Over the past several months, we’ve made tremendous progress stabilizing the All Point Bulletin. Now comes the more important part: building a future for APB with Point Roberts.
For decades, this was a privately owned newspaper. We are transforming it into something different — a community-supported nonprofit, with the people of Point Roberts having a real seat at the table through both membership and community ownership.
And we need you to make it work.
APB costs about $150,000 a year to report, produce, print and distribute. I’ve been working hard to reduce costs and find efficiencies, and we’ll continue doing our part through advertising, grant writing and other revenue.
But those things alone won’t create a sustainable newspaper.
We need about 300 people willing to support APB with monthly contributions of $15 to $100.
That’s the goal: 300 neighbors who believe having a newspaper dedicated to Point Roberts is worth keeping.
Community membership does more than provide revenue. It gives readers a seat at the table and makes APB accountable not just to advertisers, but to the people it exists to serve. As we build toward greater community ownership, we also want Point Roberts residents helping shape the newspaper itself.
So we’re asking you for two things.
First, participate.
We’ll hold two Google Meet conversations with me and members of the APB staff on Thursday, September 17 — one at noon and another at 7 p.m. Come to whichever works for you. Bring questions, complaints, ideas, crazy schemes and the things you absolutely don’t want us to change.
Email heather@daffodilpress.net and we’ll send you the meeting link. We’ll also begin talking about creating a Point Roberts advisory committee to help steward APB’s future.
Second, become one of the 300.
If APB matters to you, make a monthly commitment of $15, $25, $50, $75 or $100. Those memberships, combined with advertising, grants and the other revenue we’ll work to generate, can make this newspaper viable for the long term.
La Conner Community News, the nonprofit organization that now owns APB, is a 501(c)(3), and contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. For now, you can give by mailing a check payable to La Conner Community News to PO Box 1020, La Conner, WA 98257, with “APB” in the memo. We’ll have an online membership option soon.
You’ll see other changes, too. Next month APB gets a cleaner five-column design, and a new website is planned for the end of September.
But those are just mechanics.
The real transformation is this: We want APB’s future to be shaped and supported by the community whose story it tells.
We’ll do our part.
We’re asking you to join the effort.
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