You're listening to a stage talk titled Inside
the Membership Model. This week, we were joined
by my colleagues, Bellingcat's Sarah Bishop -Woods
and Mareike Vitt. They came in to discuss Bellingcat's
new membership model. We spoke about the funding
model itself, how you can get involved with Bellingcat's
membership, and what fueled the decision to move
to this funding model in the first place. Packed
full with not -for -profit business advice, this
talk is useful for anyone interested in learning
more about how our news is funded. You can find
links to all of the resources mentioned in the
talk in the podcast description. This talk was
hosted by me, Charlotte Maher, on Thursday the
30th of July, 2026, in the Bellingcat Discord
server. Hello and welcome to another stage talk
in the Bellingcat Discord server. Today we're
exploring one of the most influential business
models in modern journalism, membership. As advertising
revenues have declined and audiences increasingly
expect digital news for free, many news organisations
have turned to their readers, not just as customers
but as supporters and participants. But what
exactly is a membership model and can it sustainably
fund quality journalism? My wonderful colleagues
Sarah Bishop -Woods and Mareike Vitt are here
to answer those questions. They are both part
of Bellingcat's development team and have been
overseeing our transition into a membership model
funding structure. In this talk, they'll unpack
this newly adopted model of funding, explaining
what it means and how it affects Bellingcat going
forwards. As usual, we will have plenty of time
to answer your questions and you can place your
questions in the chat accessible on the right
-hand corner of your screen. But please remember
that this is being audio recorded for the podcast.
So if you don't want me to mention your username,
please add that as a note in your question. Okay,
Mareike and Sarah, over to you. I'm going to mute
for a second. Hi, Charlie. Thanks for the nice
introduction and welcome everyone. Great to be
back. I think, yeah, I've been here a year ago
almost to talk about fundraising in general with
you. And as Charlie has mentioned, we'd like
to dive a bit more with you into one specific
area, which is called membership. Many others
maybe know it as a normal small donor program.
Like almost anyone can do like a couple of bucks
to support the cause that you like. So that's
a little bit what this means and much more. And
we'd like to dive with you into this today. Yes,
why is Bellingcat going into that direction?
We've been working towards this for quite a while.
And as you know, the current fundraising landscape,
especially for journalism, is very difficult.
But I think many of you also know that with USAID
stopping one and a half years ago, the repercussion
in the entire NGO landscape was quite extensive.
And this, of course, also affected journalism
funding. In general, we've also seen trends of
institutional funding going down, especially
for journalism grants. But because people were
moving more and more towards democracy, resilience
funding, and journalism funding is one of them.
So there's quite a lot of changes in the market
of institutional funding, which for quite a while
has been a major milestone for Bellingcat. But
looking at our wonderful community and the work
that Bellingcat does, it has been obvious for
many years that we should actually be community
funded. So people having a heart for our work,
being practitioners themselves, and using the
tools and the skills we're teaching. can also
support us themselves and also guide our direction
with their support. So that's really the reason
behind it. So what you can, if you, if people
have been knowing Bellegate for a while, you
see, you saw that we've transitioned from a grassroots
movement, which was around 2018, I would say,
where you can get grants for small organizations
to be built up over to grants that have been
that have been given to us to professionalize
because we're now an organization of almost 40
people. So of course, this is a size that has
been sustained by governance, by processes, by
structures, different than a graph would be.
So that's a little bit how we've transitioned
and it's now has been the time for a long time,
but it's now really the time that we want to
be community funded by people like you, but many
people worldwide who think it's worthwhile to
support our cause. And yeah, I think I've announced
it last year that we're going into the direction
and Sarah has joined us. I do think that Marika
is experiencing a small technical difficulty,
but it's also a good time to accept the baton
that she's passing. So I'm going to jump in and
introduce myself. Hello, everyone. My name is
Sarah Bishop -Woods and my role at Bellingcat
is as Director of Development and Partnerships
for the United States. Before joining Bellingcat,
I've spent the bulk of my career in media. Most
recently as the Chief Strategy Officer for a
newsroom consultancy, where I worked with more
than 60 organizations to help them build sustainable
businesses around mission -driven work and simultaneously
oversaw the firm's own business and operations.
But what drew me to Bellingcat is likely similar
to what brought you here as well. It's an organization
unlike any other. And to appreciate what is unique
about Bellingcat is also to appreciate what is
unique about a membership program. So I'm going
to go a little bit into the trajectory of the
news and information industry and the business
models that we've seen over the last few decades,
and then we'll explore more in depth what it
means to have a membership program. To understand
why we launched a formal membership program,
we first have to look at the broader landscape
of news and information. Across the entire industry,
the core question everyone is trying to answer
is, how are we going to sustain public service
journalism, given everything that's happening
around the world? For decades, ad revenue funded
public interest reporting. But that model has
fundamentally broken down. The news industry
has suffered over $33 billion in ad revenue losses
over the last 30 years. Raking in programmatic
ad revenue is not really viable in 2026, nor
does it align with independent research models.
Some institutions like the BBC rely on public
funding or government -backed license fees, but
state subsidies inherently carry risks for political
pressure, policy shifts, or legislative interference.
Outlets like Politico support their free journalism
by selling high -priced, specialized business
-to -business services like Politico Pro to corporate
and institutional buyers. While effective for
policy reporting, it requires a specific commercial
market. And it is an entire business to run alongside
a newsroom. The default pivot for most newsrooms
has been consumer subscriptions. And yet, subscriptions
almost always require paywalls. Put simply, paywalls
hide crucial verified facts behind a price tag
right when the public needs free access to the
truth. That leaves us with membership. Membership
isn't a transactional product. It's a relationship.
It allows us to keep our work 100 % free, uncompromised,
and unpaywalled for everyone while empowering
the community that relies on our findings to
directly fund and sustain the mission. As we
pivot to membership, it's essential to understand
that membership is not just a financial transaction,
but really I do mean it is a relationship. Membership
is a social contract between a news organization
and its members. In this relationship, members
are giving more than just their money. They are
actively contributing their time, energy, expertise,
and personal connections to a cause they believe
in. That likely resonates with a lot of the people
that are listening to this talk. This is core
to how Bellingcat has always operated. Both organizations
need to build habits to reach out to their community
and audience when they build a membership program.
At Bellingcat, this relationship is essential
to an open source methodology. And our work is
already open to a strong dynamic between the
wider community and the Bellingcat staff. This
relationship creates constant improvement for
Bellingcat as a collective. allowing us to learn
from each other and build support. Bellingcat
is just such a unique organization. This year,
in June, we launched our membership program.
Bellingcat has never had advertising or paywall.
Our work is free and uncompromised and always
will be. We began receiving small dollar donations
a few years ago and have had the gratifying experience
of thousands of individuals giving at least once
to the organization. However, there was room
for improvement and to build a program that becomes
a steady source of operating support while also
giving back to those donors. We've seen this
work in other nonprofit organizations and they
share one common principle. They treat membership
as a sustained editorial and operational commitment,
not just a donate button. That's the standard
that we've built toward. To launch this program,
we've undergone many behind -the -scenes developments,
which I'll walk you through now. So when I say
that Bellingcat is an organization unlike any
other, it's not just because I am effusive in
my passion for my place of work, but because
of the focus I'm providing for a community of
more than 40 ,000, a commitment to training the
wider news and information sector, tools and
methodologies built and freely shared and tested,
and partnerships that act as a capacity builder
and a force multiplier. We began this membership
program by listening. through a community survey
because a membership program is, again, a relationship,
not a transaction. Perhaps, if you're listening
to this now, you took our survey, and if so,
thank you. I ran across 10 platforms for two
weeks and garnered more than 3 ,000 responses.
From there, we took the data and unique insights
to our management team, where we further developed
a brand story and value proposition based on
the feedback from those surveys. Today, I'm going
to take you behind the scenes of what we learned
and how we built this new line of business. So,
before we go any further, I'd like to put the
survey respondents into context. I like to call
these groups the hand raisers, people with the
willingness and time to answer a survey. They
tend to be a bit older, maybe a little more financially
stable, and are generally more highly educated.
So while these figures don't represent all of
Bellingcat's audience, it is still meaningful
that more than 3 ,000 people took the time to
share their insights. 84 % of the respondents
have been following Bellingcat for a year or
more. Longevity of following is one of the strongest
predictors of conversion to paid support because
it means that somebody genuinely cares and appreciates
the work coming out of an organization. The respondents
also shared a high propensity and activity for
giving. before we've made any formal solicitations.
45 % said they would donate or already do. 22
% were existing donors. And 23 % said they would
give if they were asked properly, you know, really
a please and a thank you. Finally, we calculated
a net promoter score, which was 75. For context,
the global average of net promoter scores in
2025 was 32. according to SurveyMonkey, and anything
above 70 is considered exceptional. The score
represents people's willingness to promote our
organization to others in conversation. And Bell
and Cat's audience doesn't just consume the work,
they advocate for it. Again, a net promoter score
of 75, just really phenomenal. We also asked
people to self -report where they were taking
the survey from. And our top four demographics
were the United States, the UK, the Netherlands,
and Canada, which maps relationally on to where
we see a lot of our traffic come from. But the
highlight here was that we did have respondents
self -report from more than 90 different countries,
truly a global reach and highlighting where we
have an opportunity to continue engaging with
audiences all over the world. I'm going to return
to the stat that I mentioned that 84 % of the
respondents have followed Bellingcat for a year
or more. It's incredibly easy to move from one
source of media to another and never develop
a habit of purposely engaging. That's why brand
loyalty is an incredible bellwether for membership
programs and this level of 84 % is rare in digital
media. Most news organizations are fighting churn
constantly. Readers find them through a single
story and then they leave. Bellingcat's audience
stays, but I'm actually less focused on the user
habit here because habit alone doesn't explain
why this is worth celebrating. Habits form around
things that are usually easy and frictionless.
Following Bellingcat is not those things. The
work is challenging, the topics are serious,
and the methodology requires real attention.
People are staying because Bellingcat consistently
provides something worth creating a long -term
relationship for, not just ease of use. And we
also asked in our survey if respondents would
be disappointed if Bellingcat ceased to exist.
98 % said that they would be disappointed if
Bellingcat ceased to exist tomorrow, with the
majority sharing in their write -in option that
Bellingcat is irreplaceable. So we also asked
these survey takers why they would be disappointed.
We had an incredible write -in rate, which I
sorted into general themes of responses. These
themes were the depth of work, showing the work,
truth, independence from power, covering stories
others ignore, and trust. I'm going to read you
some of the write -in responses that really stuck
with me. This one tickles me. Bellingcat is an
unimpeachable source of solid evidence -based
investigations into often overlooked crimes.
Its disinterested approach annoys me as someone
with distinct political views. That's partly
what makes it essential and irreplaceable. Another
goes, the level of depth in each investigation,
which is unique compared to other news outlets
because it has a reproducible discovery method
and goes into a level of detail very rarely covered
in mass media. and which is increasingly tailored
for lower expectations and integrity levels.
The others were scientific methodology applied
to journalism. Another write -in was journalism
for the powerless. And finally, veracity. Bellingcat
should be industry standard, publicly funded,
and globally protected. When we asked the survey
respondents what they wanted to ask of our investigators,
their responses were, I found, to be incredibly
touching. Again, I sorted the data set to find
the patterns and overwhelmingly the themes demonstrated
compassion and concern and an eagerness to participate.
How do we, Bellingcat, protect ourselves when
the people we investigate are dangerous? How
do we stay motivated when the scale of what we're
documenting feels overwhelming? How do we keep
going in a world where the facts exist and accountability
is such a long road? And then this one, how can
we as an audience help with your mission? I often
feel helpless about the state of misinformation
online. That question demonstrates something
that is special about the Bellingcat community.
People aren't just reading. They're worried about
the world and they're looking for a way to do
something about it. The feeling of helplessness
in the face of conflict and disinformation is
a defining feeling in 2026. And our audience
is telling us they see Bellingcat as an outlet
for resolving this. They are willing to build
a movement of truth with Bellingcat. Once the
surveys closed, the management team worked through
a structured value proposition, defining who
our audience really is, what promise we make
to them, what actions back that promise up, and
what we would consider an achievement we're celebrating
in the future. This kind of process can feel
quite intensive, but I'm fortunate that they've
been very patient with these methods and with
me and what was developed as a testament to their
commitment. This also led to the foundation of
membership messaging that is resonant both with
Bellingcat's loyal audiences and our teams that
lead that work. So, drum roll, this is what the
process produced. Bellingcat is a global collective
uncovering facts to hold power to account. We
share everything, including our methods, because
the truth belongs to everyone. Both investigative
organizations protect their methods as a competitive
advantage. but we publish them, we teach them,
we build tools around them. It's a philosophical
commitment to the idea that the capacity to find
the truth shouldn't sit with a small group of
specialists. It should be distributed as widely
as possible. That's what our community told us.
They recognize and value above almost everything
else, which is underscored by the strategy and
operations of the entire management team. And
we also have this line, which was particularly
salient. democracy depends on people who won't
take the truth at face value. We are in a period
of autocratic upheaval where the manipulation
of reality has become a primary instrument of
power. In that context, Bellingcat builds a community
to further engage the democratic revival, which
serves as the governance of democratic resilience.
Bellingcat has always been built by many hands
and this program is no different. If any of what
you've heard today resonates with you, and I
do hope that it has. Here's how you can be a
part of the membership program. Please consider
forwarding our emails along or sharing about
the program with your networks. Give us your
feedback and wisdom. We always appreciate it.
Or make an introduction that might benefit our
organization. We love to make friends. We do
have some additional activities that are listed
in a slide that perhaps we can put in the show
notes, but that would be We have these peer -to
-peer fundraising activities as well. And we
encourage anyone to email us at donations at
bellincat .com with their advice. We do read
through it all. And thank you very much. If we
have any questions, we're happy to answer. Amazing.
Thank you so much for going through that. I'm
always surprised by Bellingcat in terms of how
much we are comfortable and happy to share with
our audience as well. I think it's quite unique
actually to have a newsroom sit down and have
a talk like this, where you're actually kind
of revealing the feedback from audience surveys
and giving kind of an insight into The business
model that lies behind our work, I think it's
really refreshing and really helpful as well
for people who might be listening and thinking
about starting up their own newsroom, for example,
which I know a few of you who may have attended
Marika's last talk were thinking about. Please
keep your questions coming in the chat on the
right -hand side. I was wondering if maybe some
of those links that you showed in the last slide,
if one of you wouldn't mind putting them in the
chat as well, because that's usually where we
add them. Um, while that's being done, I wanted
to start off by asking a little bit more about
the membership model as a, as a general model,
funding model. And then perhaps later on, we
can move into what that means for Bellingcat
a little bit more. But what, what distinguishes
a membership model specifically from a subscription
model? Because that's often a confusion point.
I know you touched on it within the talk, but
perhaps we can dig that into that a little bit
more. And does this model suit? every news organisational
structure or is it sometimes more suited to more
niche publications where you perhaps have a more
dedicated but smaller audience? Yeah, so those
are great questions by the way. The first digging
into what's the difference between membership
and subscription. Typically a subscription model
means that something is being paywalled. They
can appear very similar because you are still
seeing requests for payment. But the major difference
is in a membership model, you can always access
the product, the information, the research, whatever
that organization is putting out, regardless
of if you give or not. I've heard people refer
to a membership program really as a tip jar,
but I think that's missing the vital point of
membership. When you give to an organization
through a subscription, their motivation is just
to ensure that you don't drop your subscription.
So they need to provide just enough value to
you that you will continue. However, if you are
in a membership with that relationship with an
organization, you are really considered to be
someone that is a part of holding up the sustainability
of that organization and you are invited in in
a much more relational way. So a subscription
is transactional and you have to go through a
subscription to access something. Whereas a membership,
there is a request for support, but you are always
allowed to access information regardless of whether
or not you're providing support back. And if
you do, you are further brought a step deeper
into having a relationship with that organization.
Your second question, I don't remember it, so
please refresh me. I asked whether the membership
model was suited to all forms of news organizations
or whether it's more suited to smaller, more
niche publications, which might have a smaller
but more dedicated audience. Do you think this
model, for example, would work for large scale
broadcasters as well as smaller, perhaps more
independent publications? That's a really great
question. And it's something that people debate
about quite a bit. I would say that where we've
seen membership picked up most is with mission
-driven organizations where you inherently are
not scaling your audience to an infinite amount.
There is a finite amount of people that will
be willing to engage. satisfying the needs of
your audience with your work then they will have
a propensity to give. Can membership replace
subscriptions? There are some very successful
subscription businesses and they include different
types of user needs in what they're providing
that's not purely mission driven and so I think
that actually Membership is great when you are,
you don't need to be a nonprofit, but when you're
sort of driven by having this core value that
you're pursuing. And a subscription is great
for other types of audience needs, you know,
entertainment especially. Nick in the chat has
asked a question that I was about to follow up
with, so I'll ask that now. He's asked, very
interesting to see the process of how you think
about and approach fundraising. I'm interested
in your thoughts about platforms like Substack
or perhaps Patreon, which we've had for a while,
that make the membership model accessible to
newsrooms as small as one person. So what are
your thoughts on platforms like that? And why,
for example, did Velinecap decide to kind of
put our membership model on our website instead
of... just using a model like Substack or Patreon?
Yeah, I think that there are a lot of tools available,
especially for this one -person newsroom, or
might be referred to as a creator, news creator,
that make a lot of sense for that business case.
And especially if you're one person, you need
something that is very straightforward. You don't
need a technical stack of different platforms
that you would then have to manage. Personally,
I think I've seen a lot of growth through Beehive
in the creator space and I think that that's
a very encouraging up -and -comer within the
platform world. A lot of people also really gravitate
towards Ghost or other open source WordPress
products and then integrate with a newsletter.
I think that those are phenomenal and you can
find a lot of off -the -shelf products. At a
certain point in an organization's maturation,
especially if you're not just one person by yourself,
which is such a grind, you do want to have what's
called a CRM, a customer relationship management
tool. These are tools like Salesforce and many
others. And this tool helps you keep one database
very clean, and it's really important to keep
your database clean so that you are not continuing
to solicit people when they have moved on or
you need to update their email or you want to
measure different analytics from the giving history.
There are lots of tools that build in very light
CRMs, but ultimately organizations still preface
to a more high -powered option in the end. We'll
see if that changes. Technology is constantly
improving. The last two years have been absolutely
insane in the improvements that are off the shelf
for creators. But Bellingcat is at that stage
in its maturation where we can make decisions
that are better informed for our audience by
reading the signals that we can receive. We don't
track cookies on our website. So we have very
limited pools of information to make things more
straightforward and streamlined for our audience.
It also helps us make better business decisions
by being able to measure trends and giving patterns
so that we're not also asking people when they
don't want to be asked. That said, you know,
if you are one person and you want to begin a
membership program, the tools that I've seen
a lot of people really gravitate to recently
are BeHive, which we're also using as an email
service provider now. But I've seen it in the
wild before my time at Bellingcat and Ghost.
And I think the impetus with Patreon and Substack
and Kickstarter to help people crowdfund their
work was a very clear signal that we had, you
know, starting 20 years ago really in the digital
space. YouTube has had membership programs on
and off as well, and it's just a sign of a sign
of the times that to ensure that work is going
to be around, people are requesting in some way
their audience supports it. I just wanted to
flag that Marika has put in the chat those links
that we talked about in the speech earlier. Marika,
I don't know if you want to address it in voice,
but we've had a few people in the chat asking
about membership rewards and possible merchandise.
I don't know if you want to address that verbally
as well. Yeah. Hi, Charlie. Thanks. I hope you
can hear me. Yes, I've been busy answering the
questions in the chat. So yes, I mean, the perks,
since we've only launched a couple of weeks ago,
we're of course building up the perks in the
future. Merchandise is one of them that we are
looking into. To say it's quite a workload to
build this up and to build this up in a good
way because of design and licensing, et cetera.
And we want to, of course, offer you good products
that you then can receive. But yes, it's in the
pipeline and coming up. Another one is, of course,
offering you other ways of engaging with us.
For example, other digital events such as the
stage talk, but maybe different ways of meeting
people from Bellingcat. in the future hearing
about our work. So yes, there's more to come,
but stay tuned. I'll share in the chat, we do
have a list of the perks on our website, in case
you have questions as to the giving tiers for
those perks. And Marika is exactly right. We
want to be very thoughtful as we launch a merchandise
line, but I hope that we will within this year
have some exciting news because we want to ensure
that the community can participate both in submitting
ideas, but then also voting on the products that
they would want to see. That brings me nicely.
Oh, Silted Knife has just asked quickly in the
chat, did I miss podcasts or are they not on
the list? In terms of right now, the podcast
benefits are tied to our Patreon, which we are
internally discussing merging with our membership
program. In terms of any podcast creation that
we make right now, of course everything is otherwise
still free to all audiences and it's just on
a delay. So we're considering how to bring that
archive to the full public and then also measuring
what we can sustainably do through the end of
26 and into 2027. Stage talks is something, Charlie
knows this, it's something that I routinely listen
to. So I think that for as long as we can create
something that people are genuinely enjoying,
which obviously you are if you're hearing this,
that we would want to pursue that. Amazing. That
brings me on to my next question in terms of
audience access. How will Bellingcat membership
affect audience access? Will there be exclusive
content for those who are members? If I'm not
paying, for example, will I miss out on investigations
or will there be additional pressure put on researchers,
for example, to deliver large scale, impressive
looking investigations because of the membership
model? Will it have any effect on the way that
we do things at Bellingcat? Yeah, I think there
were three questions on that, so I will come
back to you if I miss one. The first, are there
opportunities for unique content in the membership
program? Actually, today we delivered our first
membership -only newsletter, which contained
a Q &A with our researcher and our editor behind
the leaked BB investigation. That said, would
we ever hide an investigation or ask the researchers
to do something on behalf of membership? Absolutely
not. The purpose is to ensure that our investigations
are always accessible to the public. at Bellingcat,
but especially also in news organizations, but
within our entire development team, we feel very
strongly about having editorial independence
for the researchers and the editorial team and
really all of the other operations across Bellingcat.
So no, there would never be a time in which the
membership program would create opportunities
for the research team to be beholden to them.
Yeah. Maybe Sarah, if I can add to that, because
there was also a question in the chat in terms
of earmarked donations or earmarked membership
so that you can support maybe other topics that
you rely, that you relate more to. And this is
exactly the same answer. You can support our
toolkit work because that's general for all of
the open source research we do. And it's a very
solid pillar that we offer to the community.
But earmarking in terms of a topic or a topic
area. exactly bears that danger so to speak that
of course there are topics that are more newsworthy
or maybe covered also widely within society rather
than other areas which are unreported which exactly
is also part of our work that we also shed light
on underreported conflicts for example or under
other unreported topic areas which then if we
related to membership which of course then might
be underfunded compared to other areas. So this
is a danger we want to prevent in opening up
the membership to support our work in general
and stay tuned on all of the investigations.
But yeah, and to also show respect to all the
work that all of our resource rights are doing.
Absolutely. I think the earmarked question is
a really good question because you often do see
campaigns for not -for -profits, for example,
based on different topic areas. So it's really
interesting to know that that's not something
that we're kind of leaning into. In regards to
questions from the audience, we had one at the
very beginning, which I skipped because I wanted
to focus in on the membership model, but perhaps
we can visit it now quickly. It was on the stat
about advertising losses and what a scale that
is over 30 years. And they wondered how the advertising
losses looked more on a year by year review.
Was there a particular point where advertising
for newsrooms or for not -for -profits became
something that just wasn't the answer anymore?
And what was the definition of advertisement
in that kind of sake? Does it include sponsorships
and merchandising or was it just subsidies? Perhaps
you can give just a very quick overview of what
the previous advertising model looked like for
many newsrooms and why people are moving away
from that a little bit. I don't want to move
too much into it because this talks about membership
models specifically and you can listen back to
Marika's last talk if you want to dive into that
deeper, but I just wanted to address that question
that came in early on. Yeah, I think there are
three real moments that we can hone in on across
those more than 30 years. And I'm going to apologize
in advance that I'm not going to give you the
exact dates because if I got it wrong, I would...
Feel very bad, but I can give you approximations
right now And it is something that I have in
many research notes that I should just make available
But first there was a if we go back to the 1990s
with the the advent of you know, most people
now having a Personal computer in their homes
and the expansion of the World Wide Web We see
the first general shift in advertising At this
point, most news organizations are exclusively
print, radio, and broadcast. And this shift affected
primarily the print organizations, where we start
to see money shift from print ads, classifieds,
paying to submit obituaries. I know these sound
like really small or like some can you believe
the classifieds and obituaries and also in the
United States especially posting your marriage
license or your name change you would have to
do in print. And this was a substantial line
of business. But then there's also advertising
from corporate interests and that At this time
was primarily print ads, like just ads as well.
And sponsorships is something that you see develop
especially into the early aughts as news organizations
make more offerings to feel more customized and
tailored to their advertisers. So the first shift
that we see is as the World Wide Web comes on
and news organizations are slow to their digital
transformation. Then into the odds, this is around
between 2009 and 2013, there's more cookie tracking.
And in this window, Google buys the major cookie
tracker, which is tracking how people are visiting
different websites. And it provides a lot of...
analytics to advertisers and this massively changes
again how digital advertising operates on the
scale of digital publications. So now it is more
difficult to, you have to have click -through
rates and you have to have a certain number of
impressions to reach the ad spends that you're
promised. Then we jump through another let's
say seven to 10 years into the 2020s. Facebook
is really at its boom cycle. I would say its
boom cycle was actually closer to 2015. We have
a lot of digital platforms have built their businesses
off of capturing the online ad market. And you
have lots of Facebook ads and Google has a very
successful ad business. And that is spend that
You know, the advertisers have a finite amount
of money that they are willing to spend. And
so that spend is going into platforms again instead
of the websites and publications that news outlets
would then have. So we have these three tiers
of technological innovation that directly affect
advertiser behavior and that also creates massive
shifts for the news and information sector on
how they can deliver. Thank you for that overview.
You've just gone through the downfall of the
advertising space. I know we're here to talk
about the membership model as basically a good
thing that Bellingcat has launched, but what
are the risks to relying on mentorship as a financial
model? I'd love to understand a little bit more
about where the risks lie here. Yeah, there's
risk in everything. inherent risk in, you know,
waking up and deciding to engage. So first, the
risk that I am very mindful of is I don't want
people to hear more from me than they would hear
from the Bellingcat editorial and research teams.
So Bellingcat naturally only publishes when there's
something that is, when an investigation has
closed and it is worth publication, it has a
standard of impact and there is a unique finding.
That means that we are not operating on a cadence
of publication that other newsrooms would do.
Another newsroom, if they need to fill their
quota, they might cover the pumpkin patch at
their local community event. They can just sort
of fill content space and that's something we
would never do. So one risk is hearing too much
from me. Another risk really is As a membership
program is built on ensuring that we are speaking
with an audience and it's increasingly more difficult
for audiences to find publications these days.
We have what has been affectionately coined the
Google zero when people are expecting to receive
no more SEO from Google. We also have no more
search results driving to their pages because
of Google's changes and how they present search
results through paid search, but also because
of the artificial intelligence summaries. We're
also seeing that we can receive traffic from
bots, from AI bots, but that doesn't actually
mean that somebody is clicking through or learning
about the organization. developing a relationship.
So really, the other risk is always audience
discovery. And Charlie, I am able to go to sleep
at night knowing that you work on that. And I'm
constantly impressed by your ability to reach
new audiences and really engage in a purposeful
and thoughtful manner. But just acknowledging
that that's the trend that we see in the industry.
And that is one of the existential risks of a
membership program. Oh, don't make me blush.
Yes, the chat bot's AI search is becoming kind
of something that newsrooms, I think we spoke
about this on a previous talk, something that
newsrooms are currently trying to prepare for
and optimize for as well with their headlines
and the way that they write stories, which is
interesting, the shift in the way that our stories
are being recommended to audiences. Please keep
your questions coming in. We've got about 15
minutes left. So if you haven't asked a question
yet, pop it in the chat. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah,
thanks. I just wanted to add on that question
of the risk of membership. I think it's not in
terms of membership specifically, but on relying
on one source of funding. It's always a risk,
right? I mean, if you look at what happened to
USAID, some organizations had quite a portion
of their income from this and suddenly it stops,
which nobody thought would happen. And then you
have quite some difficulty. So in any case, people
thinking about building their own organization
or outlet, they should always keep in mind of
having a diverse source of income. Of course,
you cannot build all of this in one month. So
it has to be built up continuously, but keep
this in mind when looking at your portfolio that
if there is a major donor coming your way, great,
but you shouldn't rely on one person. And of
course you also shouldn't rely on only membership
model or a corporation who supports you or one
institutional funder. So keep in mind that you
constantly try to diversify and think about different
stakeholders to your work. who might support
you rather than only focusing on one. So yeah,
that's a general advice to always keep in mind.
Really important advice. And last time you were
here, we talked about the collapse of USAID as
well and how devastating of an impact that had
across your event and worldwide with funding
because a lot of organizations depended on it.
Thankfully, not Bellingcat though, we never took
USAID. In regards to the membership model, what
metrics tell you a membership program is healthy?
What metrics are you looking for for success?
That is such a great question. So there are a
few different metrics that we measure in terms
of, I mean, let's first define what success means.
One very straightforward answer, which is, you
know, how is this increasing the sustainability
of Bellingcat? But the answer that is really
beholden to a membership program is, are we providing
real value to people that are willing to support
us? So one of the most important metrics is churn
rate. So churn rate is... When somebody has given
and then they decide to no longer give that could
be canceling a recurring gift or just doing one
One single donation that that lapses beyond a
year having a lower turn rate means that people
still Connect to the mission of Bellingcat. We're
still asking them in an appropriate way And when
they become a member, they find that membership
to be worthwhile. So that is If you are launching
a membership program and there are lots of key
performance indicators that you'll naturally
measure in terms of the funds that you're actually
raising and your average gift size and the number
of people that you're receiving funds from, but
the one that really says whether or not your
program is meaningful is turn rate. I can see
a few people typing as well. So as I said, we've
only got 10 minutes left. So do pop your questions
in. If you could change one thing about how journalism
slash nonprofits are funded today, what would
it be? If journalism is a public good, for example,
should its survival depend on voluntary contributions?
What would you change about the funding system
as it stands today? It's an interesting question
to consider where I live especially because I'm
in the United States and I guess we're very well
known for our full embrace of capitalism. So
the question is also how do public goods sustain
themselves in a capital system? Journalism in
particular has such a meaningful metric for informing
people and helping them improve their lives through
what they learn and can take action on and can
hold their own representatives accountable, which
makes it tricky to consider, for instance, the
BBC model, especially in the United States. But
just asking from a global context, there are
so many things that are really worthwhile as
public good. And what would be lovely to see
from a journalism perspective is having secured
sources that can distribute a percentage to different
organizations with metrics included on tracking
that spending. that was from a governing body
that was not tied to political institutions.
How that could be organized is really, I guess,
a pipe dream. There are initiatives in the United
States to try to get local cities and states
to contribute X amount of their funding to advertising
programs for local news, for instance. And I
know there are some efforts in the United Kingdom
for the public interest media fund. But yeah,
there needs to be some, I would imagine, some
third party that can be the arbiter on behalf
of public goods such as journalism. I think,
yeah, in an ideal world, honestly, for me, journalism
is community funded completely. But by community,
I would enclose also anyone like a corporation
or an institutional funder. So like I said, a
diverse group of people who believe in public
interest reporting, but who also take us accountable
of actually delivering accountability and public
interest reporting. So I think it should be a
dialogue based relationship that you build and
that you really, yeah, that you really measured
on if you deliver. That takes me really nicely
into one of the audience questions that's just
come through, which says for large institutional
funders that are looking to fund democracy resilient
civil society organizations, how do you go about
approaching those types of large donors? How
do you get your foot in there? Exactly. I wanted
to raise that question as well. I saw it in the
chat. Thank you for that question. It's difficult
to give a general answer because it's depending
on the funder, but I think in general, media
and journalism needs to have an answer on their
role of an information ecosystem. So they need
to answer what is their actual theory of change
in terms of democracy or playing an important
part in democracy because we've seen such a decline
over the last years in trust in media in general.
So you cannot rely on your traditional model,
I think, anymore. So I think what funders are
asking is like, okay, what is your current and
future role in an information ecosystem that
has been in jeopardy and that has asked to continuously
play an important role in democracy resilience.
So I think it's a very broad question that you
need to tie to your actual work that you do.
But I think having a good answer to your systemic
role being part of the system is the key. We
have quite a few questions coming through now.
We've only got a small amount of time, so I'm
going to run through them. And if we can give
short succinct answers, that would be really
useful. So, you mentioned that you are risk adverse,
not posting content for the amount of posts or
to fill content. How does Bellingcat keep audiences
interested? Good articles take time, research
and time to do it. Or in other words, how does
Bellingcat keep working on the edge of publishing
good content and satisfying the customer? I think
that's a question for you to answer. Yeah, I
was about to say that. Good editorial stuff and
research is my answer. Yeah, in terms of making,
I think what's unique about Bellingcat is that
researchers generally work on things that interest
them and that they are passionate about and that
they care about deeply. researchers aren't just
kind of thrown onto a beat that they're not experienced
in or not passionate about. And I think that's
something that really shows through in the work.
And we are quite unique in the fact that we do,
because we are marketed as a long form investigative
collective, we have the ability and we have the
expectation that we can take time with our investigations
and that we aren't publishing something every
single day. That luxury isn't given to you in
mainstream news organizations. For example, at
the BBC, they have to publish a certain amount
of stories a day and you're not given the same
amount of time and flexibility as you do at Bellingcat.
So I think the luxury that we have there in terms
of the way that the organization was initially
set up provides us with the ability to do those
in -depth dives. And that's what Bellingcat is
known for. And that's what people come to us
for. And I think that's kind of part of our selling
points. A little follow -up to that is, is it
an idea for Bellingcat to sponsor small and or
local reporters not affiliated with Bellingcat
to gain more localized content? This of course
risks that no good research has been done or
not be able to check slash authenticated. Think
of reporters in North Korea or Russia. I don't
know if you guys want to answer that specifically.
It's more of an editorial question, but I can
give a quick brief and then if you want to take
it from there, Sarah. In terms of paying for
content, there's quite a few ethical risks involved
with that in terms of getting sold stories. If
you do pitch to Bellingcat, you can let us know
the story that you're looking for and we can
work with you on that in terms of developing
it. We don't approach individuals for content.
Individuals approach us usually, so we don't
have training programs for specific researchers.
Some of the big organizations do like DW Academy,
for example. and that sponsor kind of newsrooms
in lots of different jurisdictions. Bellingcat
hasn't got the resources for that. We are still
a small not -for -profits. However, there are
other organizations that have done that in the
past, but there are a lot of ethical considerations
to take into account. For example, if you listen
to our last stage talk with Costanza, she explained
some of the issues and why her organization never
pays for content. So there's some considerations
there, but Sarah, I'll pass it over to you on
that. Yeah, I just want to quickly add that another
way that Bell and Cat works to participate in
localized content is through partnerships. Last
year, there were more than 30 partnerships that
Bell and Cat interacted with with other news
organizations, one that sticks out very clearly
to me. is with an organization in the United
States called CalMatters for the state of California.
They are a regional policy -based organization
or a policy coverage organization. This was a
partnership where a reporter from CalMatters
was in Bakersfield when he experienced an ICE
raid from the U .S. Border Patrol. And he began
working with an additional partner, which is
Evident Media, on telling this story. But they
hit several blocks on how far they could take
the investigation. And Evident already knew Bellingcat,
and they called and they said, we need some help.
So Bellingcat was able to partner with CalMatters
and actually had three investigations over the
course of a year. And this partnership was having
multiple researchers, I believe it was five researchers
and editorial staff, and then also seven volunteers
from our volunteer community working with CalMatters
on these three different investigations. So that's
an instance where Bellingcat... you know, built
with communities does not parachute in. And I
think that that's a very effective means of working
in a local context. I'm really conscious of the
fact that we are now at time. So I just want
to ask this final, final question about how we
might represent if you are a member or not. So
somebody's asked in the chat, if X has the blue
tick, would Bellingcat offer something similar
to show membership level, like an associate mark
or? something like that. Is there going to be,
you know, like in the Discord server, we have
a little cat symbol for people that you can assign
to your name if you want to. Is there going to
be something like that that kind of indicates
that you're a member, a Bill & Cat member and
not just a passive audience member? That's a
really great question. We're always open to new
ideas and especially being able to share that
people are proud of being a Bellingcat member
in the Discord server is something I think we
can take back to the team and work on. And yeah,
I actually, I love that because it's also, it's
like a bit of advocacy for Bellingcat and Pride
and supporting the organization. Always keep
those good ideas coming. You can email us at
donations at bellincat .com. And thank you for
sharing that one. That was great. Love it. Thanks.
As has been mentioned in this talk, you can now
get involved with the membership program at Bellincat.
These do follow the links in the chat. I'll also
make sure that they are within the description
of this podcast as well if you're listening back.
There is a list of member benefits on there and
ways that you can get involved. And there'll
be a lot more information coming your way from
Bellingcat in the next few months on what you
can do to build support for Bellingcat going
forwards. But thank you so much, Sarah and Marika
for coming in today and walking us through what
membership models look like, why Bellingcat has
adopted it. the difference between these models
in not -for -profits and newsrooms. And we'll
be back in two weeks' time with a stage talk
on that leap to be the investigation that was
just mentioned. So we'll be following up on that
piece in two weeks' time. For now, thank you,
everybody, and thank you for joining. Thank you
for listening to the stage talk. If you'd like
to catch a stage tour live where you can ask
the guest questions, join the Bellingcat Discord
server by visiting www .discord .gg slash Bellingcat.
The music you've heard is titled Dawn by Newer
Self and is courtesy of Artlist.