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Centering Teams in Practice
How to find vendors
that align with your values
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CONTENTS
MAKING SURE YOUR BANK, HR,
FISCAL SPONSOR, AND OTHER PARTNERS
REFLECT AND SUPPORT YOUR CULTURE
As newsroom leaders, we often think a lot about how our organizations embody our values, yet we rarely expect the same from the contractors and external organizations we partner with.
But thoughtfully choosing who you work with is an important way to build your values into your organization’s foundation.
When we first relaunched our newsroom, we needed a bank, a fiscal sponsor, and a Professional Employer Organization (PEO). All of the options were overwhelming.
Here’s how we ensured that the companies and organizations we worked with aligned with, reflected, and supported our values.
How to find vendors that align with your values
FINDING A BANK
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When looking for a bank, we had an unwieldy spreadsheet comparing all the standard things: quick setup time, low first deposit and ongoing minimum, low fees, reasonable ACH & wire rates, good interest rates, easy to use, insured cash sweeps, etc. Even though we’re a fully remote newsroom and needed to open an account online, we also wanted some convenient physical branches in case the need ever arose to bank in person.
On top of these practical needs, as a worker-led organization formed out of a union drive and a newsroom that reports on the harms of the criminal legal system, we were acutely aware of the role banks play in labor and prison issues.
So, we spent considerable time evaluating banks (and some credit unions) on the following criteria:
Supports Union Efforts or Is Union-Run
Supports/Invests in Their Local Community
Has Values That Align With Our Newsroom
Doesn’t Invest in
Private Prisons
Has a Positive
Social Impact
ISN’T A TOP FOSSIL
FUEL FUNDER
It’s rare that you get to be proud of your bank or thrilled about your banking options, but these criteria helped us land on a list of three of the country’s most respectable and responsible banks—any of which would have aligned well with our values.
Some of this information is available on banks’ websites or by simply googling results from industry watchdogs. For many of these criteria, we found Mighty Deposit’s searchable database invaluable.
How to find vendors that align with your values
Finding a HR Partner
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Many small newsrooms partner with a professional employer organization (PEO) to access reasonable rates for benefits, HR compliance, and payroll. But, as with banks, not all PEOs are created equal.
We compared monthly admin costs, medical costs, benefits packages, taxes, and dedicated support staff. (Hot tip: Ask what the average increase in medical costs was for a client like your newsroom last year. Some annual increases can be upwards of 40+%, but we found a place that is reliably less than 10%.)
We also looked at several non-traditional criteria:
Do they provide quick,
easy-to-follow responses?
Some reps we had to chase for information, others gave us nearly 100 color-coded medical plans and didn’t explain them, which was a good indication they don’t work with small clients often.
Do they have issues working
with a worker-run client?
With our structure, some traditional decisions or responsibilities are no longer held by a single boss, so we needed a PEO that understood our model and could provide useful guidance.
Do they accept unionized clients?
One of the most popular PEOs for nonprofit newsrooms refuses to accept unionized clients and will kick existing clients off their services—and medical plans—if their staff unionize, so it’s an important question to ask!
Do we like working with them?
Ask to meet the person who will be your day-to-day contact—not just the sales rep! Make sure you like interacting with them and determine whether you think they know what they’re doing, because some do not.
How to find vendors that align with your values
Finding a Fiscal Sponsor
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A simple way to accept donations before getting your own 501c3 status is to get a fiscal sponsor, which is a nonprofit that essentially “lends” its nonprofit umbrella to projects so they can receive tax-deductible donations (in exchange for fees).
Most nonprofit newsrooms under a fiscal sponsorship use what’s called a “Model C” structure, where the newsroom is its own legal entity that pays lower fees and retains more control but needs to manage its own finances, HR, etc. (The other common option is “Model A” where a newsroom would just be a project of the fiscal sponsor.)
Some of the common questions we asked were about fees, frequency of disbursements (often only released once a month), services provided, the timeline to approve and onboard (some fiscal sponsors can take as long as 4 months), openness to being a bridge sponsor until your 501c3 status arrives, and their annual revenue (try to avoid situations where you would become their biggest client, as this means they really don’t have the capacity to currently support you.)
Again, we also asked them, and ourselves, some hard questions:
Do we align with their other clients?
If none of their clients are newsrooms or they all have different topics or regions of focus of your startup, issues could arise.
Do they accept unionized clients?
This was our biggest hurdle. When we first started out, we knew we wanted to leave the possibility of unionizing open. Plus, we strongly believe in working with partners who support labor rights. We were surprised by the number of fiscal sponsors who told us they support unions but won’t work with them.
Do they require general liability
insurance?
Many places require this, but we’re a fully remote newsroom, so we found that it was quite often negotiable.
Do they have any issues with a
worker-led model?
Many fiscal sponsors work with small community organizations and can be open to different leadership models, but not all are.
Have they had journalism
clients, and will we have
full editorial independence?
The correct answer is obviously yes, but we found one potential fiscal sponsor who wanted to make sure we didn’t criticize a state official they often worked with. Needless to say, they were not the right fit.
Do we like them and can
they easily explain how their
process works?
Fiscal sponsorship is complicated, and if they can’t easily explain how they will pay your employees or your freelance writers, they won’t execute this easily either.
Finding partners that
suited our team, budget,
and valus was not easy.
but it was
absolutely worth it.
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ADVICE
•
GUIDES
Centering Teams in Practice
How to find vendors
that align with your values
Centering Teams in Practice
Building Newsrooms That SPUR Impact
and Support Journalists
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RETURN TO Care & Collaboration Toolkit
The Appeal is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to exposing the harms of the criminal legal system, equipping readers with the information they need to make change, and elevating solutions that emerge from communities most impacted by policing, jails, and prisons.
In a country where nearly half of all American adults have had an immediate family member incarcerated, we are committed to sharing untold stories of incarcerated people, holding power to account, and examining alternatives to the criminal legal system.
As one of the first worker-led, nonprofit news organizations in the country, The Appeal is partnering with RJI to provide deeper insights on how to center care and collaboration in all types of organizations. This toolkit goes behind the scenes, offering practical tools and guidance for transforming newsrooms in both big and small ways.
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