As nature’s annual renewal takes blossom, our newsletter team springs forward in renewed service to the neighborhood. But what does that service consist of, and how is it determined? For answers, start at City Hall…and follow the money!
The City of Portland is this newsletter’s largest single annual benefactor, providing funds to cover nearly one-third of our printing costs. Perhaps not surprisingly, the funding takes a circuitous bureaucratic path to reach its final destination, beginning at City Council, then over to the Office of Neighborhood Involvement (ONI), out to neighborhood coalitions (such as our own Central Northeast Neighbors, CNN), and finally trickling down to neighborhood associations in the form of “communication grants”—i.e., funding expressly earmarked for conduits such as newsletters, websites, fliers, signs and meeting interpreters. In the B-W neighborhood, it’s primarily about keeping residents informed about neighborhood events, projects, and issues of interest. This newsletter, with its hard copy circulation of over 2,000 and online color version extending well beyond physical boundaries, is the conveyer of choice, hands down.
That said, a bimonthly newsletter does have its communication limitations, primarily that announcements of activities taking place during the second month of an issue can easily be forgotten by the time those activities roll around. Take for example this issue’s promotion of April’s Taste of Beaumont—easily BWNA’s most significant combination general meeting + entertainment event of the year. Our hope is that readers of this issue in March will be prompted to put a reminder on their calendars for the second Monday evening in April (April 11th). But that’s just a hope, which is why the BWNA Board re-publicizes even-numbered-month events closer to their scheduled dates through a variety of communication modes, including lawn signs announcing upcoming BWNA meetings, e-mails from President John Sandie to a list of residents who have attended previous events, posts on the BWNA blog (the website home page at www.bwna.us), and most recently, message distribution via the popular Nextdoor.com neighborhood e-mail network system.
Returning to the money trail: with communication grant money from City Hall barely enough to pay for the printing of two of six issues, where does the remaining funding come from? Answer: newsletter advertising. Ads account for BWNA’s largest collective source of annual revenue—a financial lifeblood for the newsletter. Accordingly, we make it a habit in each issue to showcase local businesses and their owners with symbiotic deference accorded to those who advertise with us.
And so it is that the sponsors who keep the newsletter ship afloat also influence its mission and content. But BWNA announcements and business profiles are, by themselves, not sufficient for viability. Hallmarks necessarily include an eclectic array of topics and personalized style of journalism, both of which are on display in features penned by our volunteer staff of regulars as well as in articles and Letter to the Board editorials submitted by you, our readers. (Note: positive or negative, constructive editorials on local topics make a difference, so don’t be shy. For example, check out the one in this issue.)
Monetary considerations aside, the essential nature of this newsletter remains consistent—blooming with creativity, reflective of the spirit in our neighborhood, and perhaps most essential of all, delivered free of charge to your doorsteps by a veritable army of steadfast volunteer walkers, who now have a bit of spring in their step!