From PortlandAfoot

Portland Afoot's open-source business plan is our way of walking our talk.

We believe in local journalism because we think the best way to solve problems is with eyeballs. Here at Portland Afoot and its parent nonprofit, Portland in the Round, we've given ourselves a big problem to solve: How do we get more eyeballs on TriMet, the city, and other local governments -- especially eyeballs that share the perspective of an ordinary low-car household? Portland Afoot's editor, Michael, is working hard with the support of the board and a little team of other volunteers to figure this out.

[edit] Our business plan in brief

Even nonprofits need business plans! Here's ours:

• We're building this online guide for free. It contains detailed information that remains useful for long periods of time. Online ads bring in enough to pay for our hosting and a few small bills, like our Skype line.
• We publish a beautiful four-page monthly print newsmagazine with news, features, events, stories and exclusive investigations about issues that matter to low-car households in Portland. It's mostly distributed in two ways: paid mail subscriptions and sponsored distribution to local workplaces. Home subscription revenue pays for its own production and mailing costs, and sponsorship revenue pays for workplace distribution and our staff's reporting time.
• We report breaking news for free on Twitter (complusively) and Facebook (judiciously).
• We solicit donations and sustaining memberships to help spread the word about the project.
• In 2011 and 2012, we hope to launch two free, ad-supported print products: one that would be useful to low-car families moving into a particular Portland neighborhood and one that would help tourists experiencing low-car Portland for the first time.

[edit] Other things we post online

We think governments work better when more people can see them at work. And we think private companies -- nonprofit local journalism startups, for example -- work better that way, too.

That's why we're inviting you to look over our shoulders. We keep our budget projections and results on Google Docs, available to anyone. We schedule our semiannual board meetings (and post the minutes) on our wiki. And here are the balance sheet and income statement from the time of our most recent board meeting.

[edit] We'd love your suggestions

We can't be sure sure we'll be the ones who find this answer. But we want the answer to be found. So ask us questions, steal our best ideas and send us your own. We're all in this together.