The Big Ask

Update - $6k goal is reached - Fri, Nov 1, 3pm

We have reached our goal of $6,000 and exceeded it today to $6,483. A massive thanks to everyone. After processing fees are applied, we will still net over $6k.  We will leave the Go Fund Me open for a few more days for those who may want to still donate.  100% of funds will be used to update and improve the website so it better serves readers and writers and commenters.  Our NW Citizen Donate page will continue to accept donations, as we depend on those funds for our normal operating expenses for web services and domain name licenses. To repeat, no owners, nor editors nor writers receive a dime - ever. Thank you. We will keep everyone informed as we proceed with the update.  

Update - Fri, Nov 1

We have total donations of $5,608 towards our $6,000 goal to enable upgrading the computer code that runs NW Citizen.  Processing fees for online donations will reduce the total slightly.  We have received $2,670 in checks in the mail, $1,365 through our website Donate page, and $1,573 from the Go Fund Me website.  A huge - a massive - thank you to each of you who have donated.  We hope that more readers will  donate and put us over the $6,000 goal.  As we write below, 100% of donations go to paying for the computer code.  I'll update this page again in a few days.

To donate, click Go Fund Me for our donation page. Or, our  website has a Donate button which uses Stripe, a safe and encrypted system. Or, you can mail a check to:  Northwest Citizen LLC,  1050 Larrabee Ave, Ste 104 #2255,  Bellingham, WA 98225  USA

Update - Fri, Oct 25

We have received several checks in the mail of $50, $50, $100, $300 and $500, for a total of $1,000. On GoFundMe, the donations to date are $1,203. This brings our total donations to $2,203 toward our $6,000 reprogramming cost goal. So, the GoFundMe target amount is now $5,000 to adjust for the checks received. We are very encouraged with reaching one third of our goal in just over a week. Donations are our only source of revenue, as is explained in the article below. One hundred percent of these donations go to upgrading the program code for the website. Thank you so much to those of you who have contributed. I will post an update again on Monday after receiving the mail.

To donate, click Go Fund Me for our donation page. Or, our  website has a Donate button which uses Stripe. Or, you can mail a check to:  Northwest Citizen LLC,  1050 Larrabee Ave, Ste 104 #2255,  Bellingham, WA 98225  USA

Below posted Oct 16.

Since 1995, Northwest Citizen has provided a platform for citizens to write articles, advance local community issues, organize public participation, and effect change in local governments. It is one of the oldest community blogs on the Internet. 

To continue this service, we need your help raising $6,000 to update NWC’s programming. The current code was written in 2008 and since then multiple patches, updates, and hacks have hobbled the site making it hard to use, to read on mobile devices, phones, and tablets; and frustrating to search. As a result, our archive of over 2,700 issue-related articles are hard to access. The programming needs to be replaced to comply with today’s internet. 

To donate, click Go Fund Me for our donation page. Or, our  website has a Donate button which uses Stripe. Or, you can send a check to the address at the bottom of this article.  

Thank you in advance for supporting us so we can continue to provide a venue for local citizen journalists…and so you can use the site in the way it was intended to be read and used. We will keep you informed of our funding progress.

You can send checks to:  

Northwest Citizen LLC,  1050 Larrabee Ave, Ste 104 #2255,  Bellingham, WA 98225  USA

About Us:

NWC has been managed by volunteers for 29 years and this is the only major fundraising request we have ever done. All our revenue is from donations, and all funds go to operating expenses and the services of a professional computer programmer. We owners do not take a dime - and never have. Our citizen writers mostly live in our community and contribute all articles without payment. We take no advertising, allowing us to avoid the editorial pressures of advertisers and provide you an uninterrupted reading experience.  

Once we have sufficient funds, our programmer will need two months to rewrite the code. 

Have questions? Feel free to enter them as a comment, or email editor at nwcitizen.com.

Here are some of the issues writers have covered over the years:

First community alert 1996 of need to save the 100 acre woods

Shenanigans at the Port of Bellingham 

Neighborhood planning and autonomy

Rental housing safety and regulations

Saving Happy Valley from WWU takeover in 2001

Lake Whatcom & countywide water issues

Preserving Hoag’s Pond for public use

Monkey-business at Peace Health

Saving of the Heron Colony nesting area

Mischief with our local Broadband Internet providers

Vanishing Public Trail access

City politics going back decades

County politics—ditto

Bellingham School District

The bus barn fiasco

Local elections

Disadvantages of Medicare Advantage