The Membership Puzzle Project: Optimizing News for Trust—A Case Study
In an era characterized by an erosion of public trust in institutions, businesses, and information, how can organizations establish trust and build loyalty?
Research Director Emily Goligoski shares high-level insights and themes from her research into successful community membership organizations around the globe. She and her colleagues set out to understand how organizations, specifically news membership organizations, could optimize their news for trust. Her work takes a human-centered approach to understanding and strengthening the relationship between organizations and their audiences, websites and their member base.
Engage with Audiences and Members
- Understand what your audience needs and values
- Create a strong feedback loop with your audiences
- Involve audiences in a participatory relationship
Use Analogous Research to Uncover Insights
- Look at other contexts that contain valuable information
Become More Human-Centered
- Be more transparent about your work
- Pay attention to the user experience
- Structure research around learning more about your customers
User researchers, designers, product managers, strategists, and anyone interested in learning how to build a successful community engagement and membership base will benefit from this seminar.
About the project: Membership Puzzle Project is a research project funded by the Knight Foundation and the Democracy Fund, and collaboratively run by NYU and Dutch journalism platform De Correspondent. They're delving into research on ways that journalism organizations are diversifying revenue with a particular focus on membership programs and optimizing news for trust.