Breckenridge Texan

By Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan

There are just two more days left in the Breckenridge Texan’s annual fundraising campaign — today and tomorrow, Dec. 31 — and we will greatly appreciate any donations we can get to help us reach our goal.

If you donate before 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 31, your donation will be tripled, thanks to the NewsMatch project. And, if we can get 50 new donors this year, we’ll earn an additional $1,000 donation through the program, which supports non-profit newsrooms around the country, like the Breckenridge Texan. (See the specific details about the NewsMatch program below.)

Any donation amount counts toward our total, and every donation directly benefits the Breckenridge Texan.

This is the Breckenridge Texan’s seventh year to take part in the NewsMatch project, and although the program is very helpful to us, it wouldn’t mean anything without the support of the local community. As a non-profit news site, the Breckenridge Texan depends on donations, in addition to ad sales, to fund our daily operations. We use the donations and income from ad sales to pay for daily operating expenses, such as website hosting, email service, internet connection, office supplies, freelance writers and photographers, etc.

Every year that we have done this, we are delighted and humbled by the donations we receive. We are just so thankful for your help in keeping the Breckenridge Texan going.

In 2017, we — my wife, Carla McKeown, and I — founded the Breckenridge Texan, we set it up as a non-profit, so that it wouldn’t be a big financial burden on the community and to make sure control of our local news coverage stays just that..local. We seek out additional help, like the NewsMatch program and other grants, to make every penny go even further, but we still rely on the local contributions from individuals and businesses.

There are several ways to make a donation:

• Go directly to the Breckenridge Texan’s donation site
• Go the Breckenridge Texan’s page on the NewsMatch site and click on the “Donate” button there
• Mail a check to P.O. Box 1228, Breckenridge, Texas 76424.

Please note that when you make a donation online, your donation will show up on your bill under the name of our fiscal sponsor, INN (Institute for Non Profit News or their former name, Investigative News Network). It will still get credited to us, though.

As always, the NewsMatch program matches any donations we receive from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, doubling the community’s donations. Plus, this year, the Breckenridge Texan qualifies for the Rural Partner Fund, which will add another “match” to the first $3,000 we raise, thereby tripling the local donations. The Rural Partner Fund is awarded to newsrooms serving rural audiences and covering rural issues and is supported by a coalition of funders, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and Walton Family Foundation. Additionally, as mentioned above, if we receive donations from at least 50 new donors during the NewsMatch fundraising campaign, we qualify for an added $1,000.

To read more about the Breckenridge Texan, click here for the About Us section. To read the Breckenridge Texan’s Donor Transparency policy, click here.