Dear Friends,
Our team at Brookline.News has been busy in the new year, publishing stories about our local government, schools and public safety, as well as stories about everything from a community fridge in Brookline Village to the national championship aspirations of the high school’s squash team. These are the types of stories that we want to cover, and do more of; local stories about local issues and local people who are part of our diverse community here in Brookline.
Like every non-profit organization, November and December are pivotal months for fundraising to support our work. We want to now share an update from our recently completed matching gift campaign.
We met our match
As you may recall, we set an ambitious goal for our campaign, thanks to $75,000 in matching gifts that we received from the Institute for Nonprofit News and several local donors. We knew it would be a stretch, but we also knew that we are reaching more people every week, many of you who are willing and able to support local news. So, some good news: thanks to contributions from over 700 of you we raised $84,000 in November and December, which means we’ve unlocked the full $75,000 matching grant.
When our founding group gathered 2 ½ years ago, before we had an editor or a newsletter or a website, we talked about both the need for a local, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet and the challenges in getting started. We’re so grateful to all of our supporters — donors, readers, advocates, fans, sponsors — for helping us launch and build some momentum in our first 18 months of publication. Thanks to you, we are able to maintain our editorial independence and continue holding our community accountable, while amplifying the voices and stories that matter most to the people who live here.
Plans for the future
As we look ahead to 2025, we’re excited to take some steps to grow and mature as a news outlet and as an organization. Some of the things that we’re looking forward to include our second annual Brookline Stories event in May; a partnership with a new Boston University newsroom to train future journalists; and a second year for our partnership with the journalism program at Brandeis to train future journalists through their program. We want to continue to hear from our readers in different parts of our community, so are working on a few other opportunities to do even more in the coming months. To start, we have an audience survey as one way to let us know how we’re doing and where you’d like to see us do more. It takes about 5 minutes to fill out and we read every response.
Thanks to all of you for reading us. Thanks to all of you who support us. Onward now and for the rest of 2025.
Julie Rafferty, Board Chair
Sam Mintz, Editor