A bittersweet fifth birthday for Peterborough Currents

It’s hard to believe, but Peterborough Currents is five years old. Co-founder Ayesha Lye and I sent our first email newsletter in March 2020 and launched our website a few months after that.

When we hit “send” on that first email newsletter, I had no idea that our little publication would become a vital source of information and connection for thousands of residents.

But that’s what happened. “Without Peterborough Currents, I would have no reliable source of civic, cultural, or citizen-relevant local news,” one of our 8,200 newsletter subscribers wrote to us recently. “In times of personal isolation, the publication has helped keep me plugged into the community.”

Comments such as those have kept us motivated over the years. 

Lately, however, they’ve also made the weight of Peterborough Currents feel heavier, as we grapple with a budget shortfall that threatens the local news outlet our community has come to value.

Thirteen months ago, Peterborough Currents told its audience that the outlet was entering its “make-or-break” year — the year that would determine whether the business survived or not. I’m sorry to share that we didn’t make it. As a result, Currents is entering a period of uncertainty as we discern what’s next for our news outlet.

In the short-term, this means staff will be laid off and you’ll see less journalism from us. In the medium-term, we’ll return, but with a renewed focus on the stories that we do best, and nothing else. In the long-term, we might look back at this moment as a transformational one that laid the groundwork to build a better Peterborough Currents.

Let me explain.

Currents’ grant funding is expiring, with little to replace it

This story starts in winter 2024. Back then, Currents had just enough funding to support two employees to each work for 15 hours/week. That wasn’t sustainable, and we were ready to throw in the towel, until a one-time grant from Indiegraf Media changed everything. The grant enabled us to grow and hire a new reporter, which in turn made us eligible for the federal government’s journalism wage subsidy, enabling even more growth.

The one-time grant is what made all this growth possible, and we knew at the time that there was a risk involved. Over the course of one year, we had to increase our own revenues by enough to replace the grant funding that would eventually run out. Otherwise, we’d be back where we started. (Want to dive deeper into our finances? Here’s where we publish our annual financial transparency reports.)

It was a great year. We delivered a lot of journalism that we’re proud of, including my investigation into the contaminated former Outboard Marine property, Brett Throop’s in-depth series on the local child welfare crisis, our municipal budget coverage, and our city council vote tracker pilot. On top of all this, our new reporter Alex Karn launched their own weekly newsletter and covered community events such as Curve Lake’s Mnoominkewin and the end of the Spark Photo Festival.

“You folks do such an amazing job of listening to the community and communicating the heart and soul of the issues, events, celebrations, and sorrows in PTBO/NOGO,” another reader told us.

Just a few days ago, our work was nominated for a national award that honours the country’s best community news coverage.

Our donor base increased during the 12-month period, as well. In March 2024, we had 275 supporters chipping in regularly. As I write, we have 402.

Every time I read those numbers, I’m humbled. It’s an incredible amount of support coming from a community of our size. Thank you!

But over the last year, audience funding has covered less than half of our expenses, which totalled about $130,000 in 2024. Our expenses are set to increase in 2025. And, despite much behind-the-scenes effort, I have failed to grow our other revenue streams enough to make up for the lost grant revenue.

Now, Currents has run out of time and we’re left asking: What journalism can we deliver with our audience funding alone? The answer to that question, after deducting operational expenses and administrative labour, isn’t nothing. But it’s a lot less than what we’re doing now.

The Currents team met last month to discuss our options. We know we’re overdue for a fundraising campaign, and could likely increase our audience support if we tried. But we decided that even after a successful campaign, audience funding alone would still not support jobs for us that met our personal financial needs in the current affordability crisis. We don’t want to ask for more money from our community and then scale back anyway.

Amid all our uncertainty, Currents’ two staff reporters, Brett and Alex, both decided accepting a layoff at this time would be better for them than staying on with reduced hours and reduced pay. As sad as that is, I think it’s the right decision for them. Happily, they both say they want to stay involved by contributing on a freelance basis.

I’m so proud of the work Brett and Alex have done at Peterborough Currents. And I’m incredibly grateful for their efforts to keep the community informed and connected. I’m not just grateful as the publisher of Currents, I’m also grateful as a fellow citizen. As publisher, I’m sorry Currents couldn’t ultimately provide them with employment that meets their needs.

This leaves me to salvage something from what we’ve built as a team over the last five years. I’m not walking away, but I do need to take care of myself and be realistic about what I can achieve on my own.

Running Peterborough Currents all on my own is also inconsistent with another goal I have for the outlet: to make it less about me! Lately, as the community has shown greater and greater levels of interest and investment in Peterborough Currents, I’ve come to feel uncomfortable with the outsized role I play as owner of the business.

Thankfully, we have a plan in the works that will address these concerns and make the most of the situation Currents is facing.

This is where the bad news ends. While I’m feeling disappointed by what I shared above, I am genuinely excited about what I get to share with you next. It’s the “sweetness” in our bittersweet birthday.

Introducing PALN, the new non-profit organization that will take ownership of Peterborough Currents

From the very beginning of Peterborough Currents, I’ve believed that a non-profit model might fit our values better than our current organizational structure, which is a for-profit business. (Not that there’s ever been much profit!)

Now, it’s happening. Peterborough Currents will weather its current storm by transitioning to a non-profit organization governed by a volunteer board of directors.

In February, four community leaders came together and founded a new non-profit called the Peterborough Association for Local News — PALN for short. In the coming weeks and months, the business that incubated Peterborough Currents over its first five years will give the publication and its assets to PALN. The name of the publication, Peterborough Currents, won’t change. But PALN will become the entity that owns and operates the publication.

PALN’s founding directors are: Evan Brockest, Brazil Gaffney-Knox, Ayesha Lye, and Karol Orzechowski. I’m especially pleased to share that Ayesha, who founded Currents with me but left to pursue other opportunities in 2022, is returning as a board member.

Currents is becoming a non-profit because we believe, over the long-term, it will open up new revenue opportunities. For example, if PALN can get back to a position where it regularly employs two people, it will become eligible for a registered journalism organization designation, which would allow us to issue charitable receipts. That could unlock more philanthropic support.

We also believe the structures of non-profit governance will prove more sustainable and resilient than the structure of our for-profit business. And we hope those structures will give the community more ownership over this news outlet. Local news isn’t about making a profit, after all. It’s about serving the community.

Oh yeah, we also made a magazine!

Life has a funny way of timing things. Back in summer 2024, when Currents still had money in the bank and reason to believe we might unlock new revenue streams, we submitted a grant application to Heritage Canada for funding to produce a pilot issue of a print magazine in honour of our fifth birthday.

Well, we got the grant, so we made the magazine. It’s dropping next week and you’ll be able to find it at various locations throughout the city.

This magazine was meant to be a celebration — so let’s keep it that way! I’m really proud of it, especially the two beautiful feature articles by Alex and Brett. I’m excited for folks to discover the magazine and read it over the coming months.

It feels a little incongruous to be releasing the magazine now, and we wouldn’t have chosen this timing if we could have avoided it. But it’s the timing the universe chose for us, and I’m happy it did. Life in the midst of death!

Welcome to our season of discernment

There’s one more thing I feel compelled to share. I mentioned above the weight of carrying Peterborough Currents. I’ve never found this weight easy to carry.

There is the pressure of securing the funding to sustain an institution that the community values. (“We love Currents!” a stranger shouted to me from a moving vehicle last fall, as I was taking a walk and worrying about money.) There is the pressure of delivering journalism that is worthy of the trust put in us by our donors. There is the intense pressure that comes with publicly criticizing people who have power. And lastly, there is the guilt of feeling all this weight when running Currents is, at the same time, an immense privilege that others might enjoy!

But the weight is real, and it has become heavier as Currents’ financial outlook has deteriorated. I can no longer ignore its emotional toll, and realize there is no healthy path forward for Peterborough Currents that doesn’t involve some reformulation of my role, which currently involves everything from payroll administration, tax filing and grant writing to editorial strategy, photography and reporting. (Recently I added magazine layout to the mix!)

This realization is well-timed as we make the transition to PALN; I’m hopeful the switch will relieve some of the pressure I’ve been placing on myself and open up new ways for me to contribute to Peterborough Currents. (I’m not going anywhere! I love Peterborough and journalism too much to quit.)

PALN has some big questions to mull over. What role should a local non-profit media outlet play in Peterborough’s news ecosystem? What kind of content should the non-profit prioritize? How should we organize our work? Big, exciting questions.

Over the last year, Peterborough Currents has made a few experiments with our coverage. We’ve tried some new things, and we’ve learned a lot about the information needs of our audience and how we can help meet those needs. On reflection, I think some of our experiments took us away from our core mission and led us to duplicate the efforts of other local media in Peterborough.

The founding of PALN is an opportunity to articulate Currents’ mission more clearly. My hunch is that Currents must focus on the slower, deeper, and context-rich storytelling that we are best positioned to offer, while leaving the more timely news reporting to other local outlets whose business models are better able to support that kind of work. (Read the features in our new magazine to see two examples of what I mean!)

But it’s not entirely up to me. We want to hear from you, too.

What do you think Peterborough Currents should prioritize? How might a non-profit news outlet, even one with constrained resources, contribute to the community? These questions will shape our upcoming season of discernment.

I’m not sure exactly what the next few months will look like, or how much we will publish. But I promise you will hear from us again.

P.S. I want to offer a tip of the hat to Jeremy Klaszus in Calgary, whose 2023 decision to take a hiatus from his independent local news website, The Sprawl, inspired me and has brought me comfort. It’s nice to know others have followed this path and found success on the other side.