The Google News Initiative, in partnership with the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN), the National Association of Hispanic Publications (NAHP), and the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), kicked off the GNI Ad Transformation Lab: a six month program to help Black and Latino news publishers in the U.S. and Canada advance their advertising strategies and grow digital revenue. They announced the 28 organizations selected to participate in the program, which includes publishers from 14 states.

The participating publications of the GNI Ad Transformation Lab include: Afro-American Newspapers, Al Día en América, Blavity News, The Cincinnati Herald, The Dallas Examiner, El Latino, The Houston Defender, Houston Forward Times, Impacto Latino, La Mega Media Cleveland, La Noticia, La Opinion, The Los Angeles Sentinel, Michigan Chronicle, The Mississippi Link, Noti Bomba, Post News Group, Our Weekly Newspaper, The Philadelphia Tribune, Precinct Reporter, Prensa Arizona, QCity Metro, The Sacramento Observer, The Seattle Medium, Texas Metro News, The Tri-State Defender, Vida Newspaper and Westchester Hispano.

“The participating news organizations reflect the heartbeat of American journalism and play an important role in elevating diverse and trusted voices in communities across the country. We’re grateful to play a part in equipping these publishers with new tools and strategies for digital business success, and look forward to sharing lessons with other news organizations via our GNI Digital Growth Program,” says Ben Monnie, Director, Global Partnerships Solutions at Google.

Over the course of the program, each publisher will receive coaching to address their organization’s path to business growth, including improving digital publishing tools and advertising capabilities and developing new digital skill sets. Participating publishers will develop and clarify their digital content and distribution strategy, optimize their websites, improve their digital advertising and programmatic capabilities, and act on these improvements to attract more advertisers and generate incremental revenue streams. The Lab will also promote collaboration and shared learning across the cohort of publishers.

“The business environment is challenging, but especially for those publishers who seek to adapt their business model by adopting new technologies,” says Fanny Miller, President, NAHP. “For those publishers selected to participate in the GNI Ad Transformation Lab, we expect the experience will be transformational. At NAHP, we intend to multiply the value of their experience by extending it to other members.”

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., President and CEO of the NNPA, emphasized, “The GNI Ad Transformation Lab comes at a critical time across the United States where millions of readers of the Black Press of America are striving to receive news that is trusted and truthful. The NNPA is very pleased, therefore, to participate in this timely and much needed digital innovation opportunity afforded to a select group of NNPA member publishers.”

As the program progresses, the partner organizations will share lessons learned with the broader community of Black and Latino publishers. The GNI will also compile the best practices into playbooks, case studies and virtual workshops available for free through its ongoing Digital Growth Program.

“The Association of Alternative Newsmedia is proud to be a part of this effort and collaboration to improve the tech stacks and advertising opportunities for publishers in many of the same local communities that we serve,” said John Heaston, President of the AAN board. “We look forward to communicating the best practices back to our own members and we’re excited to work with Black, Latino and locally-owned publishers across North America to ensure that vital local news organizations thrive.”