Peterborough Currents is running out of money. Here’s our survival plan.

A message from Currents co-publishers Ayesha Barmania and Will Pearson

Two years in review: What we accomplished and what it cost

We live in a culture that values financial success above almost everything else. In that context, it’s hard to divulge that Peterborough Currents is going broke. And yet… we think Peterborough Currents is an immense success.

In two years, we posted over 100 news articles to our website. We sent almost as many email newsletters. We produced 15 podcast episodes. We even tried our hand at video a few times. Over 1,000 people regularly open and read our newsletters.

We brought you Creek Week. We investigated the backstory of Peterborough’s supervised consumption site. We published exclusive stories about the transformation underway at the Peterborough Housing Corporation (such as this one). We revealed the stunning number of individuals who have been banned from local homeless shelters during the pandemic. When city council was debating gender-neutral changerooms, we were the only media outlet that reached out to transgender people to hear their thoughts. And as local politicians set ambitious affordable housing goals, we tracked their progress.

We interviewed community members like Missy Knott, Caleb Musgrave, Bennett Bedoukian, Kelli Marshall, Hilary Wear, Laura Warren, Peter Williams and many, many more.

As our community takes notice of us, so do industry watchers outside of town. Just this month, we were nominated at the national Digital Publishing Awards – twice. Our coverage of housing and the opioid crisis are up for Best News Coverage (Community Publication).

We paid industry-standard rates to 13 freelancers, creating employment and writing opportunities for local journalists. We hired two editorial fellows to write about local arts and sports communities. And we hired our reporter Brett Throop, a former CBC journalist who has returned to Peterborough after a long absence.

How much did all of this cost? Over our first two years operating, our entire expenditures were about $140,000. We believe that’s good value, especially when you consider that most of the money was secured through external grants, and we spent the majority of it hiring local people, which helps the local economy.

Okay… writing all that made us feel a bit better! Now onto the hard stuff.

How we’ll stay alive

1. Cut our own pay. Starting immediately, we are reducing the salaries we pay ourselves to $100 per month each. Peterborough Currents has always been a labour of love, and we’ve already invested hundreds of volunteer hours into it. We’re ready to keep volunteering a bit longer. By reducing our own pay this way, we hope to be able to continue to pay our reporter, Brett.
    
2. Slow down. A funny thing happens when your business starts to lose money. You panic, lose focus, and begin considering opportunities that aren’t in line with your mission and vision. We are going to take this budget crunch as an opportunity to reflect and discern what exactly Peterborough Currents can offer to our community that other local outlets can’t, so that we can focus our spending only on that.
    
3. Stop hiring freelancers. We will no longer be able to pay any freelancers to produce content for us.
    
4. Search for more grants. There are some promising opportunities out there for us that we are pursuing. (Know of any? Tell us!)
    
5. Explore other funding models. This might include advertisements and sponsorships. Up until now, we’ve resisted these ideas. We’ve assumed the effort of chasing this revenue would outweigh the benefit of receiving it. But now we’re going to try.

We need your help