Combined Blog/Forum Software Platform Recommendations Request

[L. Mark Stone]

A good friend of mine is looking to start a side hustle to provide knowledge transfer to an underserved, poorly capitalized industry, as my friend has 25+ years of solid experience in this industry and is looking to pay it forward. The industry is one where smaller entities have Enterprise-grade needs, but can't afford experienced professional staff and/or consulting firms to help.

My friend is looking for a platform where he can publish public blog/knowledge base articles, but which also has a discussion forum capability, to allow industry members to ask questions, anonymously if appropriate. At some point, there will be an email follow up component (Zimbra, of course!). Further, if the concept takes off and is able to aggregate a good user base, monetization via advertising may be desirable at some point, if only to offset hosting costs. Again, this isn't meant to be a huge money-maker; just a way for an industry expert to pay it forward as they approach winding down in a few years time from their full-time job.

Any suggestions then for a unified, integrated software platform that provides:

1. Forum-like discussion capabilities.
2. Blog/Knowledge Base functionalities, that tie in to the discussion function above.
3. Potential for future monetization, likely via advertising initially, but perhaps also with the possibility to market advanced paid content (paywall?).
3a. This requirement means some sort of membership registration tracking function is also required.
4. Supports text as well as video content.

I could easily see this being a WordPress site, with some bunch of plugins providing the above functionality, but I'm trying to help my friend choose between alternatives. A simpler-to-manage/publish solution is preferred.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Best regards to all,
Mark