The Urbanist has launched its Spring Subscriber Drive and we’re asking you to become a monthly donor or give an annual gift to #GrowTheUrbanist. If you count on our coverage and advocacy, we’re counting you to step up.
It’s an exciting time of new developments at our publication. Last year, we added Natalie Bicknell Argerious as our managing editor and watched our output increase and our readership soar. In November, we announced a paid freelancer program and welcomed new contributors’ bylines to the site and began compensating long-time volunteers for their work, including Ryan Packer and Ray Dubicki. In Janurary, we overhauled our website design. In February, we added a new part-time Bellevue reporter in Christopher Randels and become perhaps the only publication offering in-depth weekly Bellevue City Hall reporting. We hope to keep him on as funding allows.
Christopher was featured in a story by KUOW’s Sound Side team about independent journalist filling news deserts across the state. He’s help plant a news oasis in the Bellevue’s desert and we’re thrilled to support that work. East Link light rail is opening next year, and in many way the cities along it are not ready despite boasts otherwise. We’d like to have a reporter dedicated to that beat, but we need your support to sustain that expenditure.
You can help make sure we can keep paying Chris and ensure our staff continues to grow. Give today!
We’ve also reached new mediums. Natalie and Ray have been recording The Urbanist podcast, with weekly episodes building on and going beyond our daily stories. We’re increasing appearances in other publications and podcasts too. For example, Packer recently went on Crystal Fincher’s Hacks and Wonks podcast to break down the newly passed Move Ahead Washington transportation package.
Our twice-annual two-week drives are the bedrock of our fundraising. It’s what’s built our organization from a completely volunteer-run operation scraping by to a professionalized operation with two full-time employees, a part-time reporter, a handful of paid freelancers, and plans for growth that are really getting actualized. Our readership has never been higher, but we need readers to subscribe or bump up their donation level so that we can keep expanding our coverage and taking on more advocacy campaigns. We’re so grateful to our readers and supporters and want to keep upping our game.
If you’re interested in increasing your subscription level, email me at doug [at] theurbanist.org and I’d be happy to oblige. For large gifts, we encourage you to send a check to The Urbanist at:
PO Box 31196
Seattle WA 98103
Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrianizing streets, blanketing the city in bus lanes, and unleashing a mass timber building spree to end the affordable housing shortage and avert our coming climate catastrophe. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in East Fremont and loves to explore the city on his bike.