Sustainability Math: What It Takes to Fund South Durham Neighborhood News

So, here’s the vision: Eventually, Southpoint Access should be sustainable and should be capable of supporting:

• Neighborhood journalists to cover schools, politics, and local development.
• Someone to manage subscription sales and sponsorships.
• A finance/HR manager.
• A social media/marketing manager.
• A videographer/editor.
• And me.

I’m really not very interested in boosting overhead expenses by investing in an office lease. So, my pie-in-the-sky annual budget estimate suggests that I’d want to get about $600,000 a year (minimum) to provide living wages, deliver daily community news, and develop marketing plans.

We’re really nowhere near that yet.

The lowest-tier annual subscription for Southpoint Access is $50. We’ve got about 125,000 people in the zipcodes that I’ve focused on for this project. Doing my napkin math, we’d need 12,000 subscribers. Right now, we’re past 400, but not all of them pay. (I’m grateful for each and every reader, and I’m honored to help keep neighbors informed, but I confess a special affection for readers who step up to invest in this resource.)

So how does Southpoint Access reach sustainability? How do we get to the point where this is the foundation for a community news legacy, dedicated to informing readers in and around South Durham, and earning the support of the people who call this area home?

Using just the basic $500 per year sponsorships from local businesses: We’d need 1,200 (this seems highly unlikely to me). Let’s assume we get all our help from the $2,500 per year top-level sponsors. We’d need 240. (We don't even have one yet! But we do have five mid-level sponsors - thanks, as always, to Holly Hayes, Constantinou & Burkert, Jill E. Burton, Showmars, and Hall-Wynne Funeral Service & Crematory!)

Honestly, I think it’s more likely we could reach 12,000 subscribers before Southpoint Access lands that many sponsors. But would all of them pay to support the work? If you haven’t seen my recent article, a Pew Research study determined that 16% of Americans paid for local news, but only 8% think we’ve got a responsibility to pay for it.

Southpoint Access can be sustained to an extent with a mix of subscriptions and sponsorships, but to build the kind of consistent, high-impact neighborhood journalism South Durham deserves - deep schools coverage, watchdog reporting on planning and growth, and strong video storytelling - we’ll also need philanthropic support to bridge the gap in the early years.

What are people getting for their money?

• Regular coverage of Durham Public Schools (have you seen my interviews with most of the Board of Education candidates on the ballot March 3?), new developments in the area, and local businesses.
• Monthly restaurant health inspection reports.
• The weekly obituaries, crime reports, and shopping basket comparisons.
• The daily fuel tracker.
• Videos: Idrissa A. Smith's Dris Eats the Streets and Nerdspresso Phase II, featuring Jeff Stanford and yours truly nerding out about sci-fi, movies, and TV.
• SoDu Compass guides, including the Family Resource Guide and UDO 101.
• My Office Hours livestreams.
• Our free events calendar!
• Games and horoscopes.

Now ask yourself: are subscribers getting their money's worth? Isn't this work deserving of support? I certainly think so!

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If you know individuals, family foundations, donor-advised funds, or local businesses with a charitable giving arm that care about civic health, youth, transparency, and community connection, I’d appreciate an introduction.

I’m Wes Platt, your neighborhood news guy, and I’m looking for partners who want to help make independent, community-first journalism a lasting public good in South Durham.

Thanks for reading!

Wes

Email: wes.platt@southpointaccess.news
Cell: (407) 616-1346
Instagram: wesplattsouthpointaccess
Signal: wesplatt.31