Raising Over $160,000, ELi’s 2022 Sustainability Campaign Was the Most Successful Yet!

The final numbers are in, and we can now announce that East Lansing Info raised a total of $160,016 in donations and auto-pay commitments for this year during our 2022 Sustainability Campaign, the most money ELi have ever raised in a such a campaign.

Although we did not reach our goal of $200,000 –the amount we expect to need to keep bringing the news throughout 2022 – we made it 80 percent of the way there and raised $25,721 more than we did in our campaign the year before. We know from previous experience that we can convert more readers to donors during the year, so we feel confident with this campaign outcome that ELi is going to be here for you this year, continuing to provide high-quality reporting of the kind you’ve come to expect.

First and foremost, on behalf of the entire ELi team, I would like to send a big THANK YOU to all our supporters. As I wrote in so many thank-you notes and letters, we simply could not employ local people to bring our community the news without your support.

During our 2022 Sustainability Campaign, we received a total 814 unique donations. Of those,  145 came from new donors who have never given to ELi before. We appreciate when members of our community see the value of our work and take that step of donating to ELi.

Our campaign was a success in no small part thanks to our local core donors who provided ELi with matching funds. We received nearly $50,000 in contributions from these donors, our largest pool of matching funds yet.

We also appreciate those core donors who took the time to introduce us to new ways for ELi to accept donations, including donations of stock and donations made from IRA accounts.

Thanks to you, our local supporters, NewsMatch will be providing us with $14,000 in matching funds, and we are also able to unlock several bonuses! We will receive a bonus from NewsMatch for having 100 new donors to our campaign, and a $3,000 bonus from the Knight Foundation for developing our own matching funds pool. (These funds, which will arrive to our account in March 2022, are included in our $160,000 campaign total.)

This was truly a collaborative effort by the entire ELi team. Publisher and Executive Director Alice Dreger taught me the ropes, oversaw our efforts to accept new forms of donations, and helped provide support to make the campaign a success. General Manager Jodi Spicer logged the hundreds of donations we received across multiple spreadsheets and kept Alice and me apprised of our progress.

We were fortunate to have Al Hargrave join us in the campaign effort this year. She made our Spelling Bee and Gift Auction an overwhelming success. Other members of our reporting staff, including Heather Brothers, Sarah Spohn, Andrew Graham, and Nathan Andrus, helped with necessary tasks too, including event set-up and envelope stuffing and addressing. Our designer Cait Palmiter did a fantastic job coming up with great graphics to convey to our readers the importance of donating.

Thank YOU all for your financial and moral support of public service local nonprofit news. We will keep working hard for you.

Didn’t get a chance to give and want to do so now? Just hop on to our donation page!