Increase in donations
114%
Donations increase in dollars
+ $33K
The background: The Haitian Times was founded in 1999 to bridge the generational and geographical gaps among Haitians. In 2021, they turned to Newspack as their content management and reader revenue platform.
The bottom line: Using Newspack’s Audience Management tools, they were able to increase donations by 114% totaling more than $33,000.
The big picture
Getting to the next level: Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Vania André, is responsible for ensuring the important work they do gets published daily. “We are very aware that we have a spotlight on our organization, our people, and the work that we do,” said André.
Newspack provides the technology stack to help them publish stories, measure success, manage donations, and make the appropriate strategic shifts needed to increase reader engagement — all while keeping their website secure from online threats.
“At one point, we were literally a team of one-and-a-half people. While we were able to teach ourselves what we needed to get the business going, we needed to be able to know that we had a secure system — that we had a team of folks who were thinking about the things that we’re not thinking about so that we could continue telling those stories,” explained André.
The result: Right before the US Presidential election in November of 2024, one of the Haitian Times’ editors was doxxed and swatted in retaliation for coverage of the threats and racist attacks made against Haitian Americans.
During that time, Newspack stopped dozens of attempted attacks on the Haitian Times’ website, including hacking attempts, denial-of-service attacks, and bot spam.
“The one thing that really gave me peace of mind was that, while this was all happening, we had our folks at Newspack who were already thinking about our cybersecurity before I even had a chance to reach out,” said André.
She continued to explain that the peace of mind from knowing their site is secure is one of the things that has allowed them to grow and prioritize content.
In late 2023, they started using Newspack’s Audience Management tools to help them manage donations and drive engagement across every stage of the reader journey, from attracting new readers to increasing memberships and reader retention. They were able to increase donations by 114% totaling more than $33,000.
Working together to find solutions
Newspack provides a plugin by Google called Site Kit that has become one of André and her team’s favorite tools for tracking success.
“This is what we refer to on a week-to-week basis to make sure that we see how our stories are doing and tracking their footprint,” said André.
In addition to the Audience Management tools they use to increase reader revenue, the Site Kit tool helps them manage their growth strategy. And they’re able to focus on growth, while Newspack focuses on keeping their site secure.
“As our publishers’ technical partner, Newspack takes our responsibility for the security of all sites we host very seriously, both for the safety of publishers’ staff and organization as well as for the data of readers and donors. We have sophisticated monitoring and server-level protections against bots and malware as well as features for keeping staff accounts secure. It’s a fundamental part of the value we provide,” said Newspack’s Head of Engineering, Claudiu Lodromanean.
“When I think about our reach, our audience, our coverage over the next several years, it’s really going to be about following where those folks are going, wherever they are in the world, to make sure that we’re telling their stories, their successes, and highlighting everything that they’re dealing with,” said André about the future of the Haitian Times.
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