Urban Milwaukee

Urban Milwaukee Drive Raises $30,590!

Thank you, Milwaukee. Our crowdfunding drive raised 153% of goal.

By - Nov 19th, 2015 11:23 am
Urban Milwaukee Expansion

Urban Milwaukee Expansion

The 30-day crowdfunding drive by Urban Milwaukee finished last night and was a huge success, raising $30,590 from 339 contributors, an average contribution of $90. The drive raised 153 percent of its original goal of $20,000.

“We are thrilled and humbled by the success of our drive,” said Urban Milwaukee President Jeramey Jannene. “The contributions will help us expand the publication and assure that Urban Milwaukee remains a free publication, so we can continue to serve as many readers as possible.”

The list of people who helped with the drive are many:

  • Skilled videographer Heather Perkins, who created — pro-bono — four different videos explaining the rationale behind Urban Milwaukee’s crowd funding drive. Perkins is Director of Marketing at the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities.
  • The skilled team at the vaunted BVK ad agency, led by Gary Mueller, with work by writer Jeff Ericksen and designer Charlie Marsh, who created three wonderful, pro-bono ads to help publicize the campaign.
  • Developer and entrepreneur Juli Kaufmann, who agreed to be interviewed in a video and helped us with orientation of our crowd-funding ambassadors.
  • Developer Barry Mandel, who gave a $1,500 matching grant challenge, that helped contributions explode in the drive’s last three days.
  • Former Mayor John Norquist, who agreed to be guest of honor at our fund drive kick-off and urge folks to donate.
  • Mayor Tom Barrett, Ald. Bob Bauman and state Rep. Mandela Barnes, who agreed to be interviewed in the videos.
  • Our 20 crowd-funding ambassadors and countless others who helped to get the word out about the campaign.

Every dollar raised by the campaign will be used to expand the publication. We will be gradually rolling out our list of improvements over the coming months, and already are hard at work on them. Expect beta versions of the new functions in very early 2016.

Meanwhile, we have heard from folks who missed the deadline, but still want to contribute. With that in mind we are keeping the Indiegogo page live for a few more days. If you like what we do and want to contribute, head to our campaign page

“This is part of a long-term strategy by Urban Milwaukee to find a way to grow journalism at a time when print media is drastically contracting,” Jannene noted.

“We are passionately committed to serving this community with a vibrant publication that champions the city and urban issues,” said Urban Milwaukee editor Bruce Murphy. “You can’t have a strong democracy without a strong media. The contributions we’ve received — and any future donations — will be used to assure that Urban Milwaukee continues to grow, while remaining a fiercely independent publication.”

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2 thoughts on “Urban Milwaukee Drive Raises $30,590!”

  1. Dekker says:

    Congratulations! Surpassing a goal isn’t easy to do. This is a fantastic newspaper and asset to Milwaukee.

  2. Paul M. says:

    Congrats! Just a note that it might be more accurate to report the median contribution rather than the average. Just one or two outliers on the high end (like that one $5000 contribution) are going to skew that average (mean) upward. So in this case the median would give a clearer sense of what the typical backer gave.

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