Q: Why is Frontier building a membership programme?
A: We are launching memberships to ensure the long-term survival of Frontier and to build a community around people who care about independent journalism in Myanmar.
Q: What will that look like?
A: We will build the community by creating opportunities (both online and in real life) for our members to collaborate and engage with us. We’ll also be developing new products for our members, such as a daily briefing on Myanmar, a monitoring service of Myanmar-language media and a parliamentary news service. Some of these products will be available only to institutional members, or individual members who pay an additional fee.
Q: Institutional members?
A: That’s right, we’ll be offering two membership packages: one for individuals, and one for institutions – businesses, NGOs, embassies and so on. For a higher membership fee, institutions will be able to give all of their staff access to the digital edition of Frontier, the daily briefing, media monitoring, parliamentary updates and more.
Q: Where can I find more information about these products?
A: We’re still designing them in collaboration with our readers. If you want to get involved, you can sign up to our mailing list, at https://mailchi.mp/frontiermyanmar.net/members.
Q: So I can still read your online news for free?
A: As well as the new products we plan to launch, members will soon have priority access to magazine content online. We’ll still put everything online for free a week or two after it’s published in print and goes out to members. But who wants to wait that long?
Q: I already subscribe to the print/digital version of Frontier. What does this mean for me?
A: We will automatically upgrade you (for free) to our membership programme for the rest of your subscription. This means you will get the print/digital access that you now subscribe to, as well as all the benefits of membership. When it’s time to renew your subscription, you can decide if you want to continue being a member or just subscribe to the magazine.
Q: This all sounds pretty ambitious. How are you planning to fund it?
A: Good question. We applied for and won a small grant from the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge. But the success of the project will depend on you.
We hope that with your support and advice, we can build a membership package that helps us secure our financial independence. That will mean we can keep reporting freely on the topics that matter most – both to our readers, and to Myanmar’s future.
Q: Sounds great, I want to know more. Who should I ask?
A: We’d love to hear from you! Please get in touch at members@frontiermyanmar.net or sign up to our mailing list to receive updates, at https://mailchi.mp/frontiermyanmar.net/members
