{"id":9872,"date":"2011-01-26T18:11:20","date_gmt":"2011-01-26T18:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/a-breakthrough-year-for-minnpost\/"},"modified":"2011-01-26T18:11:20","modified_gmt":"2011-01-26T18:11:20","slug":"a-breakthrough-year-for-minnpost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/a-breakthrough-year-for-minnpost\/","title":{"rendered":"A breakthrough year for MinnPost"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is such great news. Full disclaimer: MinnPost<\/a> – a non-profit online news start-up – is where I work. LOADS of awesome planned for 2011. Caveat: We move as fast as our budget allows, of course. And our 2010 “surplus” is indeed modest. But it will allow us to move faster than last year. I can ‘feel’ that in the office already. And I’m excited about that.<\/p>\n

minnpost<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

An update from founders Joel and Laurie Kramer:<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2010, MinnPost ran its first surplus.<\/p>\n

A $17,594 surplus on spending of $1.261 million may not sound like much. But this is tremendous vindication for our business model, because it resulted from 18 percent revenue growth, not budget-cutting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We ran deficits of $605,000 in 2008, our first full year of operation, and $126,915 in 2009. (We were spending down the start-up funds we raised in 2007.) So it has taken us just three years to reach break-even.<\/p>\n

Most notably, our advertising and sponsorship revenue rose 42 percent, from $217,734 in 2009 to $309,508 in 2010. That\u2019s on top of a 35 percent increase the previous year.<\/p>\n

Revenue from individual and corporate donors and from MinnRoast increased a more modest 5 percent, to $482,190. But in a sign of strong community support, 631 new donors joined the MinnPost family, an increase of 37 percent, bringing the total donor base to 2,338. And 170 donors gave more in 2010 than they had in 2009.<\/p>\n

We launched a new Corporate Leadership Circle in 2010 with donations from the Medtronic Foundation and the General Mills Foundation, to support coverage of issues critical to the future of Minnesota.<\/p>\n

We continue to benefit as well from strong support from major Minnesota-based foundations (McKnight, Blandin, Minneapolis, Bremer and now Bush) and from national foundations (Knight and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation).<\/p>\n

Can we continue to grow? We are optimistic that we can. Here\u2019s one impressive indicator: We have already booked more than $130,000 of advertising and sponsorship revenue for 2011. That\u2019s twice as much as we had booked in advance for 2010. That\u2019s why we feel confident about increasing our spending on both journalism and technology in 2011.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our revenue growth is very much tied to the popularity of our site, and that, too, is trending up strongly. In the second half of 2010, we saw substantial growth in traffic to MinnPost.com. Visits by Minnesotans (which we consider to be the most important measure for us strategically) rose 18 percent over the same time period in 2009. In the last quarter of 2010, we averaged more than 450,000 visits (up 14 percent) and more than 850,000 page views a month (up 16 percent).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Other healthy signs:<\/p>\n