Director, Portfolio Growth
BlueLena
Dustin Block has spent more than 20 years helping local news organizations stop guessing and start growing. As Director of Portfolio Growth at BlueLena, he leads revenue experimentation for a cohort of 18+ nonprofit newsrooms through the American Journalism Project — running the Solutions Lab, building AI-powered fundraising tools, and turning messy audience data into strategies that actually work.
Before BlueLena, Dustin coached subscription and retention growth across 30+ publishers worldwide, helped Graham Media Group add nearly 800,000 email subscribers, and launched the first U.S. broadcast membership program. He's also the founder of RacinePost, one of the early pioneers in local digital news.
Dustin was named Local Media Association's Digital Innovator of the Year in 2021 and has trained at NYU's AI + Local News Lab and CUNY's AI Journalism Lab. He lives in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, where he also coaches youth sports.
Build Your Fundraising Muscle: Stop Planning, Start Asking
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM CT