We’ve decided to start selling advertising again

We had our team quarterly meeting at the end of last week. We usually go through our financials and talk about how things are going, and where they’re headed.

Our main point of discussion was how for the last year or more, our subscriptions have largely flatlined – even as the cost of living, our overheads, and expectations of what we produce have grown.

Aside from occasional grants, to cover special projects like our youth journalism programme, we are subscription funded.

And we will remain predominantly subscription-funded, still believing that it keeps us focused on serving readers and community engagement.

But we do need to add another revenue stream. So we’ve decided we will sell some advertising again – something we haven’t done in years.

We’ve drafted up a short ethical advertising policy – we won’t do sponsored content (ads that look like articles), and we won’t take political adverts, and we won’t let advertising influence our journalism.

We’re not going to offer adverts on the website at the moment. We get a fair amount of feedback that the absence of pop-ups and interruptions makes it easier and more enjoyable to read our articles there.

But we are going to offer advertising spots in our print edition, and in our free weekly email newsletter.

If you’re running an event, or you’ve a small business with an offer, please do get in touch. Our rate card is here.