If you appreciate Cortes Currents...

Cortes Currents is an independent community newsmedia project. Our goal is to provide a "small town newspaper" equivalent for Cortes Island BC -- professional-quality coverage of issues and news of interest to Cortes Island residents. Since 2019 we have offered an "online news magazine" (in the form of a WordPress site) plus regular radio programming on CKTZ (Cortes Community Radio).

Our mission statement and policy are clearly laid out on our web site: cortescurrents.ca. Our goals: to report truthfully and ethically, to correct errors and print retractions when we are mistaken, and to get beyond the soundbite or the headline to the heart of each story. We have a particular focus on environmental, climate, and social issues.

We do not and will not accept advertising, because financial dependence could compromise our objectivity. We have in the past received some LJI funding, but we found this entailed some interference in our editorial policy. We want to keep Cortes Currents local, and accountable locally. We do not paywall or require subscriptions, because we want reliable news coverage to be available to all Cortes Islanders.

Therefore... we have no revenue model. This is an issue.

What do we need money for? We pay annual fees for website hosting and software licenses, which add up to five or six hundred dollars a year. Although feature writer De Clarke works on a volunteer basis and publishes only intermittently, primary reporter Roy Hales works full-time for Currents and covers breaking stories daily. We have in the past also paid honoraria to community members who submit acceptable articles. We are currently unable to do this.

We know from online statistical tools that our website gets over 4000 visits a month, of which about 650 are regular, returning readers -- that's more than half the population of Cortes Island. So clearly we're doing something right. If you'd like us to go on doing something right, you can help.

If you rely on Cortes Currents for trustworthy coverage of local/regional news, and would like to make a contribution towards our expenses, we would be very grateful. If you would like your donation to be publicly acknowledged, we will set up a Donors page on the web site. If you would rather remain an anonymous benefactor, we will respect your privacy.

Although we operate strictly at a loss, we are not a registered nonprofit nor do we have charitable status. So unfortunately we can't issue tax rebate receipts.

At present we are hoping to raise on the order of $6000 per year. If anyone feels like remembering Currents in a bequest -- perhaps through the Cortes Foundation? -- that would be a good deed. In the meantime, consider this GoFundMe our tip jar!