Business structure is a crucial decision every community news or engagement startup must make fairly early. A new brief presentation from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation walks you through this decision process.

How to decide if your startup should be nonprofit or for-profit, in 4 easy steps is a simple decision tree that applies to any startup, including community media. Key questions to consider include how quickly you might repay capital investment, whether you plan to seek philanthropic funding, and how much control you wish to retain.