Readers now have a choice when it comes to their local news coverage. Support The Bristol Edition with a membership or a single donation and you are supporting homegrown journalism or not.
Our business model is a nonprofit, which might be a bit confusing, since nonprofit implies “non-money” or free. Not, so. It simply means all of our revenue goes back into the business. So memberships and donations are revenue and go into our “business,” which is to support, promote and educate our community about community online journalism. Your support enables us to pursue this, so with your support, you truly support this effot.
TBE has proven that we can produce quality community journalism–mostly through our sports coverage but also through some terrific long-form stories, regular coverage of community and city activities, and lately some solid coverage of city council and board of education meetings. But it is not enough. Our goal is to hire more reporters, first as freelancers or stringers, and then as our support grows, full-time. When we do hire full-time, we aim to pay fair wages and offer benefits. We aim to be (and by extension you will be) a concern that draws quality candidates and develops a proud tradition.
Other costs you will offset are ones we are already carrying — it costs a couple of hundred dollars a year for a professional-grade web host; it costs another couple of hundred dollars to secure our PayPal and Stripe collection services (and each gets a fee for each transaction on top of those services; it costs another couple of hundred dollars for website security in general. We are pursuing our 501(c)(3) status and there are a thousand dollars for legal fees. And of course, we will need bookkeeping services and an accountant at some point and the expectation is that will incur further costs.
We have made an investment in TBE’s future, which we believe bodes well for Bristol’s future.
We hope you will take a moment to consider your choice–quality and committed community news or not–and click the “Become a member” or “Donate” buttons on our home page. Support TBE, support a better informed and brighter future for Bristol. Click here to return to our homepage.