Objectives

The world is changing faster than anyone could have ever imagined -- from COVID to climate, from clean energy to antibiotics, war to artificial intelligence. The deluge of news is nearly impossible to fully digest, much less act upon. And yet it's more vital than ever that each of us understand what's going on, and how it's all connected. How this change affects ourselves, and those around us.

Our goal has always been to fight for a better future -- for everyone. In 2020, we looked at the world around us, at what we'd built so far, and at our newsletter and -- being entirely bootstrapped and "indie" -- decided to pursue measurable, maximum impact. 1000x growth is not possible for us, but with a highly-influential audience, we realized we could make a more strategic impact on the world.

Strategy and Execution

In 2020, we re-designed our newsletter to more efficiently and impactfully drive understanding and action.

That strategy included:

• Evaluating our sources: We looked at our sources to date (both publications and journalists) and, while mostly satisfied with our representation, re-committed to making sure chosen sources had reputable reputations, cited journals and studies directly when possible, and in any given week represented on the whole a diverse set of science-based work.
   
• Evaluating our Action Steps: we re-built our database of existing and new Action Steps to focus on a more diverse set of destinations (including NGO's, legislation at every level, educational materials, and more) and built new processes to more frequently review that each Action Step was of repute and carried a significant data advantage, and that on the whole, they reflected an effort to move our planet and society to be vastly more equitable. Our readers are busy folks, and it's imperative we design and recommend Action Steps that move the needle, and when possible, as efficiently as possible. To compliment all of this, the newsletter itself was redesigned to be cleaner, lighter, and to be more clearly call out these Action Steps.
   
• We designed new segmentation among our readers to build on action taking. Readers who consistently show increased engagement with context (reading articles, studies, journals) and action were nudged to take their efforts further.
   
• We introduced a brand new audio version of our newsletter, providing the news and recommended Action Steps in a digestible format that's always less than ten minutes long, and delivered straight to subscribers podcast feeds.
   
• Finally, we rebuilt our referral engine (twice) to better grow our community -- word of mouth is everything to us, especially considering we have very little money to spend, and measure our readers by how impactful they are, or can be.

Results

We're over the moon with our pursuit of (more effectively) fighting for a better future -- for everyone. 

Our published newsletter sources now reflect a greater diversity of race. To date this year, BIPOC represent 48% of our published sources. We have also increased our share of sources that identify as women to 52%. All sources are vetted first for objective fact-based coverage of the subject at hand, and journalistic reputation for both the reporter and publication itself.

Our readers are far more engaged than in 2019. Open rates are on average 44% (2x industry levels), and our click-through rates on Action Steps are 8% (4x industry levels). Our readers have fought for progressive Senate candidates, COVID relief, to prevent water shutoffs, to support Black farmers, data analysis of urban heat, mental health benefits, vehicle emission standards, to improve healthy food deserts, flood relief, against malaria, and so much more.

And our most engaged readers are referring us more to their friends and colleagues: shares are up 60% and successful referrals are up 54% YOY.

Our newsletter audience -- comprised of scientists, legislators, students, activists, Fortune 50 leaders, land and ocean farmers, and founders -- is among the most impactful on the internet today, and we're working our asses off to make sure that our trust remains earned among them. 

Media