The nonprofit Oklahoma Media Center (OMC) recently partnered with the nationally known Blue Engine Collaborative, resulting in remarkable transformations for 10 local newsrooms, with some seeing double-digit increases in newsletter subscribers and donor support.
The summer training cohort designed to enhance their digital user experience and increase revenue included the Broken Arrow Sentinel, Enid News & Eagle, The Frontier, Investigate Midwest, Langston Gazette, NonDoc, OETA, OU Daily, The Oklahoma Eagle and VNN (now Crosswinds). During the eight-week program, participating newsrooms received stipends from OMC to work individually with coaches Cierra Hinton and Rebecca Meyer to improve digital news products, empower audience engagement and streamline the overall online experience.
“We were grateful to work with inspired and inspiring teams from across Oklahoma,” said Blue Engine CEO Tim Griggs. “The work these groups put in during a short period was impressive and the results even more so.”
David Grant, director of partnerships at Blue Engine, said the impact of the innovative program was overwhelmingly positive. Grant highlighted several specific successes from the participating outlets, which included a mix of strategic shifts in digital engagement, audience targeting and fundraising efforts.
The Frontier introduced a new strategy for their weekly email newsletter, focusing on exclusive content and donor engagement. As a result, their subscriber base grew by 10 percent in just three months, a growth typically seen over the course of a year.
Similarly, Investigate Midwest saw a dramatic improvement in their user experience, launching a revamped newsletter sign-up page and a new email welcoming series. Their efforts led to over 500 new subscribers and an increased donor base, helping them exceed their fundraising goals for their summer campaign.
The Broken Arrow Sentinel made simple yet impactful changes, including placing a more prominent newsletter sign-up form on their website. These tweaks resulted in a 10 percent jump in subscribers in just one month.
“(At) the OU Daily, despite it being a traditionally slow summer period, social media views skyrocketed to over 1 million per month, and email list growth resumed at an impressive rate after stalling for most of 2025,” said Grant of the student-led publication at the University of Oklahoma.
As participants gained a clearer understanding of their audiences and refined their digital strategies, the Blue Engine program also inspired several “light-bulb moments.” One of the key breakthroughs was the refinement of each newsroom’s value proposition. By carefully rethinking what they offered to their communities, local outlets were able to sharpen their messaging and better communicate what they provide.
“OMC got great feedback from all Blue Engine cohort experiences about this being a highly effective, targeted training,” said OMC Executive Director Rob Collins. “Thanks to the Kirkpatrick Foundation for supporting this collaborative project.”
Another key takeaway was the importance of reducing friction in audience engagement. Newsrooms found that simplifying their newsletter sign-up processes — whether by making calls-to-action more visible or eliminating unnecessary steps — offered a quick win that reaped dividends in increased subscriptions.
One of the cohort’s most significant shifts came from VNN, which rebranded as Crosswinds News to better serve Indigenous communities in Oklahoma. The rebranding, which included a name change and a streamlined website, aimed to make their content more accessible and relevant to their target audience. This move is expected to further enhance their ability to deliver on the outlet’s mission and broaden its reach.
Besides providing newsrooms with new tools to increase engagement, the cohort also introduced concrete methods to boost revenue streams.
“Working with Blue Engine through the Oklahoma Media Center quickly, easily and directly helped elevate the service OU Daily provides to our community, deepened the learning of our student staff and strengthened our fiscal outlook,” said Seth Prince, director of student media at OU. “The training helped our newsroom further elevate the impact and reach of its independent journalism, growing social video views by more than 250 percent and the Daily’s social following by nearly one third. Our business teams leveraged those successes to generate tens of thousands of dollars in new ad buys as well as more than double the number of donor gifts received. I heartily encourage those helping steward news organizations in these turbulent times to make time for this training. Your community, your staff and you will benefit.”
Lessons shared for collaborative
During group meetings in September and October, each cohort participant also received stipends from OMC to share their experiences with collaborating newsrooms. This provided clear illustrations of how minor tweaks can lead to significant alterations of user behavior to benefit both local newsrooms and digital audiences.
Editor, Publisher and Founder John Dobberstein presented for the Broken Arrow Sentinel. The newer outlet needed help developing revenue infrastructure. To funnel people into the digital pipeline, the Sentinel put a newsletter signup much more up-front on their website to greatly increase activity with 100 signups in the past 60 days. The donation page was also expanded to have more information about the outlet. Apathy toward news is a problem, so making the audience feel engaged and connected with the news org encourages donations. The Sentinel is going to include a video of Dobberstein discussing the publication’s mission as well. In addition to the monthly and one-time giving options, the website added a refund policy to take some of the risk away from wary donors. The funding also will allow the Sentinel to start a relationship with Broadstreet Ads, a specialized ad manager built for local news that lets the BAS to offer businesses dozens of custom ad formats to create audience engagement and client return on investment.
Digital Communications Coordinator Violet Hassler presented for the Enid News & Eagle. The key takeaway was to review the website regularly to make sure links work and info is updated and that everything is working correctly. ENE’s navigation menu had multiple links for signing up to the newsletter, text alerts and other items that had not been updated for a long time, so adding more color, changing the format and other simple changes were easy ways to keep audiences engaged. At the bottom of its homepage, ENE added a clear and concise value proposition that Blue Engine helped them develop. Subscription numbers have maintained fairly well, which is considered a positive since the trend had been downward. ENE also updated its Trusting News form, allowing readers to respond to stories and further cementing their engagement with the publication. The publication also has largely stopped posting links on its Facebook page, favoring images/graphics and a quick synopsis of the story that encourages audiences to subscribe to get the full content. Overall, simplifying things, keeping digital assets high on the page and continually revising the website have proven to be successful strategies to maintain audience engagement.
Executive Editor Dylan Goforth presented for The Frontier. With social media draining traditional website traffic and the overwhelming amount of noise on those platforms, The Frontier wanted to find ways to drive people specifically to their newsletter. Blue Engine helped The Frontier narrow its focus, building one newsletter list and sending three to four emails per week. While hesitant to embrace AI as a journalist, Goforth found it was extremely helpful in terms of getting help with coding to get the newsletter to look exactly how the news org wanted. This allowed them to get the newsletter in front of more subscribers to the donation buttons and content. The Frontier also revamped how the newsletter sign-up looks, making it easier for people to subscribe. The newsletter provides access to content before it is live on the web, as well as exclusive interviews with reporters about the stories and a specific ask to donors. The Frontier added more than 10 percent to its subscriber base in the last three months, which is more than the outlet typically would in an entire year. July and August saw dramatically increased web traffic — the highest months since 2021 during the last big COVID-19 wave. Though the outlet worried multiple emails a week would be too much for people, this has not proven to be the case at all. New, small donors have almost quadrupled every month since they started the project. This will be hugely helpful when The Frontier is applying for grants because it shows a wide base of consistent small donors.
Audience Engagement Manager Lauren Cross presented for Investigate Midwest. The news outlet’s objectives included growing subscribers by 50 percent, donors by 15 percent, auditing a bloated Mailchimp list, building up donor testimonials and raising $5,000 for its first summer matching campaign. To achieve these goals, they worked on improving the website, especially reducing confusion on the donation page. Simplifying copy and making the form more prominent were the main changes. The subscriber page was similarly changed. They also tweaked their messaging around both subscriptions and donations, tying them directly into readers’ lives instead of being broader rhetorical pleas to save journalism. After making these changes, they have seen open rates increase over 10 percent in the past six months and nearly 15 percent over the past year. Click rates increased over 1.5 percent over six months and over 2.5 percent over the past year. Part of these increases can be attributed to the audit of the Mailchimp list. Many subscribers formerly on the list were not engaging, so focusing on people who do engage with the content has helped considerably. Since May, Investigate Midwest has seen over 500 new subscribers. A first-ever summer campaign beat its goal, with the donor base having nearly quintupled during the time. Leaning into things that set them apart from other outlets has been very successful for Investigate Midwest. Cross also found that combining social media posts with encouragement to sign up for the newsletter has been a winning strategy, where they had previously considered them separate worlds. Next steps include embedding donor testimonials on the website, identifying potential audience tiers and launching the news org’s first virtual panel next week.
Langston Gazette Faculty Adviser Daniel Thompson shared how their organization’s digital side was fairly new and lacked financial resources. They focused on rebuilding the website and driving more traffic to it, as well as building a newsletter. The Gazette posts stories in batches, which makes the newsletter important in letting people know new stories are online. Since the fall semester, they have signed up over 200 people, which is a good start for a small campus, and the days they send a newsletter the website gets about 1,200 visitors, compared to minimal traffic beforehand. They also have an excellent open rate of almost 80 percent and a click rate of nearly 60 percent.
NonDoc’s Distribution/Development Specialist Megan Prather shared their outlet’s intent to make a more user-friendly website and create an Edmond community news page. They launched their Edmond Civic Reporting Project in 2022 to fill the gap after that city’s community paper shuttered. They send out a newsletter every Tuesday informing Edmond residents about community events, news and other happenings. They are getting excellent local feedback, and newsletter subscription numbers are continuing to climb. They created a separate section for this project on their website so the community can easily find relevant information. NonDoc also streamlined their donation page to increase support and make it clear and easy to understand.
OETA’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications Jennifer Mullins shared the station’s goals to enhance web usability and visual continuity, expand audience reach and engagement and increase donor support and contributions. The main aspect of web redesign was a major simplification of the donation page, with a streamlined version with less text launching within the next few weeks, allowing for autoselection of their preferences and sustaining memberships. They have already seen growth in these aspects. They’re having success expanding audience engagement through concerted social media efforts. Marketing initiatives and newsletter asks beyond their normal fundraising efforts have already paid dividends in increasing donations. After the cancellation of Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding, their director sent a letter to donors explaining exactly how this affected the station, which had a great impact on increasing donors. Individual emails to their donor base also helped, as well as adding this information to their social media, website and printed program guide.
At the OU Daily, Prince shared their project’s four primary goals: converting casual audiences to spend more time, growing regular audiences, converting loyal audiences and activating their supporters. Homepage visitors have grown over 230 percent and social video views have increased 276 percent. Since they started monetizing those videos, they have generated $43,000 in revenue. Newsletter subscriptions have increased 59 percent and their open rate is 64 percent, and giving has increased as well. They are really focusing on video and keeping it near the top of the homepage. The newsletter element is within the top third of the story to increase sign-ups. Working with OU Foundation, they were able to make significant simplifications to focus on their endowment, give potential donors clear levels and explain exactly what impacts their gifts have on OU Daily students.
As The Oklahoma Eagle began partnering with the Tulsa Local News Initiative, Executive Editor Gary Lee and General Assignment Reporter Kim Marsh shared how they knew a great deal of changes were needed to the website to get audiences accommodated to the transition. They considered alternative structures for the site, brainstormed ideas for audience engagement and gathered advice and guidance as reference material for the coming year. They prioritized journalistic content, elevated primary calls to action and reworked the layout to make things much more distinct. Adding significant social media posts greatly improved their reach, and those audiences continue to grow. These shifts have had fantastic results in web traffic as well as social media engagement. Having combined their efforts with the newly launched Tulsa Flyer, they are undergoing a complete redesign to make the two brands fit well together and the Eagle can continue these improvements seamlessly.VNN shared how they have now rebranded as Crosswinds News. Announced in October at their American Indian History Symposium, Operations Manager/Senior Journalist Brittany Harlow said the rebranding’s main objectives included brand clarity, delivering on their value proposition and improving reach and resources to Indigenous communities around Northeast Oklahoma. Their overall parent company is now called Talking Circle. Talking Circle will continue to maintain their social news media platform the VNN app, but they also have launched a new dedicated website for their original reporting as Crosswinds News. Talking Circle Solutions will cover their multimedia and consultation services. Overall, they have incorporated simpler website design with less text and more white space. They also have recently become members of the Tiny News Collective, which has been a huge help in getting their website redesigned as a small newsroom.