The Guardian breaks even against the odds: we couldn’t have done this without you
Today, we have announced that the Guardian has successfully completed its three-year turnaround strategy — we have hit our goal of breaking even, and made a small operating profit on our path to sustainability. This means that the money we make from advertisers combined with what we receive in the generous support from you, our readers, has this year covered the cost of producing the journalism that informs and inspires millions of people around the world. Our unique ownership model means we are not controlled by a billionaire owner, or a group of shareholders demanding financial returns — any profits made, and all financial contributions from readers, are reinvested directly into our journalism.
We have listened carefully to your thoughts and opinions over the past three years, and this has helped inform the creation of a business model in which our editorial independence remains paramount, and which keeps Guardian and Observer journalism
open and accessible to everyone regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay.
We would never have been able to achieve this without you.
Three years ago we faced a very different situation, when a broken business model for news was threatening to destroy media organisations around the world: print advertising was collapsing, newspaper sales were declining, and the promise of digital advertising growth was going almost entirely to Google and Facebook. These threats still exist, and while we’ve found a way to counter them, the situation remains fragile.
Now, the challenge is to keep this going for the long term, to remain sustainable so that we can keep producing meaningful journalism. Investigative reporting is expensive, whether that’s exposing the Windrush scandal in the UK, the Cambridge Analytica scandal in Silicon Valley, or the long-term environmental damage taking place in the US, Australia, and around the world. We will continue to dedicate as many resources as we can to investigations, the climate emergency and the global shifts taking place in politics, culture and society.
Just as we did three years ago, we have now set a new ambitious goal: to achieve the support of two million people around the world by 2022. This level of support will mean we can continue to investigate and illuminate the most significant global stories of our times.
As editor-in-chief I set out the principles for Guardian journalism in my essay on the Guardian’s purpose, and these matter more than ever. At the Guardian we endeavour to bring clarity in a world where facts should be sacred but are too often overlooked,
and imagination in an age in which people yearn for new ideas and fresh alternatives to the way things are. We try to make the space for hope, delivering journalism that speaks to the urgency of this moment, but lasts for more than a day.
In the last three years, more than one million people around the world have chosen to support The Guardian financially. Thank you to all of you who have supported us and we hope more of you will consider joining us on this mission — you can do this through voluntary contributions, subscriptions to the Guardian, the Observer and Guardian Weekly, or as part of our patrons programme. As we approach the Guardian’s 200th anniversary in 2021, your support will help ensure we can keep holding the powerful to account, with purpose, for many generations to come. Thank you.
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