This Giving Tuesday, the Daily is launching a new fundraiser targeting our long-term goals and growth.
The students at The Tufts Daily have successfully navigated the financial and operational challenges thrown at them by the COVID-19 pandemic.
But now there is an urgent need to help the Daily meet its next challenge: To broaden access to the one of the best college newspapers in the country.
By doing so, we can help The Tufts Daily have an even larger impact across the Tufts community and on its readership.
“I love the Daily because it provides me with a sense of community. It also inspires me to be a more informed student of Tufts and resident of Medford/Somerville.” – Julia Shannon-Grillo, managing editor fall '22
The Tufts Daily is proudly independent. However, through advertising revenue and the generosity of the Daily’s wider community, the Daily can both meet its new challenges and maintain its financial independence.
With your support today, we can:
Grow access for students: Because working on The Tufts Daily often requires a significant time commitment, financial barriers do not allow all Tufts students to have an equal opportunity to participate. Expanding work study and offering new financial stipends will enable a greater number of Tufts students to participate in the Daily, therefore building a more inclusive newsroom.
Grow access for readers: By supporting the Daily’s digital transition with investments in a new website and new digital tools, the Daily can expand its reach beyond the Tufts campus, share print and multimedia stories in visually exciting ways, and access a wider pool of advertisers.
Grow access to journalism careers: With no journalism major at Tufts, participation in The Tufts Daily provides substantial education and practice for students interested in careers in journalism. With your support, we can create a new Daily alumni directory to facilitate networking opportunities and strengthen professional and community links, sponsor student involvement in professional journalism societies, fund participation in journalism conferences and events, and more.
$50,000 Capital Campaign
Led by The Tufts Daily Alumni Council, this campaign is The Tufts Daily’s first major capital campaign, and its goals are ambitious. To meet them, we are aiming to raise more than $50,000.
Here's how you can help: A donation of $25 can pay for a Daily staff member to join a professional journalist association. A $50 donation can fund a day of work-study support for a Tufts Daily staff member. A $500 donation can fund a student stipend for a year.
“I came to Tufts with zero journalism experience but fell in love with the Daily and, thanks to a supportive community and work-study financial aid program, was able to work my way through the ranks to lead the entire news department. I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.” – Emily Thompson, Executive News Editor Fall ‘22
Your donation today will expand access to the Daily, grow its role in its community and help it to better achieve its potential as the best college newspaper in the country!
Campaign Goals
Grow Access for Students
An internal Tufts Daily Demographics and Inclusion survey and report found that lower-income students are underrepresented on The Tufts Daily’s staff, and only about 20% of Daily staff receive financial aid, less than half the rate for Tufts University as a whole. By expanding financial support for students, we can remove a key inhibitor of participation for students on financial aid and widen The Tufts Daily’s reach across the Tufts community.
We need your help to expand who can participate in The Tufts Daily and deepen its impact at Tufts.
If we reach $12,000 in donations, we can: Launch new student journalism stipends.
With your support, the Daily will provide four $500 stipends and one $1,000 stipend for Daily staff members who do not serve on the Executive Board or Managing Board, and would otherwise have to choose between writing for the Daily and taking a part-time job.
By helping us to reach this target, you can ensure the stipends are awarded annually for up to two years.
If we reach $27,000 in donations, we can: Support existing work study support for 3 years
The Tufts Daily currently enables students on the Executive and Managing Boards who qualify for work study support to be paid for up to 10 hours worked at the Daily, with 75% of work-study costs being covered by Tufts University.
By helping us to reach this target, you can ensure The Tufts Daily can continue to provide this invaluable support.
If we reach $39,000 in donations, we can: Double existing work study support for 3 years
The existing work study support is capped at 10 hours per week, which is far below the actual number of hours many Daily staffers work to produce the paper. This shortfall can serve as a disincentive for financial aid students who need to make sufficient income from their work study roles.
By helping us to reach this target, you can double the number of hours of work study available to Tufts Daily staff to 20 hours per week.
Grow Access for Readers
If we reach $47,000 in donations, we can: Supercharge The Tufts Daily’s digital transition
The Tufts Daily’s current website is running out of storage space and faces increasing cybersecurity risks. The Daily’s staff have already contracted a new website with a well-respected third-party provider. This digital overhaul provides an opportunity to expand access to the Daily’s storytelling to a broader audience and further increase its digital advertising revenue.
With your support, the Daily can supercharge its ongoing digital transition, including website maintenance and improvements to accessibility with audio narration for articles, as well as more interactive features for both print and multimedia stories.
Grow Access to Journalism Careers
The COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions made networking and interactive opportunities much more challenging for Daily members. We now have a chance to build on the improved digital outreach achieved over the last two years, and connect Daily staff and alumni to one another and to the wider professional journalism community.
If we reach $48,000 in donations, we can: Launch a Tufts Daily alumni directory
We can strengthen the long-term gains from the relationships students create at The Tufts Daily by building an alumni directory using a third-party application service. The directory would be password-protected and would enable alums to update their information directly, share key contact information and biographical details, and create mentorship networks.
By helping us to reach this target, you can help launch a Tufts Daily alumni directory to build and strengthen the connections between Daily alums and current members.
If we reach $50,000 in donations, we can: Give Tufts Daily staff access to professional development opportunities.
The Tufts Daily Alumni Council and Tufts Daily currently work together to provide mentorship opportunities, deliver speaker series where students hear from professional journalists, and facilitate meetings with graduate journalism program representatives.
However, by helping us to reach this target, we can fund the Daily and its staff to join collegiate journalism associations and professional journalism affinity groups, and to attend and participate in journalism conferences. By doing so you will support the staff’s access to professional development and career opportunities.
If we exceed $50,000 in donations, we can: Create a permanent fund to invest in the Tufts Daily and its students.
This fundraising campaign will help to create long-term funding frameworks for these key priorities. But there is a lot more we can do to make the Tufts Daily the best college newspaper in the country, and you can help us to get there!
By helping us to exceed our $50,000 target, you will create a revolving fund, managed by the Tufts Daily Alumni Council, for further investments to support strategic, long-term priorities.
Governance
In order to preserve its editorial independence, The Tufts Daily does not receive any funding from the Tufts Community Union Senate. This means the Daily is reliant largely on advertising revenues and donations to cover its costs.
Alongside this fundraising campaign, The Tufts Daily is improving its budget processes to better control costs and is investing in improved digitalization, including the launch of an entirely new website later this year, helping to drive significant growth in digital ad revenue.
All funds raised from Tufts Daily alumni will require the Tufts Daily Alumni Council's consent before they can be spent in line with the Growing Access 2023 campaign commitments. A fundraising, spending and impact report will be provided to alumni annually so they can see how their funds were used. Any funds given by non-alumni, such as parents or students, will be provided directly to The Tufts Daily for operational costs and will not be overseen by the Tufts Daily Alumni Council.
All donations will be directed to The Tufts Daily via a donation to Tufts University. Tufts University is a 501(c)3 organization, and your donation is tax deductible.
The Tufts Daily Alumni Council
The Tufts Daily Alumni Council was formed in 2021, designated to support current and former staff of The Tufts Daily by providing guidance, support, fundraising assistance, and networking opportunities. It is open to participation from Tufts Daily alums, and currently is made up of 11 members.
If you are interested in supporting the fundraising campaign, or in supporting the work of the Council more generally, or have any questions, we would love to hear from you. Please email Jonathan Graham at jonathan@finsbury.ca.