Since 1994, Real Change has spawned innumerable brief but meaningful moments of compassion. These, I believe, have cumulative meaning. As our hearts grow, personally and collectively, so do our possibilities.
Real Change is a project of the heart. What better address for us, then, than First and Main, the very heart of Seattle?
This year, with our Grand Opening in Pioneer Square on May 24, marks the start of another 15 years of compassionate community, effective organizing, and quality journalism. We are building our numbers and power, and growing the resources we need to succeed.
One month into our April though June Spring Fund Drive, we stand at $62,279 raised toward our $200,000 goal. Last year, gifts from more than 1,300 friends of Real Change comprised a critical 63 percent of our budget. Here are three solid reasons to support the Real Change Spring Fund Drive.
Reason #1: A Strong Heart
Nobody said love was easy. Despite several attempts by the Pioneer Square Community Association to block our move, we are moving ahead as planned. There are those who love, and there are those who speak only for themselves to say they have nothing against you, but they'd just rather you weren't their neighbors.
We're strong, and we're ready to go. Real Change's new two-floor location will:
* Create a bright and sunny new vendor learning and service center, named in memory of former vendor/staff Michael Garcia.
* Enhance our vendors' experience with community and success with expanded space for classes and additional services.
* Take advantage of our new proximity to a transit hub and downtown service providers to accelerate plans for regional expansion.
* Save money on rent with a lower cost per square foot than if we remained at our current location.
In 2009, Real Change was forced to make a choice: grow or die. Our administrative resources were pathetically insufficient for our size. Our technology was perilously obsolete. We outgrew our office two years ago. And we weren't raising enough money.
We decided we owe it to everyone to do better. Our work matters, and our job is not to just survive, but to be the best we can be.
We made changes. We hired an Operations Director to tighten internal management. We strengthened fundraising, cut expenses, paid off debt, and made critical investments in staffing and infrastructure. We created new systems and eliminated the inessential.
Grassroots support of our work, because we asked, grew by 39 percent.
At 15 years, we are a strong community institution that has the resources we need to operate reasonably. We have recommitted to using those resources as effectively as possible by investing in strong administration and laying the groundwork for a spectacular future.
Reason #2: Community and Power
Real Change stands up for those who have nothing. In doing so, we stand up for all of us. In recent months, we led the organizing to defeat legislation that would have deepened the ongoing criminalization of the poor. Working with the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness, the ACLU, the NAACP and many others, we challenged the fear-based rhetoric of the Downtown Seattle Association and their allies and turned the conversation toward real issues.
In the end, regular people united to overcome the enormous power and influence of the downtown interests. Real Change is a deeply rooted grassroots institution that has the relationships, experience, and resources it takes to stand up to power and win.
In recent years, Real Change has embraced a grassroots, direct-action style of activism, with sleep-outs and civil disobedience to stop the homeless sweeps. We led a campaign to stop the new city jail that raised issues of race, class, and inequality. By the 2009 elections, what was once regarded as inevitable had turned politically radioactive. The new jail was dead.
Real Change has clearly come to understand ourselves as a cross-class organization that builds upon our networks of vendor-reader relationships. We've only begun to see what is possible when the resources to support the vision are fully achieved.
Reason #3: Journalism matters
Last week we received word that Real Change journalists Cydney Gillis and Rosette Royale will receive awards this year from the Society for Professional Journalists. We're getting used to this. Last year -- with Rosette winning First Place nationally in feature writing for publications with circulations of less than 100,000 and taking several regional first-place awards as well -- was, in his words, "ridiculous."
When Real Change went weekly in 2005, we recommitted to being the highest quality progressive community newspaper possible. Since then, the number of vendors we serve has more than doubled. Over the same period, our award winning journalism led to an 81 percent circulation increase. This year, Real Change will likely hit the million-papers sold annually mark.
The day that Mayor Mike McGinn vetoed the Seattle City Council's 5-4 passage of Tim Burgess' panhandling bill, the case for independent media came through loud and clear. This law was supposed to be a Downtown Seattle Association slam-dunk, and when the legislation failed, the Fourth Estate went nuts.
The Seattle Times ran a snarling editorial that promised the political demise of all concerned. Television news coverage ranged from passive-aggressive to downright hostile. The low point was that night's political analysis panel on KCTS Connects. Republican strategist Chris Vance, political consultant Kathy Allen, The Times' Joni Balter, and SeattlePI.com's Joel Connelly agreed to a person that McGinn and our four allies on the council had just done something enormously craven and stupid.
In a time when media consolidation means more corporate ownership and support, even of the public airwaves, democracy suffers and strong, quality, independent media is more needed than ever.
You think we're good now? Wait till you see us in 2025.
Please Give
Real Change transforms lives. We take risks, and we tell the truth. We are becoming what we need to be.
Grassroots support of our work in 2009 came to 63 percent of total income. Nearly all our other income was from newspaper sales. Our broad, solid base of reader support, supplemented mostly by earned income, means that we are uncompromised by our funding. Every year we grow. We get stronger.
Some try to stop us, but they can't.
Your support for the Spring Fund Drive takes us where we need to be. Maybe it's $10. Or $50, or $150. Maybe it's $250, $500, or $1,000. If we're going to get to $200K by the end of June, it's going to take all of that, and a few surprise $5Ks and $10Ks as well. Any amount helps, because every supporter is part of our success.
Please visit realchangenews.org to make a secure online donation today, or mail your gift to Real Change, 2129 2nd Ave., Seattle, WA 98121. Thank you.