UPDATE, 7/29/2025: We have currently raised $9,040 towards our goal. Thank you!

First of all, I want to take this moment to thank you for your continued support of AIIJ and BirminghamWatch, whether you’ve just found us in recent weeks due to Olivia McMurrey’s coverage of the City of Birmingham Regional Water Works or if you’ve been with us for years, keeping up with Solomon Crenshaw Jr.’s coverage of the Jefferson County Commission. While I’ve only been in this position for less than two years, I’m quite familiar with the support this community provides to its journalism from past positions, and I’ve always been grateful for it.

The July 18 edition of our Weekly Watch newsletter included a note from me letting our email subscribers know that we would need to temporarily suspend story publication at the end of the month if we’re unable to raise $50,000 in donations or commitments by July 31.

It’s a decision I did not make lightly, especially considering the upcoming municipal elections and the work we’d planned to undertake during and after.

My main reason for writing this is to invite you to give whatever you can towards that goal or to consider becoming a monthly sustainer for AIIJ. These funds allow us to continue publishing while replenishing our contingency funds until an expected $50,000 grant arrives in early fall. They would also help us lay the groundwork to fully explore our original intent as a nonprofit in the coming year, by better listening and responding to what you say you want us to cover.

It costs us approximately $313 to produce each story on BirminghamWatch. This is an average cost and covers reporting, getting it online, sharing it, and the administrative expenses. For the first time in its history, BW focused on producing all of the stories it published for the first six months of the year to ensure we understood the necessary costs, as we’d never been in a position to share them before.

The 219 items published as of June 30 have focused on everything from the history (and current frustrations) of Birmingham’s long-heralded neighborhood association program to the anticipated return of a physical Bare Hands gallery space to an early look at how East Lake was handling street closures. We’d look to build on those stories and share more of them with you in the weeks and months ahead.

In addition to efforts to secure funds to publish through the end of the year, we’re already starting to work on next year’s budget and what it would look like to do many of the things I’ve heard while checking in with longtime supporters. A basic budget for producing an average of 3 stories per day internally, ideally with a core newsroom of 3.5 people and additional coverage by freelancers using the $313 figure, is approximately $360,000. Additional reporting and outreach efforts are possible as more money is raised, including more partnerships focused on media literacy and increasing the number of people able to report on our community.

We’re forever grateful to our monthly sustainers and those who have contributed to our efforts, in ways large and small, over these last 9 years, especially those who have participated in the NewsMatch end-of-year campaign. We’re also thankful for the grants received over the past two years from the Better Place Foundation, The Caring Foundation, The Community Foundation for Greater Birmingham, Google News Initiative Fundamentals Lab, and Press Forward.

As I’ve told some of our longtime supporters, national funders are less likely to support efforts like ours moving forward without a significant increase in local support. Any support you can provide would be greatly appreciated. If you’re not in a position to help us financially, share our stories with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up for our newsletter or follow us on your social media platform of choice: Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Nextdoor.

Again, I can’t thank you enough for your support of BirminghamWatch and AIIJ, and look forward to continuing to serve and be in community with you for years to come. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions at andre@birminghamwatch.org.

Cheers,

André Natta
Executive Director, Alabama Initiative for Independent Journalism
Publisher and executive editor, BirminghamWatch