By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Well, 2023 ended with a boom. I exited Christmas last week needing to raise $10,000 in the last six days of the year. I ended up cancelling my vacation and buckling down for another long week.
The good news in the last six days the Vanguard raised $13,000. That figure might go up as the last remnants of the mail trickle in this week.
Spike the ball. Live to fight another day.
The bad news… that just gets us through the payroll this month. I can take a few days to deal with other crises and then it’s back to the grind.
I remember when $13,000 would set us up nicely for a few months. Now it’s barely a month.
That’s ridiculous but at the same time, it’s okay.
We’re on the verge of doing some great stuff this year.
The biggest news coming into the new year is that we are working to launch (finally) our new website. This will be our first new website since 2014. I have seen the prototype for it and it looks nice and clean.
For 2024, we’re focused heavily on three programs—Court Watch, Vanguard Incarcerated Press, and Vanguard Prison Watch Internship.
- The continued Vanguard Court Watch and what that program means not only for the Vanguard but for all the interns—all three of them had formerly been interns and soon all three will be in law school.
- The rolling out of our prison watch internship where we will be taking the concept of the court watch and helping to train incarcerated people in journalism.
- Our future high school journalism training program where we will be taking inner city kids and helping them go to college by training them in journalism, the law, and writing.
We’re going to be working hard this year to get the grant funding necessary to sustain these and other key programs.
In the meantime, I pause to thank all of you who donated in 2023 and especially those who helped in the critical drive down the stretch—you made this all possible.
It should be a fun year. We’ll be firing up the old fund drive soon enough. If you want to help, however, you can become a monthly donor, a sustaining member—sign up here: http://davisvanguard.networkforgood.com
