membership sign
Credit: By Howard Lake on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

A publishing model supported entirely through contributions from the audience is an ideal scenario for most news organisations, but what do readers expect in exchange for becoming paying members?

The Membership Puzzle Project, founded by NYU's Studio 20 programme and Dutch news organisation De Correspondent, has been researching various membership models from outlets in the US and Europe to see what makes them successful.

Research director Emily Goligoski spoke to four of these organisations and outlined four questions for publications thinking of revamping or adopting a membership model, including: 'what assumptions did you make about who would support you and why?', and 'how did you decide membership was an approach worth trying?'

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