is coming to Austin, TX, from September 10 to 12, 2014.
CJET is an annual training conference that gathers journalism entrepreneurs for a crash course in news-industry leadership and the essentials of running a sustainable news and information business. INN’s goal is to provide hands-on training and guidance from mentors to build sustainable, independent journalism organizations.
Since 2012, CJET has served as a training ground for independent news executives in both for-profit and nonprofit news organizations in areas critical to building momentum and sustainability at news startups:
- Sales: How to build diverse revenues, managing sales operations, from hiring to compensation; how to build and work a prospect list; how to identify and close new underwriters and supporters
- Building a membership base: How to become a member-supported news institution, from running membership drives to tracking and retaining supporting members; understanding and tracking the process of converting visitors to supporters who donate to further your work
- Traffic & analytics: how to understand web and mobile analytics; how (and how not) to use those to drive decisions
- Impact measurement: how to keep track of who views content and where, how to measure engagement across multiple platforms including increasingly important social and mobile channels
- Financial management: How to build and track a budget; budgeting for projects to expand the reach of your brand or add new lines of revenue
“The way I see it, CJET exists to help journalists sprout entrepreneurial wings,” says Anne Galloway, founder of VTDigger. “CJET 1 made me realize that I had to get out of reporting and editing mode and start investing my energy in the business side. ”