From Dave Cohn (@digidave), founder of Spot.us laying down the gauntlet that news orgs are going to have reconstruct their thinking about future sustainability:

Too often I think journalists or news organizations are looking for a silver bullet revenue stream.

Oh – if only we can charge for content behind a paywall (a bad idea as it cuts off other revenue streams).
Oh – if only we can get the Sandler family (or equivalent) to give 2 million a year to several organizations around the country.
Oh – if only advertising online would start to cover our traditional costs. (Advertising online will never meet the old print numbers)
Oh – if only we can get 100,000 people to donate $10 each. (Hey, I can pick on my model too!)

It ain’t gonna happen… Each of those revenue streams are logs. Some are sturdier than others. We need to figure out how to tie them all together.”

Agreed. It’s time to cook the perfect stew: a lot of ingredients, combined together to make a warm and filling winter food. Or in other words, a lot of different revenue generating options that work together to build on an organization’s strengths & that start filling in the gaps.

Of course–organizations aren’t going to know what the perfect recipe is off the bat. It’s going to take experimentation, or a lot of Julia Child like cooking. TMC is looking to support its members’ experimentation with revenue models next year to see what happen we collaboratively cook in our collective kitchen.