Grow revenue by inviting direct contributions from your digital visitors

Posted

In these challenging times for local media, revenue diversification is key. You're doing everything you can to keep advertising revenue flowing (let us help!) and membership roles growing. But what about folks who just want to support the cause of local journalism?

Diversify your revenue stream while enabling your visitors to express their support for local journalism with a subscription or contribution.

We've rolled out a new feature that makes it quick and easy for digital visitors to contribute directly to your organization. It comes with everything you need to solicit contributions:

  • Turnkey integration with Donorbox, a powerful service that is simple to set up and designed to attract more recurring contributions (account required, additional fees may apply).
  • A beautiful, professionally designed template that can be quickly added to your site and used as-is, or modified to meet your needs.
  • A robust contribution widget that allows visitors to choose from a selection of preset amounts (site configurable), or input their own amount.
  • The ability to solicit funds on either a one-time or a monthly recurring basis.
  • Messaging interspersed throughout your site promoting your initiative.
  • An email push to your existing newsletter subscribers inviting them to make a contribution (requires BLOX Email Reach).

More good news: Setup is FREE, and there are no additional usage fees from TownNews. (Usage and/or transaction fees from Donorbox and your chosen payment processing service may apply.)

Rick Rogers, chief revenue officer for TownNews: "As the majority local media organizations across the TownNews network have either opened or loosened their paywalls to coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, the TownNews team wanted to provide an alternative for them to accept contributions alongside the purchase of a digital membership. In just 48 hours, the product and development team at TownNews put together this Support Local Journalism contribution page that can be used by our partners. At a time when local advertising is experiencing declines, support from readers who are turning to their local media source is vital."

TownNews