A few weeks ago, I found myself in a restaurant underneath the Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the central square of Kiev. I was talking to Taras, the impressive founder of a new type of local news organization that seems to be doing everything right. At the center of their strategy, he told me, is audience trust and community engagement. They deliver the right stories at the right time in the right format. Working closely with local businesses, they may have even cracked the revenue model in an exceptionally tough advertising and regulatory market.

What I witnessed in Taras is something I’ve seen time and again throughout 2017: an unparalleled openness. A willingness for people in journalism to connect and honestly share experiences, good and bad, that might further the industry.

With that, I see an opportunity in 2018 to turn the informal sharing we see in conversations like this into something more substantive through mentorships.

The media is under fire like never before. At the same time, this is what the European media innovation ecosystem looks like right now:

• Engaged journalism enterprises like De Correspondent, CORRECT!V, and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism are making waves internationally.
• Innovative storytelling and investigative outfits like Outriders, Society, publish.org, Tvoe Mista, ForSet, Piqd, and Atlatszo are finding new audiences and revenues.
• Startups like Neva Labs, Opinary, Kaleida, Sceenic, and Trint (to name but a few) are ramping up and extending runways with bold ideas and new technology.
• Even the traditional publishers and broadcasters are making significant breakthroughs. Just look at Spiegel Online’s award-winning data projects or Euronews’ progress with immersive storytelling.

To help sustain this new landscape, new funding is coming online with the emergence of venture capital hubs like Next Media Accelerator, the continuation of Google’s Digital News Initiative, and increased interest from donors like the Omidyar Network and the Philanthropic Alliance for Solidarity and Democracy in Europe.

In 2018, the experiences of these new initiatives will be the catalyst for even more innovation. Mentorships are essential to accelerate these connections. As an industry, and as individuals, we’re realizing that we need to invest in organizational change, personal growth, and the human connections that will get us there. Mentorships add structure and value to the informal sharing of ideas we experience at conferences and in Slack channels.

Without more structure, all the learning experienced by these various groups will remain siloed (and their monetary investments unfulfilled). Successful entrepreneurs will take vital experience into closed commercial settings. Startups won’t achieve sustainability or exit. Entrepreneurs will fail and quit, newsrooms won’t leverage innovation from within, and students will graduate being unable to find employment.

In 2018, we will see more training programmes, grants, and workshops with knowledge exchange and leadership support at the core. The value of mentorships is already being demonstrated through programs and ideas from our friends at the Knight Foundation, Poynter Institute, ICIJ, Code4Africa, News Integrity Initiative, Google News Lab, Euractiv, Next Journalism Prize, Hamburg Media School, and the Media Lab Bayern. Our own News Impact Academy, Journalism Grants, and Engaged Journalism Accelerator are being calibrated to feature mentorship at the heart of what they do.

We will also see mentorship happen outside of these programs. The best thing about this quiet revolution is that anyone can do it. It starts with an invitation to coffee, a Twitter DM, or a quick question over email. Start with people you know. Connect with people who you can help too, and who will find it a beneficial and rewarding experience. Reach out, explain what you want from the relationship, and take it from there.

Of all the things I’ve done this year, kickstarting my own mentoring relationships, both as mentor and mentee, has been the most rewarding. I’ve visited over 20 countries this year, and from Kiev to Krakow, Berlin to Brussels, and Riga to Rome, the challenges we share unite us. Geopolitics and polarization and advertising markets might vary, but the value in sharing experiences, failures, and victories remains.

Leading any part of an organization in this climate is really hard. If 2018 proves to be anything like 2017, we’re all going to need someone to talk to. If you don’t already have a mentor, 2018 will be the year you get one.