We want to take a moment this morning to update you on the progress of our Small Business Survival Campaign. It’s our crowdfunding effort in support of a yearlong reporting project on the problems faced by “mom and pops” on the Lower East Side, with a strong emphasis on solutions for their survival.
The response in the first three days has been great. Thanks to your generous support, we have raised 40% of our $24,000 goal. It’s been amazing to see the strong response around a topic that obviously strikes a chord with people in our neighborhood.
Having said that, we still have a long way to go, so if you haven’t gotten the chance to look at our page on the Beacon journalism crowdfunding site, we hope you’ll do so today.
As an extra incentive, we want to highlight some of the great rewards that come along with supporting this project. In the $100 category you have the choice of passes to the LES Film Festival or a free Black Zipcard, offering special discounts throughout the LES.
We’re delighted that ZipCard has come on board as our first small business Community Partner. If you run a small business or organization in lower Manhattan, please consider supporting this project — you’ll become a part of our branded outreach every time we do a story on this important topic throughout the entire year.
Plus, for anyone who contributes $100 or more, there’s our handsome TLD coffee mug. Other popular awards so far include: dim sum from Nom Wah Tea Parlor (which sold out in a flurry!) tickets to the Sunshine Cinema and gift certificates to the Doughnut Plant and Melt Bakery.
One other note. We’re starting to hear some excellent tips from the community about angles to pursue in our reporting project. If you have your own ideas, send us an email at: tips@thelodownny.com.
As we begin our first weekend of this campaign we want to thank everyone for their support. Let’s keep up the momentum!
