Type: Local journalism

About the company: The Bürgerportal Bergisch Gladbach is a community-centred local media that was founded in 2009. The Bürgerportal sees itself as a classic local daily newspaper, but it is not printed. Instead, it appears every morning as a newsletter. The newsletter, all the content on the website and all events are free of charge. The core of the financing is not subscriptions, but a membership model: around 1,000 people voluntarily support the Bürgerportal through the so-called Freundeskreis (which translates to “circle of friends”).

When Georg Watzlawek launched the Freundeskreis in 2014, the concept of a voluntary membership model in local journalism was still an experiment. His vision: instead of putting content behind a paywall, he wanted to invite the Bürgerportal’s readers to support the project out of conviction. The idea has been a success. Today, more than 1,000 people support the project with a monthly or annual contribution. The Bürgerportal has become one of the pioneers in the industry.

‘Our goal has always been to make relevant local information accessible to everyone,’ explains Watzlawek. ‘The circle of friends is our backbone. The support of our members enables us to work independently and sustainably.’

An administrative challenge

From the outset, the Bürgerportal offered a wide range of payment options to enable as many people as possible to support it. Whether by direct debit, standing order, manual transfer, cash or later via the Steady platform – this flexibility was a success factor, but it also became an ever-greater administrative challenge.

To keep track of payments, Watzlawek started documenting everything in an Excel spreadsheet. ‘I entered each payment by hand, whether it came by direct debit or bank transfer. It worked, but the bigger the Freundeskreis got, the more time it took,’ he recalls. Checking and documenting incoming payments, collecting direct debits, sending reminder e-mails, entering new members or deleting old ones – all of this became increasingly time-consuming as the number of members grew.

CRM instead of Excel spreadsheet

Since 2021, the Bürgerportal has been managing the Freundeskreis community with beabee. All members are now bundled in one place in the central database. Most members now pay their contributions directly via the payment tool integrated into beabee, by automatic direct debit, credit card or Paypal. Billing is done automatically via the payment service provider Stripe, which is integrated into beabee. Some members still prefer to transfer their contributions themselves. The flexibility of the beabee CRM makes this possible.

‘I estimate that with beabee, our administrative workload for the Freundeskreis has been reduced by two-thirds,’ says Watzlawek. ‘I can now put the time saved into the content work and the direct exchange with our community.’

The connection to the newsletter system of the Bürgerportal has also made it easier to reach the members of the circle of friends in a targeted manner. For example, to send them invitations to events or to ask them to increase their contribution.

Now sustainable growth is possible

While in the past, with manual administration, each new member meant additional administrative work, the Freundeskreis is now much more ready of growth. ‘With beabee, it almost doesn’t matter whether we gain 2, 10 or 100 new members,’ says Watzlawek, ‘the administrative work increases only marginally with each new member.’

In 2024, the Bürgerportal finally broke the 1,000-member barrier with a campaign. The Freundeskreis thus accounts for almost half of the Bürgerportals financing. ‘Without beabee, our circle of friends would not have been able to grow as it is doing now,’ says Georg Watzlawek. ‘At some point, without additional staff, administration would simply no longer have been possible.’