RICHMOND has posted its fourth successive end-of-year profit, with membership for the 2008 season also increasing.

The club yesterday announced a net profit of about $8 million but the club's profit from football operations was a more realistic $395,000.

The additional income came from government grants, provided for the Punt Road oval redevelopment and creating the Australian Institute for Indigenous Learning and Development, announced earlier this year by Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Memberships, ticketed and non-ticketed, rose to about 39,000, up 4% from 2007.

Chief executive Steven Wright said the club would be conservative in its budgetary planning for next year but expectations remained that a profit would be made.

"It's not so much less expenditure, it's just revenue," he said. "We're not predicting growth in areas of our business; in other areas we have had growth."

Talks were progressing with companies interested in becoming Richmond's second principal sponsor after AFG ended its deal with the club this year.