The Board of Northeast Kingdom Public Journalism gathered this past Sunday for our monthly meeting, agendas and minutes of which are now available at the About tab on our website.
The board is the most public part of ensuring The Hardwick Gazette’s commitment to public journalism.
You, the real public we serve, can choose to be invisible, or join us and help local journalism in this area thrive.
We’re currently a five-person board, looking to expand by bringing in others from towns outside Greensboro and Hardwick with experience to help fill the role of treasurer and help with development and fundraising. We’ll be happy to speak to anyone with an interest in filling those roles, or offering other expertise to assist in our endeavor.
Halfway through November, we’re just six weeks from finishing our first year, now with full-fledged 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status bestowed by the IRS.
With the one-year milestone looming and the publication having very successfully navigated election season, we’re preparing for our second year and launching a year-end fundraising campaign
We will rely heavily on Giving Tuesday, December 3. Roughly 30% of donations to nonprofits now come on that day. We’ve set our goal at $20,000, representing 30% of the $65,000 in annual funding we look for from the public. The remainder of our funding will come from advertisers and grants.
When we meet that $20,000 goal we will be able to neatly close the 2024 books and have a small cushion of funding going into 2025.
With roughly 1,000 regular and active readers, the cost of delivering The Gazette for a year is about $65, just $1.25 for each issue.
Over the last year we hope you’ve noticed we’ve made an effort to gather more community events and this issue expanded the events calendar across a second page.
We’ve brought back David Rodgers’ entertainment reviews, with an example this week in his wonderful look at the Local Folk Orchestra’s performance at the Highland Center for the Arts Saturday.
We’ve incorporated work by interns and the UVM Community News Service, helping more than a handful of future journalists begin to learn the craft.
We’re consistently covering select board meetings in Hardwick, Greensboro and Woodbury with others less often.
Community journalists and photographers help us gather news and information in a wider area than we’d otherwise be able to.
And sports, with Ken Brown’s knowledgeable reports and Vanessa Fournier’s great action shots, continues to be an important part of what we cover.
Look for all that and more in the coming year.
Paul Fixx, editor
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
