3: Funding a media startup
Wednesday, January 31
Friday, February 02
Guiding Questions
How do you launch a media startup? If you’re interested in obtaining investor funding (venture capitalists or angel investors), how do you go about it? What are the major differences between nonprofit and for-profit media startups? What startup funding options and revenue streams are available to each?
Class Topics
W, 2/14: Guest speaker: Alessandro DiSanto, co-founder and CCO (Chief Commercial Officer) of Hallow and ND alumnae
F, 2/16: Funding and revenue streams
In-class activity links: Slides on "For profit or non-profit? Key Takeaways." Also “Organization Profiles,” which details the revenue breakdown of 20 different media nonprofits of various sizes. This data is available through the Knight Foundation’s 2015 study “Nonprofit News Ventures.”
Read This:
Readings with annotations are due before class on Wednesday of each week. All readings, videos, and webpages are available on Perusall, accessible through the course’s Canvas page. Please refer to the Readings on Perusall prompt for instructions. You must read on Perusall to get credit.
- Browse: the website for Hallow, the media startup that our guest speaker Alessandro DiSanto co-founded. (You can get a free Hallow account through Notre Dame, so you might also choose to sign up.) NOTE: This is not on Perusall. You just have to visit the website by clicking on the link.
- Read: “Nonprofit or for-profit? Which is right for your new organization?” (Jo Ellen Green Kaiser)
- Read: “7 ways to fund your startup” infographic (Visually).
- Read: “Where to get nonprofit startup grants” (DonorBox)
- Read: “52 revenue ideas for local journalism” (Josh Stearns, Medium)
- Read: Selections from “Business Models for Content and Technology Plays” (Geoffrey Graybeal, MIE).