NewsMatch Kicks Off Today – Please Give Generously

It’s November 1 – for most of us, that means the day after Halloween or a day of sugar-hangover and raiding the kids’ candy bags.

Here at NancyOnNorwalk, it’s kickoff day for NewsMatch, our year-end fundraiser.

For our newer readers, NewsMatch is an annual campaign organized by the Institute for Nonprofit News and funded by various national foundations, to support non-profit journalism. This year, the match is only $13,000, so we have our work cut out for us.

Our NewsMatch goal this year? $75,000. Last year NewsMatch accounted for $46,000 (including matches) of our income. We are aiming higher this year, because we want to do better for Norwalk.

What does it take to run an independent local newsroom?

Last year, we brought you the news on a budget of about $85,000 – for our community of 90,000.

One paid reporter, several part-time freelancers, and a dedicated board of directors.

Since its inception, NancyOnNorwalk has relied heavily on volunteers and a highly dedicated, underpaid journalist to bring you the news. This is simply not sustainable, and we need to up our game in order to successfully continue bringing you the news you need.

We need more money and more resources to bring you the news you need to be well-informed about what’s going on in Norwalk. Our first step was to secure a “Sustainability Audit” grant that will pay for a part-time Executive Director next year. Now, we are looking to increase our overall revenue significantly for 2024.

Take a look at last year’s overall P&L:

Most of our expense is for reporting, but we still need the backend resources that deliver the news to you online: website hosting and maintenance, email software, zoom subscriptions, and more. Then there are offline things like insurance, phone bills, travel expenses, professional association dues, and the occasional events we host for readers and donors.

Two years ago, we received a $20,000 grant to rebuild our website and hire a part-time developer to maintain the site. This was the first year we did not rely on a volunteer to keep an eye on the website; it is now a vital recurring expense that we must maintain.

What operational roles are being done by volunteers?

• Sponsorship ad sales
• Fundraising
• Reporting
• Email communications with readers
• Comments moderation
• Marketing
• Events coordination
• Social media management
• Finance and payroll
• Tax filings
• “Once Around the City” news (Thank you, Paul Lanning)

Who’s getting paid?

• One full-time, salaried reporter
• Freelance reporter/photographer/videographer
• Freelance reporter
• Freelance editor
• Freelance web developers to maintain website

How can we do more?

We know there’s plenty more news to report. There are many investigative stories we would love to be able to produce.

Our overall target budget for 2024 is $150,000. We aim to raise half of that during this NewsMatch campaign, and hope that all our readers will support this effort.

With additional resources we can add staff to bring you more stories, more in-depth stories, and stories that cover a broader swath of Norwalk’s diverse population.

Nancy Chapman, who co-founded our news outlet more than a decade ago, is approaching retirement age. We need to think of the future of our news outlet and the city we cover.

Please donate generously this year and help us continue to bring you the news you rely on.

Thank you!