The Journal launched its end-of-the-year fundraising campaign yesterday. You’ll be seeing mentions of it on this site.
For our newsletter subscribers, it means you’ll be getting a few more emails than you usually get from us. (The good news is that once you donate, we take you off the emails!)
But I wanted to take a moment and explain in a little more detail about why your support is critical right now.
First off, it costs money to produce The Journal. We spend about $400,000 a year across our operations.
We have made the decision to keep most of our content available for free. We don’t have paywalls and we give most copies of our print magazine away because we think it’s important that as many people as possible have access to the information that positions them for leadership.
To make that strategy sustainable, we need the support of the committed to financially support the big idea of building a public square.
You can rest assured that The Journal has a solid foundation to build on. Because we’re published by the Kansas Leadership Center, we receive core support from the Kansas Health Foundation. But to grow, we have to find ways to generate our own revenue.
And we’ve grown a lot over the past year. At this time last year, I was The Journal’s only full-time employee. Starting Monday, we will have four, when Kathy Lefler joins the team as a project coordinator for the Wichita Journalism Collaborative, a coalition of 11 media and community groups we help organize.
We’re trying every feasible strategy we can to expand our base of revenue while staying true to our mission. We’re pursuing grants and building relationships with sponsors. But grants tend to run out. And we will only do things that keep the interests of readers as our guiding light.
That means we can’t get around the fact that for The Journal to truly work, we need readers who believe in what we do enough to provide some financial support. Big, medium or small, it all adds up.
This is an especially good time to give. Because between now and Dec. 31, any gift you make, up to $1,000, will be tripled. If you become a monthly donor, your gift will be matched 24 times. We’re able to do this because of a national program called NewsMatch and the generosity of a group of local donors.
Donate here: Every dollar you give allows us to do more. We can hire more journalists. Do more stories. Feature more communities. Conduct more thoughtful discussion events. Bring more voices to the table.
If we haven’t won your support yet, please tell us how we can, so we can go out and do it. And if building a public square is something you believe in, we need you now more than ever.
Chris Green is the executive editor of The Journal. His work blends the techniques of investigative, data, civic and solutions journalism to provide trustworthy information that fuels impactful dialogue. He began his career with Kansas newspapers, first covering local government and then the Kansas Legislature. These days, he draws on a wide range of influences to shape a nationally award-winning publication that productively tackles hot-button issues.
A native Kansan and graduate of Baker University in Baldwin City, Chris also earned a master’s degree in international politics from Scotland’s University of Edinburgh. He and his wife, Sarah, enjoy exploring both inside and well beyond Kansas and have begun a quest to visit all 50 U.S. state capitols. They are the parents of a son, Calvin, born in 2018.
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