I support independent media to solve their business challenges. I provide consultancy and freelance support with projects from strategy, business and organisational development, to audience research, communications planning, and developing membership programmes.Whether you're from a newsroom looking to evolve your organisation, develop your membership programme, better understand and engage your community, and grow your revenue, or a non-profit seeking to support public interest journalism, I'm happy to help.Get in touch by messaging me on LinkedIn or emailing me at hello@lbatt.com.

I am a Director on the board of the Stokes Croft Land Trust, helping launch our share offer to bring our first building in Stokes Croft into community ownership.We raised over £200,000 from 400 local people and social investment, and successfully purchased the PRSC building in Stokes Croft.As a fully voluntary organisation, I support in particular with communications and member engagement, and sit on the governance working group.See: stokescroftlandtrust.org

I was part of a small team leading the coordination of Reference, a newly developing network of 26 innovative independent public interest media organisations in Europe.Reference acts as an advocacy body for independent media, and a community of practice for CEOs and operational leads of these independent media organisations - those responsible for managing the business which supports the impactful public interest journalism they seek to do.My role focused in particular on communications and facilitating knowledge exchange and collaboration between these organisational leaders, helping create connections within the community, facilitating workshops, and hosting in-person meet-ups for the network across Europe.As a newly evolving network, I also shaped the development of Reference as a democratic network, supporting member self-organising, coordinating votes and decisions, and developing organisational governance structures and processes.To read more about Reference, see: referencecircle.eu

In this freelance role I coordinated the communications for Arena for Journalism in Europe, a leading non-profit in cross-border and collaborative journalism. I was responsible for all aspects of communications, from coordinating day-to-day social media, regular news pieces, and monthly newsletters, to developing and executing communication strategies.I coordinated the communications for three journalism conferences, first brought in on May-June 2023 to coordinate the communications for Dataharvest - the European Investigative Journalism Conference (dataharvest.eu), including coordinating the in-conference communications including managing a team of volunteers. I coordinated the communications for the Vienna Climate Arena Conference (climatearena.eu), a new conference developed by Arena. For this I completely redeveloped the conference website design and content, and coordinated the promotion and ticket sales.For Dataharvest 2024 I again led the communications for the conference, with early bird tickets selling out for the first time, and all tickets sold 3 months before the conference - six weeks earlier than the previous year, which was the first time it sold out.

The Bristol Cable is pioneering a new approach to local news, putting communities at the heart of everything it does through community ownership and engagement.As a small start-up organisation, I was one of the founding paid staff members. I served in a variety of roles over the years, often concurrently, and held key leadership positions within the cooperative team. I often formed a bridge role between editorial and the business, with my roles focusing mainly on organisational sustainability, membership revenue and engagement.My membership role focused on developing reader membership into a sustainable business model. In my role I Ied a multi-disciplinary membership & engagement team of four, pioneering community engagement, and growing membership to over 2,800 paying members. This involved developing, communicating, and delivering our membership offer: from developing our digital engagement platform and facilitating member participation, to marketing and communications, and developing conversion and retention strategies.As Fundraising Lead I led the fundraising of over £250,000 of new grants within nine months. I managed all aspects of grant relationships and reporting. I also acted as ambassador for the organisation, developing external partnerships and represented the organisation at events across the UK and Europe.As People Lead and Resources Lead I was responsible for all aspects of HR and staff wellbeing, and convening Resources team overseeing finances and budget, fundraising, office management and team systems. I also managed the coordination of the distribution of the quarterly print edition, coordinating the distribution of 800,000 copies of the Bristol Cable quarterly newspaper over 28 editions, managing all aspects of strategy and logistics. I developed and managed the distribution venue network of 600 locations and a 10-person, paid distribution team.

This is a role I forged through dialogue with the Managing Director, to represent and improve the experience of my colleagues, and help the business understand their needs.I gathered feedback from care workers through pro-active monthly calls to colleagues, as well as feedback sent directly to me as a point of contact. I anonymised the responses and provided an overview and analysis of staff feedback in a monthly report for the executive team.

I provided support and care for individuals with a range of disabilities and needs, including spastic quadriplegia and autism.