Wellington has had quite a few small urbanist blogs over the years. Talk Wellington had a go at being larger and more sustainable. The proof-of-concept (whose two-year establishment was dominantly funded by convenor Isabella’s savings account) was used to help find alternative resourcing.

Hopefully this info might be useful in case someone else wants to start a public-good blog about what makes towns and cities tick!

How much did Talk Wellington need to exist in 2019?

Our “minimum viable service” level of content and outreach required about $77,000 a year.

• With this funding we could have continued 2018’s level of output, but started to pay properly for some of our content, and to diversify the voices on our platform.
• We would also have found other methods of funding, which is likely to include partnering up (like Radio NZ and The Spinoff).

Increasing this base to $97,000 would have enabled us to add some services:

• $15,000 of this would have enabled us to start responding to requests for advice, such as those we’d been getting from progressive community groups who want to be more effective in engaging with their communities and council.
• $5,000 of this would have enabled us to run collaborative events that diversified the demographics of who’s engaging with transport and urban development issues.

Here’s a breakdown of our costs.

Back to support…

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