History

We raised $425/$300 to pay for Restream

See rundown here

We hit our $2,0000 goal for the How To Plan Columbus podcast

See rundown here

We raised $425/$300 to pay for Restream

See rundown here

We hit our $2,0000 goal for the How To Plan Columbus podcast

See rundown here

We fell far short of our fundraising goal, but still managed to raise $29,000 total.

Due to our newfound independence, we adopted new systems to support the next stage in our growth! Beginning 11/1:

• We upgraded our accounting system to one optimized for nonprofit needs.

  • • We switched from QuickBooks to Aplos.

    • That means we will have to spend less time and money with rigging up our accounting system to work for us - this one already does! And it will be a good system to keep our fund accounting straight as we grow.

• We upgraded to a new, more comprehensive payroll and benefits system.

  • • We switched from QuickBooks to Gusto.

    • It is intuitive and user-friendly for administrators and staff, automatically files and pays all levels of payroll taxes, and allows us to administer benefits such as healthcare directly to our employees.

    • A bonus is Gusto and Aplos have a formal integration, so they work smoothly together, further saving us time and headaches.

• We upgraded our donor checkout experience

  • • With the help of the News Revenue Hub, we adopted Stripe as our new payment processor and they helped us build a more sophisticated checkout page that improves the donor experience, the kind of information we get, and nudges people to make higher and monthly donations.

• We improved our marketing to email subscribers + our data syncing

  • • News Revenue Hub helped us build out our Salesforce CRM to integrate with Stripe and Mailchimp so that we can target subscribers to become donors. This will also all be integrated with our Google Analytics to give us better, more actionable data.

We amended our bylaws to allow up to 20 board members, opened public applications, engaged in an interview process and added 5 rockstar community members to our team!

• Carolina Mercado Foresman

• DaiJhah Owens

• Conor Willis

• Lisa Steward

• Bryan Lutz

As of late summer 2021, we are contracting with the News Revenue Hub for their "tech stack", which means they will work with us to put in "hard wire" methods of attracting and retaining donors using integrated programs to better organize and automate much of the process. See details below.

The programs include: Stripe (payment processing), Mailchimp (email marketing), Google Analytics, Salesforce (CRM), and some others such as Quickbooks (accounting).

The campaign kicked off with an opportunity to drink local at Seventh Son and meet our board, reporters, and editors at Local Brews with Local News Tuesday, July 20 from 5-8 p.m.

And on Thursday, July 29, join us from 5-8 p.m. at the U for Power + Priorities. A panel and performances will focus on the intersection of Matter's investigative issues, particularly as it relates to the ways in which historic disinvestment of neighborhoods has been met with record investments into the policing of those neighborhoods. Registration for both events is encouraged, but not required, and donations can be made here.

Shareable Event flyers here, event invite template here.

We established a finance & legal and an audience development committee populated mostly with managing directors and board volunteers. Both held their first meetings.