by Peter Weinberger

It’s been incredibly gratifying for the entire Courier staff to see the outpouring of generosity and support from our readers. Since my last column four weeks ago, in which I offered an honest look at our financial picture, we’ve received a steady stream of donations — from $25 to $3,000 — pushing us past $87,000 toward our $100K Challenge match goal. We are so close!

Along with these gifts, many of you have reached out with thoughtful questions and comments about the Courier’s future. We published in print and online a brief survey to gather even more feedback and received 135 responses online, many from long-time print subscribers with whom we share decades of connection. No doubt due to the difficulty to complete, cut out, and mail responses, just 21 print only readers participated. It’s much easier to complete the online version. If you can send an email, you can fill out this form online:

paweinberger.survey.fm/free-speech

The challenge with grants

A few readers asked about our ability to secure grants to support operations. That was indeed part of our plan when we became a nonprofit in 2021, and we’ve received a few since then — including $20,000 in Los Angeles County business grants and a $5,000 Google grant. We even applied for a City of Claremont business grant, but were told we didn’t qualify. We’ve also been turned down for six other grants.

It’s important to note the Courier needs about $70,000 each month to cover expenses. We always knew grants alone couldn’t fill our annual revenue gap of roughly $120,000, but we expected they would help more than they have. Unfortunately, the reasons are largely beyond our control.

Many media grants today focus almost exclusively on digital-only publications, leaving hybrid outlets like the Courier — with both print and online editions — at a disadvantage. At the Lenfest Institute’s annual conference last May, we noticed very few hybrid publishers in attendance. The message was clear: digital is the future, and print is often viewed as an outdated medium. The grant opportunities were heavily digital focused. The medium seemed more important than the local content being produced, a one size fits all approach. Organizations like the Knight Foundation tend to fund larger projects, making it especially difficult for smaller, community-focused newspapers like ours.

I share this not as an excuse, but as insight into the competitive and shifting world of nonprofit journalism funding. The bar is high — and often tilted toward digital-only models — but we continue to pursue every opportunity that aligns with our mission. The bottom line is grants are an important option for us to pursue, but we can’t rely on them to solve our revenue shortfalls.

The Lenfest Institute just released more grant opportunities this week that we are currently reviewing. This time I’m planning on calling to get advice about Courier qualifications.

Still big numbers for print

So why not just go fully digital to improve our chances for grants? Believe me, that’s a discussion our board of directors has had many times. The answer is simple: our print subscribers and advertisers. Have you taken a look at our classified section lately? It’s full of real estate advertising because the Courier is the go-to method for real estate branding and selling.

Publishing print pays most bills so our readers don’t have to. If we went all-digital, donations and grants would need to become our primary income sources, replacing 85% of the total revenue that print currently provides. Today, donations and grants account for about 15% of our revenue — a gap of roughly $588,000, or 60% from print income. While going digital-only would reduce expenses, those savings are nowhere near enough to offset the revenue we would lose without print.

Our readership skews older, and many of our long-time subscribers prefer reading a physical paper. And they not only subscribe, they donate. More than half of our readers are over 60, and because of their strong readership, print advertising still generates the majority of our revenue.

With all this said, it remains likely the Courier will one day be a digital-only publication; that’s the direction the entire industry is headed. But for now, print remains a vital part of who we are. Abandoning thousands of loyal subscribers and nearly $714,000 a year in print revenue simply isn’t an option.

Since I became publisher in 2007, the Courier’s mission has remained the same: to provide fact-based local journalism in the ways our readers want to consume it. Publishing both print and digital editions is challenging, but it’s also what keeps our audience strong and engaged. The downside is only a small percentage of digital only readers subscribe. We now have a paywall, but that has only helped minimally.

Our hybrid model — print and digital — works for Claremont. The key question is whether the community can continue to provide the financial support needed to sustain it. From what I see, the answer is yes.

If Courier digital readers paid for what they are reading — by subscribing — there would be no need to ask for donations.

Looking ahead

This year was difficult financially until we launched the $100K Challenge, which gave readers a clear way to help. The response has been heartening — and we’re not done yet!