In 2023, MDF launched the Community Leaders Program, which provides training and mentoring support to media professionals to help them become media leaders in their regions. Each newsroom achieves this goal with its own unique strategy, developed with the help of experienced experts. For our part, we provide the necessary individual consultations or mentoring to ensure that the newsrooms implement at least 80% of the strategy during the program. Our content experts audit the materials and provide recommendations on how to make them not only interesting for the community, but also impactful.
Participants develop in three strategic areas:
- Creation of high-quality, unique content that meets the community’s needs;
- Content distribution;
- Team and media process management.
These are the key development areas. Thanks to the program, participants will be able to build and implement a development strategy for their media outlet for 2025, improve the quality, uniqueness, and impact of their content, enhance management processes within their organization, learn how to find new financial opportunities, expand their donor support base, and build a loyal audience — particularly through funding for social media advertising.
In addition to training and mentoring, program participants have the opportunity to receive individual consultations in their chosen area, psychological support for up to 10 sessions, and the chance to meet like-minded individuals at offline program events.
