As you may know from last week's post, the future of Streetsblog San Francisco is somewhat in limbo. The flagship publication for the Bay Area's Livable Streets Movement, celebrating its 10th birthday this year, recently lost its largest funder and faces a $25,000 gap. Without an infusion of funds, there will be some major changes to SBSF starting the next fiscal year, July 1.
In a time of shrinking media options, especially ones not beholden to corporate interests, it is critical that we protect our outlets. Over the weekend, we heard of massive layoffs at the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. The newspaper has just 10 percent of the staff it had a decade ago. This is going on with news sources throughout the country.
My original plan for this post was to pledge $100 to be the first donation to the drive. However, since the announcement of the bad funding news last week, 29 readers have already donated just over $1,300. Another person has pledged $1,000, so this fundraising drive was off to a rousing start before it even officially started.
You are all awesome. Thank you so much.
But we're a long way from the finish line. If you have any leads for larger sponsorships or advertisers, please let us know (contact Damien Newton, damien@streetsblog.org). And throughout the next couple of weeks stay tuned for other ways you can help us keep publishing throughout 2019 and beyond.
If you're already convinced, just make a donation right now.
A gap as big as the one we face isn't something that's going to go away overnight. But we still plan on having a big party on September 12, where we'll celebrate ten years of publishing in style and have all sorts of fun activities between now and then to keep us going.
Stay tuned.
