For INN members, what is free and what do we have to pay for?
As a benefit of your INN membership you receive free hosting for your main website if you use our Largo platform (if you have more complex needs, multiple sites, etc. we may need to pass some of our infrastructure costs through to you). In addition, we will provide a reasonable amount of support to help you migrate to the platform and customize the look and feel of your site.
If you require more assistance, extensive design customization, custom functionality, or ongoing support then this is typically what we would ask you to pay for. Learn more about member benefits here.
Weren't you doing this for free? Why do we have to pay now?
This new program does not affect any of the benefits we currently offer to members as part of their regular INN membership.
We will continue, for the foreseeable future, to cover hosting costs for members using our Largo WordPress platform and will continue our work to improve the platform itself as well as help members where possible with migration, on-boarding and basic customization.
The reason we now also do paid work is that we now have a lot of requests that are very specific to particular members, which we don't believe would necessarily benefit others in the network.
Our team is focused on tackling problems we believe can best be solved at a network level and given our size and funding level we will never be a complete replacement for investment in technology at the member level.
We also hope that by reducing duplication of effort, building common platforms and tools, etc., we free up resources that members can (and should!) re-invest in technology at their organization to best serve their audience, try new things and innovate further.
Why should we pay you instead of a local freelancer/agency?
In short, our aim is provide better services at a lower cost.
In the past when members came to us with one-off needs we would refer them to outside contractor or in some cases helped them recruit and hire a full-time tech staff.
Sometimes this works out well but many members have told us they have had bad experiences with contractors or had a hard time finding good help that was reasonably priced and understood what they were trying to do.
Other members may want to eventually hire a full-time staff member focused on technology but aren't at that point yet and need ongoing help in the meantime.
The way we're hoping to solve this problem is by forming a sort of "co-op" comprised of the best news technologists, designers and support staff we can possibly find who will be focused full-time on meeting the needs of nonprofit news organizations. Members will then be able to tap into this team as needed on a project-by-project basis and/or use us for ongoing support, training, etc.
What are the rates? How do you structure your contracts?
Contracts will typically be project based and we will bill monthly for the actual hours worked during the previous month. Under certain circumstances we may agree to do fixed bid contracts but we believe it's typically more fair for both parties to charge for actual hours worked.
I have ongoing tech needs but we're not ready to hire a full-time staff member yet, can you help?
If you have ongoing needs, we've talked to a few members/clients about doing a retainer-based support agreements where you would essentially be sharing a full-time headcount on our team with a number of other INN members or other paying clients. The advantage would be that you would be guaranteed a certain percentage of that person's time without having to recruit and manage them.
If this is something that you would be interested in, contact us and we can discuss your particular needs and how we might best help you.