Nonprofit Lincoln Chronicle relies on readers for much of its financial support — and this month your contribution is doubled

By QUINTON SMITH/Lincoln Chronicle

There was a story in the New York Times two weeks ago on the Trump administration and National Science Foundation pulling massive decade-old scientific instruments from the Pacific Ocean – with a passing mention of Oregon.

That triggered a story Friday in the Lincoln Chronicle on what the dismantling of millions worth of instruments vital to the Ocean Observatories Initiative means to scientists at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport and at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

“This is something that has never happened before …” said Ed Devers, an OSU scientist who had been overseeing some of the ocean studies off the Oregon coast for 10 years.

And it’s the “localization” of a national story that you would only find in the Chronicle that revealed the impact of a decision 3,000 miles away on people and institutions in our community.

Digging deeper into local impacts of national stories is one way we find stories to chase and publish. There are many other ways, of course – attending city council, school board or fire district meetings (we’re often the only media at those), tips from readers and others, or using stories from our many news partners around the state.

That’s how last week Chronicle readers found out last week about the final vote on the Lincoln County School District’s shrinking budget, the closure of two building-related businesses in Newport, another gray whale washing ashore, or the owners of the iconic Gathering Together Farm putting their operation up for sale.

No other news organization on the central Oregon coast has offered – free to anyone with access to the internet – local news of this breadth and depth with a mixture of hard news, features, events, calendars, advertising and public notices — week after week after week for the past six years. While there are certainly other sources of local news and information, including dozens of Facebook pages, we think having professional reporters in the field and on the phone brings and veteran editors guiding their work brings extra value to what we do.

And that’s why as this 501c3 nonprofit enters the third week of our annual June fundraising campaign, the Chronicle staff and board is asking for your financial support to help fund our work.

Our expenses this year are budgeted for $185,000 – mostly to pay our reporters’ salaries and benefits. We also have expenses for four freelancers, a contract editor who has begun helping me, purchasing some content from news partners, and then all types of monthly bills that any small business incurs.

Generally, 65-70 percent of our operating revenue comes from readers and the rest from advertising and foundation grants. That means we rely on readers for substantial help each June.

The great news this year is that a generous supporter is matching reader donations – so all contributions this month will be automatically doubled. This is a huge development to keep our news-gathering efforts on a sound financial footing. Because of the unlimited matching challenge, our goal is to raise $50,000 to $75,000 from readers – turning that into $100,000 to $150,000 to make a huge impact on our news report.

As of Monday, we’ve raised $17,500, so there’s a long way to go — but three more weeks to get there.

A quick reminder of our mission statement:

“Provide local, professionally reported, fair, unbiased straightforward news of Lincoln County and the central Oregon coast, its governments, people, community organizations, businesses and the natural environment with an emphasis on good government, transparency, community involvement, civic participation and engagement. Independent, non-profit news. Free to all, funded by readers.”

Here’s how to help if you can.

A check: Some readers just like to write a check and be done with it. If you are one of those people, please make the check out to Lincoln Chronicle and mail it to P.O. Box 284, Yachats, Ore. 97498.

Online via PayPal: Others prefer to donate electronically — either one time or via smaller, monthly amounts. Our revised and updated donor page can handle both methods. Go here to make a one-time donation or set up an automatic monthly donation, which 145 readers currently do.

Gifts of stock: We also have an account at Fidelity Investments that allows us to accept gifts of stock, which can have tax advantages to the donor.  If you are interested in learning more about that, contact me via email at [email protected] or call me at 503-970-3867.

Advertise: Or, if you own a business or head an organization, you can support us and help yourselves by advertising and getting your message in front of 170,000 readers a month. Our ad director, Tiffany Sullivan of Blue Sprocket Brokerage can be of great help. Here is a link to our advertising rate card and Tiffany’s contact information.

YachatsNews, the publishers of Lincoln Chronicle, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit and any contribution is tax deductible under IRS rules. Our federal EIN is 92-0324739.

Thank you for reading and for your support.

— Quinton Smith/editor & board chair