Like much of Belarus’s independent media sector, Hrodna.life is struggling for sustainability in exile. Forced to relocate to the EU, we lost not only our advertising market, but also our direct contact with the audience we serve. We saved ourselves from prison, but lost the opportunity to breathe the same air as our readers—and this is crucial for local media like ours.
The Challenge:
We entered the Local News Accelerator with two main challenges: how to better understand our audience and tailor our content to their needs, and how to develop sustainable monetization methods when we are cut off from previous opportunities and highly dependent on grants and other donor funding.
The programme was an eye-opening experience—meeting local media in very different countries and finding out how similar and how different our experiences and challenges can sometimes be. We felt inspired by organizations that make comprehensive journalism with extremely small teams.
The Accelerator helped us develop new strategies for financial viability. One of the most promising ideas was to create a fundraising programme to collect support from the Belarusian diaspora around the world. Since any contact with us is criminalized in Belarus, our challenge is to persuade Belarusians abroad to pay for journalism that is primarily directed at Belarusians in the country. This requires creative approaches, leveraging the solidarity of the Belarusian society, which is still strong even 5 years after the political crisis of 2020.
“Thanks to our Accelerator coach, we have made the first steps in the development of this fundraising programme. It is still far from ready to be launched, but we know exactly in which direction to move.”
Time and resources remain our biggest challenges. We are a relatively small newsroom, made up of 8 people wearing multiple hats and fulfilling multiple roles. Even so, we have decided to start occasional campaigns as a substitute for the fundraising programme. For example, we are starting to integrate donation blocks into the layout of our website. We will also use the tax-deductible donation mechanisms available in our countries of exile. Lastly, we have started to collect donations through smaller thematic side projects that exist as independent micro-media. The next step is determining how we can reward our donors for their support, offering something beyond content.
The Solution
Despite our limited resources, we have also managed to innovate. In the past few months, we successfully launched a TikTok channel, even though we had no experience with the platform.
Many aspects of the Accelerator programme were helpful and inspiring, from the OKR methodology to specific advice on editorial planning that we can replicate in our context. Some concepts and techniques we already knew, but didn’t use on a regular basis. For example, the BBC/Smartocto user needs model. Now, after the Accelerator, we are paying much more attention to it. We even started using AI tools to analyze published content according to user needs and generate new ideas according to this model.
At the same time, some of the ideas presented in the programme, especially about diversifying revenue streams and achieving financial stability, didn’t fit our specific circumstances. Far from seeing this as a disadvantage, we see it as an opportunity to keep looking for ways out that experts and colleagues may not have found yet.
In other words, the Accelerator didn’t answer our questions directly—instead, it sparked new questions, new ideas, and pushed us to think about solutions.
What is next for Hrodna.life?
The next step for Hrodna.life will be to intensify contacts with other exile media, not only from our region, but also globally. Together, we will find possibilities for cooperation.
We wish we could end this story with a team photo. But even in exile and relative safety, we know our people are still afraid of being accused by the Belarusian authorities of “supporting an extremist organization”. Being tried in absentia at home is a constant fear. Showing our faces can put our loved ones in danger.
Follow Hrodna.life:
- Website: hrodna.life
- Instagram: @hrodna.mylove
Hrodna.Life was one of the participants in IPI’s Local News Accelerator 2024, made possible with support from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
