Bürgerportal Bergisch Gladbach

About: The Bürgerportal Bergisch Gladbach is a community-centered local media outlet that was founded in 2009. The Bürgerportal sees itself as a classic local daily newspaper, but instead of being printed, it is delivered every morning as a newsletter. The newsletter and all other content are free of charge. The core of its financing is not subscriptions, but a membership model: around 1,000 people voluntarily support the Bürgerportal through the so-called “Freundeskreis” (circle of friends).

When GeorgWatzlawek launched the “Freundeskreis” in 2014, the concept of a voluntary membership model in local journalism was still an experiment. His vision was to invite the readers of the Bürgerportal to support the project out of conviction instead of putting content behind a paywall. The idea worked. Today, more than 1,000 people support the Bürgerportal 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 Freundeskreis is our backbone. The support of our members enables us to work independently and sustainably.”

An administrative challenge

From the very beginning, the Bürgerportal offered a variety of payment methods to make supporting it possible for as many people as possible. Whether by direct debit, standing order, manual bank transfer, cash, or later through the Steady platform, this flexibility was a key success factor—but it also became an increasingly complex administrative challenge.

Freundeskreis-members at the Bürgerclub, a regularly held discussion forum. Photo: Thomas Merkenich

To keep track of the payments, Watzlawek began documenting everything in an Excel spreadsheet. “I recorded every payment by hand, whether it came via direct debit or bank transfer. It worked, but the bigger the Freundeskreis grew, the more time it consumed,” he recalls. Checking and documenting incoming payments, collecting direct debits, sending reminder emails, adding new members, or removing old ones—all of this became increasingly labor-intensive as the membership grew.

CRM instead of Excel Spreadsheet

Since 2021, the Bürgerportal has been managing the Freundeskreis community with beabee. All members are now consolidated in a central database. Most members now pay their contributions directly through the payment tool integrated into beabee, via automatic direct debit, credit card, or PayPal. Billing is handled automatically through the payment service provider Stripe, also integrated into beabee. Some members still prefer to make their payments manually, and the flexibility of the beabee CRM allows this as well.

“I would estimate that with beabee, our administrative effort for the Freundeskreis has decreased by about two-thirds,” says Watzlawek. “The time saved can now be invested in content work and direct engagement with our community.”

Integration with the Bürgerportal’s newsletter system has also made it easier to reach the Freundeskreis members directly – for example, to send them event invitations or to ask them to increase their contributions.

Sustainable growth is now possible as well

In the past, managing each new member by hand added extra administrative work, but the Freundeskreis is now much more scalable. “With beabee, it hardly matters whether we gain 2, 10, or 100 new members,” says Watzlawek. “The administrative effort now increases only marginally with each additional member.”

In 2024, the Bürgerportal finally surpassed the 1,000-member mark with a campaign. The Freundeskreis now accounts for nearly half of the Bürgerportal’s funding. “Without beabee, our Freundeskreis wouldn’t have been able to grow as it has,” says Georg Watzlawek. “At some point, managing it without additional staff simply would not have been possible.”

Bürgerportal founder Georg Watzlawek. Photo: Thomas Merkenich