A Thousand Dollars in Support Rests on Us Finding 13 More NEW ELi Donors!

This time of year gets pretty hectic for the staff at East Lansing Info (ELi). We have a slew of governmental meetings this week in addition to trying to raise a total of $200,000 during our campaign ending at midnight on Dec. 31. And, of course, there’s the upcoming winter holidays.

But instead of finding myself overwhelmed with stress as my to-do list grows ever longer, I feel myself being overwhelmed with something else: gratitude.

How could I not appreciate our community when supporters send notes like this one:

“The fact that you all exist gives me great hope. So, thank you for that. Sincerely.”

As we work toward raising that $200,000 to keep ELi running through all of 2022, notes like that remind me of our value to the community and keep that fire of motivation burning.

ELi is supported in our mission, and that’s why I believe we can count on your help to hit our next mini-goal milestone: having 100 new donors – people who have never donated to ELi before – contribute to our Sustainability campaign.

In years past, NewsMatch – the national philanthropic campaign to support nonprofit news – gave us a bonus of $1,000 or more if we hit this new-donor metric. This year, so many news organizations are tapping into NewsMatch, they are no longer offering this bonus.

But a local ELi donor has stepped up to promise that same bonus to help us get closer to our campaign goal! If we can get to 100 new ELi donors in this campaign – and with your help we can – we’ll put that $1,000 in the water tower in addition to your dollar-for-dollar-matched gift!

We are so close! We have 87 new donors so far, so we need just 13 more!

You can find out more about all the ways you can donate to ELi here. Every way you give will be matched, dollar for dollar, right now!

I’m feeling confident about our ability to hit this goal since our community has helped us hit so many other goals. We hit our mini-goal of raising $10,000 for our Giving Tuesday campaign! Local businesses and ELi supporters made our first-ever Spelling Bee and Gift Auction a success! And, we came so very close to hitting our Weekend Warrior bucket mini-goal of $3,500 this past weekend, bringing in $2,957.

All those mini-goals have contributed to bringing us where we are now in our 2022 Sustainability Campaign. We currently have just over $123,400 toward our goal of $200,000, and about $9,000 left in matching funds.

Our matching funds been replenished by several local core donors and a new bonus from the Knight Foundation, given to local nonprofit news organizations like ours who are being supported by their local donors.

If you step up to help, please feel free to send a note, too! Sometimes, it’s those little notes of appreciation that mean so much as we keep reporting while fundraising. As one donor wrote, “Keep the quality news coming!”

With your support, we are keeping it coming, and we will throughout 2022. If you would like to help ELi bring quality news in 2022, support us today!