The JOLT's 2024 Annual Campaign - boosted by NewsMatch

The JOLT – The Journal of Olympia, Lacey & Tumwater 
is Thurston County’s independent, award-winning, 
community-owned, 
non-partisan and 
nonprofit news service.

We reach thousands of local residents every weekday on their phones or computers with new local news and feature stories.  

Every weekday The JOLT gives you – free of charge – approximately 6 original local news and feature stories, plus the Police Blotter and hundreds of full-length event listings in our Community Calendar. 

The JOLT started in 2020 as an experiment to see whether Thurston County residents would become interested in receiving better coverage of local news again.

So, what's new?

It’s working. 2024 has been a pivotal year for your local news organization:

• Won our first journalism award, a national honor, the 2024 Insight Award for Visual Journalism from the Institute for Nonprofit News.
• Press Forward, the national initiative to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news, included The JOLT News Organization in its first group of grant recipients. It provided us with $50,000 in 2024 and 2025 to support our growth.
• We just hired our first full-time managing editor (with the Press Forward grant). We’ll introduce you at the start of December to our new editor, who is relocating back to Washington this month to join us.

That Press Forward grant is a challenge: While it will cover about HALF of the cost of our new editor, we need to raise THE OTHER HALF of the funds here, locally, from individuals and businesses.

What you'll find in The JOLT

You can find more than 4,000 local news and feature stories we’ve published, all of which are both searchable and available at no charge on our website: www.theJOLTnews.com

And if you’re not already receiving The Daily JOLT, our weekday newsletter that shows you the day’s local headlines, you’re invited to subscribe – for FREE!  Just click here and enter your first name and email address.

This is reporting you won’t find anywhere else (certainly not in the national news!) because it covers the issues that most impact your day-to-day life — local government activity, school board meetings, building development, etc. 

In addition to covering the hard news, we also feature local columnists who write about gardening, local birds, local nonprofit organizations, life here as a senior citizen, healthcare, recipes and the local literary scene. Plus, an increasing number of reader letters, full-length obituaries (which we publish at no charge) and more. And the police blotter, too. 

Our Community Calendar is the most complete in our area. It offers all kinds of local and online events, usually more than 200 per month. 

Do you need more info?

Please see the Qs & As below for answers to these questions:

1. Why is local news important?
2. What’s The JOLT’s mission statement?
3. Is my donation tax-deductible?
4. Why can’t The JOLT be supported from advertising revenues?
5. Didn't you guys just get a big grant? Why do you need more money?
6. Where do The JOLT's staff live?
7. How will you use my donation?

And if you have more questions, please click to email publisher@theJOLTnews.com – right now! 

Your contribution would be a big deal for a small, independent news organization like us. It will help us deliver the kind of in-depth journalism you’ve come to expect, every day. It’s the kind of reporting that can make a real difference in our community. And, we hope you agree that it’s worthy of your support.

Thank you.  

Questions & Answers

1)  Why is local news important?

Local news, different from national media, supports local democracy. It helps keep public officials accountable. It stimulates more talented people to run for public office. Across the country, opinion polls say that local news is better trusted than national news. We provide information that helps to create a shared public understanding of local issues and, as you’ll see below, helps people become better informed and more involved in local issues, events and activities.

2)  What’s The JOLT’s mission statement?

The JOLT nourishes the civic lives of Thurston County residents and grows community capacity by publishing  accurate, relevant and entertaining stories  that help people become better informed and more involved in local issues, events and activities.

3)  Is my donation tax-deductible?

Yes – If you itemize your tax deductions, please note that the IRS determined The JOLT News Organization to be a tax-exempt public charity under IRC Section 501(c)(3) on March 15, 2023. Our EIN is 87-2868827.  

4)  Why isn’t The JOLT supported entirely from advertising revenues?

While ad revenues are important to The JOLT, they represent only about 20% of our budget. (We’re working to increase that – if you need to advertise in Thurston County, please call us or email publisher@theJOLTnews.com.)

The news ecosystem across America is broken. 

As much as 80 percent of ad revenues that used to flow to newspapers have moved online – primarily to search, social media and classified ad sites. Some 2,800 print newspapers across the United States have shut down since 2004. Some 1,800 served communities that no longer have a daily or weekly news service. The old business model for local news is never coming back.

In response to these trends, some 700 local independent online news organizations have formed around the United States. Of these, approximately 300 are nonprofit news media, including The JOLT News Organization. 

As a nonprofit, we depend on the support of local community members like you to keep this critical work going. 

5)  Didn't you guys just get a big grant? Why do you need more money?

Yes! The JOLT received one of 205 grants from Press Forward. The grant is in the amount of $50,000 for 2024 and 2025.  And we pledged to Press Forward that we’d use these funds to hire a full-time managing editor. Guess how much a full-time managing editor costs? About double that amount. So we’re immediately in the hole for about $45,000 to $50,000. 

By contributing here, you’re investing in more and better local news. And your return-on-investment will begin next month!

6)  Where do The JOLT's staff live? (And is it true that you use overseas reporters?)

Most of our people live in Thurston County. We employ one associate editor and six reporters who live in The Philippines – and nine reporters, columnists and editors who live in Thurston County. Okay, one used to live in Thurston County but now lives in Lewis County. 

Our overseas reporters and editor are all trained and experienced journalists. They do a great job for us. They cover the same beats week after week. And, candidly, while we believe we pay them well for their economy, they cost our organization a small fraction of what U.S.-based reporters would cost. That makes the very best use of our donors’ contributions. 

We collaborate with these reporters daily. We often share the work with them, doing “hybrid reporting.” If you want to learn more, please see the editorial we published last year, titled “Who is producing The JOLT, anyway?”

7)  How will you use my donation?

Your contribution will be used almost entirely to pay our reporters, photographers and that new editor.

We publish daily, producing from three to seven original local news and feature stories each weekday.

Your contribution will help ensure that we can continue to:

• Cover more than 60 public meetings each month so we can report what our government agencies are considering or implementing.
• Create the award-winning photojournalism we've published about our local unhoused neighbors and solutions being proposed for them and our cities.
• Support the work of our eight columnists, who provide entertaining and informative local columns and feature stories about people here doing wonderful things, local medical topics, gardening, wild birds, nonprofit organizations, recipes, the local literary scene and, of course, our pets. 
• Produce the best events calendar in Thurston County, which lately includes more than 200 events each month, nearly all free and open to the public.

 Thank you for supporting The JOLT News Organization.