I guess we’ll be sending John’s paper to Danielle’s house.
Cowlitz Foundation’s gift
I’ve written a lot about our Community Funded Journalism initiative. Thanks to donors large and small, we’ve been able to hire four additional reporters covering homelessness, affordable housing, transportation and the environment. On Wednesday, we brought the reporting to the public in a live Columbian Conversations event at Kiggins Theatre, sponsored by Riverview Bank and Waste Connections. We had a good crowd and an interesting discussion about homelessness and some solutions. We’re looking forward to hosting more of these conversations.
Our CFJ initiative got a big boost when it was announced that the Cowlitz Indian Tribe has made a major gift to us through the Cowlitz Tribal Foundation Clark County Fund.
The Cowlitz tribe’s pledge of $120,000 over the next three years will go toward the salary of our new environment beat reporter, Lauren Ellenbecker, and direct costs of her storytelling, such as travel, training, photography and graphics. This grant brings our total raised through community contributions to $1.5 million, with the pledges spread over six years.
We’re also very close to our goal of raising $50,000 from our readers. When I looked on Friday, 215 supporters had contributed $45,421, bringing us within $5,000 of our goal. If you can help, go to givebutter.com/columbian. If you prefer, you can mail contributions in care of The Columbian CFJ Fund to the Local Media Foundation, P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689-5033.
The Local Media Foundation is our nonprofit partner. It holds the donations in trust, then reimburses us for the direct costs of these positions. The money cannot be used to pay The Columbian’s other costs, such as my salary or to buy newsprint, or to increase profits.
Welcome, ‘Big Nate’
After we laid off “Dilbert” on Thursday, we hired a sixth-grader to take his place. “Big Nate,” by Lincoln Peirce, will also be featured in this Sunday’s comics, which we reprinted after ditching “Dilbert.”
Here’s how its syndicator describes the strip: “Aspiring cartoonist Nate Wright is the star of Big Nate, the daily and Sunday comic strip distributed by NEA since 1991. Nate is 11 years old, four-and-a-half feet tall, and the all-time record holder for detentions in school history. He’s a self-described genius and sixth grade Renaissance Man. Nate, who lives with his dad and older sister, enjoys pestering his family and teachers with his sarcasm.”
We’re going to audition the strip for a month or two, then evaluate. We got reader suggestions for at least a dozen different strips, with no clear favorite emerging. I’m hoping folks will enjoy this return to sixth grade!
