Chasing Revenue Without Losing the Plot
Sometimes, protecting your mission means shutting down your most successful program
I remember when I was working at Lehigh Valley Public Media and started talking openly about margins and revenue. The response I heard most from the staff was, "Why does a nonprofit have to worry about revenue?"
In their minds, we weren't just a mission-focused nonprofit—we were a mission-focused nonprofit with an $80 million endowment. What I had to help them see was this: without revenue, there's no mission to sustain. And that wasn't just my belief; it was a clear charge from our Board of Directors, who didn't want us focused solely on potentially reckless spending, even if it was to advance our mission.
The endowment trap
Our staff's reaction to the endowment is probably universal. There's something about having reserves that makes people think revenue doesn't matter. In reality, endowments often come with restrictions on spending that make sustainable revenue even more critical. We drew out a portion of the endowment every year, but despite our best efforts, the staff didn't understand that.
That conversation about the tension between having an endowment and needing revenue wasn't a one-time thing. It became a constant negotiation between protecting the mission and pursuing the revenue we needed to grow. Every new product, every funding opportunity, every partnership forced the same question: how do we chase sustainability without losing the plot?
When I was hired, our Board Chair at the time—John Longenderfer, who sadly passed away in 2020—said to me, "Yoni, you don't have to make money, just try not to lose more than we already are." For him, the organization existed to make "the Lehigh Valley a better place tomorrow than it is today." Impact mattered most.
Making the numbers work
Even before we launched products like PBS39 News Tonight or Lehighvalleynews.com, the tension between serving the mission and driving revenue was tangible in the station's halls. Producing weekly TV shows costs money—staff time, captioning, custom graphics, the works.
As our production efforts went from one weekly show to six, our Finance Department had us start drafting P&L statements for each show and product. I think this was essential, and I've noticed many new nonprofit news leaders can't do this. Those statements included all the expenses and the anticipated revenue we hoped would come in through underwriting, grants, and individual giving. The individual P&Ls didn't just help us track expenses—they gave us a clear target for what we needed to earn.
Our biggest bet
PBS39 News Tonight was our weeknight TV news program and the organization's biggest capital investment aside from the building itself. Because of what we were spending on this product, we had serious revenue expectations. The Board approved the effort but made it clear we weren't getting a blank check. Our performance would be reviewed regularly—which made sense and was fair.
We exceeded audience reach, ratings, and recognition expectations. But we struggled like hell to drive revenue. Some of that was due to the small size of our sales team (one person), and some was economic. For the team working on the product, why we needed to make money still didn't compute. Their argument was basically: why worry about money when we have such a large endowment?
As expenses continued to climb and revenue failed to materialize, we found ourselves facing a brutal decision: maintain our mission focus—or fulfill our fiduciary duty. With this product, we couldn't do both.
The call nobody wants to make
We had to make the kind of decision that every nonprofit leader dreads—one where doing right by the mission meant recognizing when we could no longer afford to fund it the way we wanted to.
At first, we tried to scale the show back. We adjusted the format, trimmed expenses, reallocated roles. But the economics didn't change—and neither did the math.
So we made the call to shut down PBS39 News Tonight.
It wasn't because the product failed. In many ways, it had exceeded expectations—in reach, in community impact, ineditorial quality. But we couldn't keep pouring resources into something we couldn't sustain. The harder truth? Continuing would've jeopardized other parts of the organization that served just as much of the mission—with a more viable path to funding.
What I learned
That experience taught me that chasing revenue isn't the problem. Losing the plot—losing sight of why we do the work—is. And sometimes, protecting the mission means making room for it to grow somewhere else.
What tensions between mission and money have you navigated in your work? How do you decide when to double down versus when to redirect resources?
Staying in the green while you're able to, though painful, is insurance for when you're not able to. Unfortunately, there may be many public media stations who will soon find themselves in the latter scenario soon.