From the entire WW team, thank you!
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Friends of Willamette Week | January Newsletter – Year-End Report | January 18, 2023

 

Dear {{Constituent First Name}},

On November 1, Friends of Willamette Week set out to raise $55,000 in this fall's Give!Guide campaign. It was our most ambitious year-end fundraising goal to date. We didn’t have a matching gift or a large donation lined up. What we had was a year when WW's reporters wrote some of Oregon’s most consequential journalism

That fact didn’t go unnoticed. When the dust settled at midnight on December 31, Friends of Willamette Week had raised $71,822 from 714 donors from our 2023 Give!Guide efforts. Thank you for recognizing the importance of local independent journalism. Reader support is what makes our work possible, and we are thrilled to put that funding to good use.

To pile on the good news, Willamette Week’s year-end fundraising initiative, Give!Guide, set a historic record, raising $8,355,095 for 250 local nonprofits. What began in 2004 as a ma-and-pa fundraising campaign—with some $28,000 raised for 24 nonprofits—has turned into a community fundraising machine, raising a collective total of more than $64 million. Our community has proven time and time again that it’s willing to invest in a better tomorrow, not just for ourselves, but for everyone who calls Oregon home. 

 

From the entire Willamette Week staff, thank you! 

2023 Editorial Timeline 🗓

Here's a recap of what your support helped achieve last year.

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JANUARY 2023

Nigel Jaquiss shined a giant spotlight on how Oregon lags behind nearly every other state in providing specialized rehabilitation services for patients with traumatic brain injuries.

 FEBRUARY 2023

Anthony Effinger offered an insightful look at why Portland lost some of its “biggest fans.” 

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MARCH 2023

Lucas Manfield spotlighted overcrowding at Oregon State Hospital, leading to patients struggling with mental illness and charged with violent crimes being let back on the streets. 

 APRIL 2023

On April 3, Gov. Tina Kotek ended a policy that paid the travel expenses of state employees who live and work outside Oregon after Jaquiss revealed the controversial state policy.

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MAY 2023

On May 2, Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan resigned after Sophie Peel revealed how Fagan not only accepted a moonlighting gig with a troubled cannabis dispensary chain, but also sought advice on a state audit from the private interests who had funded her campaign and would become her bosses.

 JUNE 2023

Manfield uncovered more than 5,000 instances since Multnomah County started keeping track in January in which no county-contracted AMR ambulances were available when a 911 dispatcher requested medical assistance.

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JULY 2023

Manfield foiled the Multnomah County Health Department’s plans to distribute straws and tinfoil to fentanyl users.

AUGUST 2023

Effinger enlightened readers with a troubling statistic: Nearly one-third of Portland’s downtown office space stands empty.

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SEPTEMBER 2023

Arts & Culture editors Andi Prewitt and Bennett Campbell Ferguson took readers on a deep dive into more than 40 of Portland’s oldest, dankest dive bars.

 OCTOBER 2023

Oregon Health & Science University executives had a disappointing start to the holiday season after Effinger obtained a slide deck revealing year-end bonuses top executives were to receive and published the numbers in WW, drawing the attention of aggrieved health care worker unions.

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NOVEMBER 2023

Rachel Saslow walked readers through the long, tumultuous and historic Portland Public Schools teacher strike

 DECEMBER 2023

To end a wild year for both state and local governance, Peel and Manfield followed up on 2023’s most politically impactful story in Oregon. The two traveled to Southern Oregon's so-called Emerald Triangle and recounted what they uncovered there about the region’s illicit cannabis trade.

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What's to come in 2024?

We plan to grow next year by expanding our sales and editorial teams. We’re working toward reaching more readers, giving you more places to find us online, adding another magazine to our schedule, helping this city reinvigorate its arts scene, and covering a municipal election on a scale Portland has never seen before.

We hope we can count on you to keep reading and continue supporting our journalism. It truly makes a difference in our ability to dig deeper.

 

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