We had a very successful event last night. It was a good-sized audience of people who are in our community, many of whom were not in our core readership and certainly not in our core commenting group.
What I heard last night was encouraging. Many people came away impressed with our ability to bring together people from the business community, the UC Davis community, and the community at large for a good discussion on economic development mixed with sustainability.
One person told me that they were very impressed by the good, clean and professional look of the Vanguard now as compared to the past.
The event was successful in helping us bridge some of our financial gap for a few months. But we need help to be sustainable in the long term. We need to call on additional resources to really do what we need to do.
Right now our monthly costs are around $3000. Right now we bring about half that in recurring monthly income, mainly through donations. My goal for next year would be to increase our monthly costs, at least to $5000, to be able to bring on another reporter and office assistant. That will greatly improve the quality of this publication and it will also greatly improve my long-term ability to continue to maintain the Vanguard as a high quality instrument.
We are going to be moving forward on a number of creative ways to bridge that financing gap – but, from the perspective of our readers, monthly recurring donations are the way to go.
So first of all, we have to transition everyone over to PayPal. Our previous system is no longer working. We have transitioned about one-fifth of our existing monthly subscribers – but we need to get everyone moved over and, now that our event is over, we will start calling people as early as next week.
So to avoid that, hit the link here – make sure you do so from a laptop or desktop computer – https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=VP8S7PZGL7KXG
Those who can, if you can pay a little more each month – even if it’s $5 or $10 – that would go a long way toward getting us to our initial $3000 a month goal.
Those who have not done so – please become monthly subscribers. I understand finances are tight. I understand you may not agree with the Vanguard on some key issue. But if you are reading this, you must find some value here. So if you think that an alternative, community-based media source that also can bring key people together on community issues is of value – please help us today.
Thanks and I look forward to a successful fall.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Why is there a UCD banner on the lectern? And how much did they pay to put it there?
It was held at the UC Davis Conference Center