We have an update for you on our water tower (2021 Sustainability Campaign total) and the Bucket Brigade!
We are looking forward to working on trying to top off some of these buckets at our first-ever ELi Telethon on Wednesday, Dec. 30. But you can top some off RIGHT NOW and get us match money thanks to some dedicated ELi Bucket Captains! Click here if you want to donate to a specific bucket.
Campaign update: We have now raised a total of $108,066 towards ELi’s 2021 Sustainability Campaign, which ends on Dec. 31, 2o20. If we can raise our goal of $200,000, we can ensure that ELi will be here throughout 2021 reporting for East Lansing.
The bucket our General Manager Jodi Spicer has captained has hit its goal. Thank you! Jodi has now matched that $500 in contributions!
Contributions to these three love-for-neighborhoods buckets will all be matched thanks to special challenge commitments by bucket captains Anne Hill (Hawk Nest), Ray Vlasin (Up with Neighborhoods!), and Alice Dreger (Oakwood Historic):
Click here to donate and tell us which bucket!
Our four newest “join me!” buckets are filling up! One is for Trowbridge-area businesses and neighborhoods and another for climate change reporting. ELi arts reporter Chris Wardell is has captained a bucket, and one University of Michigan alum is calling out to her blue-and-gold fellow alums!
Click here to donate to any bucket you see on this page!
This next set represents a friendly competition among our Publisher Alice Dreger, Managing Editor Emily Joan Elliott, and City Desk Editor Andrew Graham:
Yes, it’s true: Emily is on her SECOND bucket! #winning
Want to show your editorial bias (ha ha) and give to an editor’s bucket? Just click here!
Why are we using buckets and a water tower to raise money?
ELi functions as a 501(c)3 nonprofit news brigade, like an old-fashioned bucket brigade of the kind communities used to deploy to suppress fires. Local people here go out, watch for “fires,” alert the community, and bring people together to try to solve problems.
In 2020, about 92% of dollars donated to ELi have gone to pay local people to work consistently as your news brigade.
You can learn more about our expenses, and why costs are up, by reading this.
Here’s how you can help:
- Pitch in a tax-deductible donation to a bucket! Just click here, and tell us which bucket(s) you want your money to go into!
- Have you already given to our Sustainability Campaign and want to designate your prior donation for one or more buckets? Email us and tell us which!