Mensagem (Portugal)

Summary

Mensagem describes itself as a hyper-local,community-focused media organization serving all of Lisbon. It was "born from the desire of a group of Lisboners, who happen to be journalists, to improve their city." Founded in 2020 by Catarina Carvalho with financial backing from a local business owner, Mensagem is now an established entity with a 7-person team. Their website has 300,000 monthly views, and they reach 20,000 newsletter subscribers every week.

Overview

Name	Mensagem de Lisboa
Website	https://amensagem.pt/
Location / Location of coverage	Lisbon, Portugal
Size of potential audience/ town region covered	548,703 people in Lisbon
Year they started publishing	2020
Language	Portuguese and English
Mission statement	By empowering the communities, sometimes just by showing how they live and what they do, we give way to dialogue and create a safe space for debate - also in the real world, not only digitally.

Management and team

Founders	Catarina Carvalho
Current management team	Catarina Carvalho
Team	Full-time equivalent employees: 13

Governance Structures

Legal form of company	LDA
Tax status	for-profit

Products & Revenue Streams

Main products	Stories shared through different channels
Additional products	Website Newletter Podcasts Social Media Books Events Other cultural projects
Audience and community reach	Website: About 300,000 readers per month Newsletter reaches 20,000 subscribers (44% opening rate) Instagram: 37,8000 Followers Facebook: 17,000 Followers X / Twitter: 7,840
Most important community engagement format	Newsletter which works as a dialogue channel with the readers Events at their café Pop up newsrooms and meetings/focus groups Yearly survey Readers volunteer in writing for mensagem
Revenue streams	One major donor Grants Donations Sponsored projects

On the next pages you can read our in-depth portrait about Mensagem. If you want to jump into a specific topic directly, here's the overview for you:

How Mensagem started

Read the founding story of the Bürgerportal

Products

Read about Mensagem's most important (journalistic) products

Revenue Streams & Finance

Read about how Mensagem earns money

Community Journalism

Read about how Mensagem engages its Community

Biggest Challenges

Read about challenges and barriers Mensagem is facing

Success Factors

Read about Mensagem's biggest factors for success