| One
of the things we seldom talk about is Real Change’s
commitment to building the global street paper movement.
We hosted the founding conference of the North American
Street Newspaper Association (NASNA) here in 1997 (much
of the West Coast delegation walked out when a decision
to operate by consensus was narrowly defeated, but that’s
another story for a different time), and Real Change has
played a key leadership role ever since.
Next week, papers from Boston, Washington DC, Denver,
Portland, Vancouver (Canada), and Milwaukee will begin
an intensive technical assistance project that we have
co-designed with the local consultants that helped Real
Change achieve the level of success we have. The NASNA
TA Project is funded by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism
Foundation, whose longtime support of NASNA has literally
made the North American streetpaper movement possible.
While our goal is to build a stronger poor people’s
movement by helping other papers grow and thrive, Real
Change will benefit as well. As we lead other papers to
assess their strengths, weaknesses, and capacity, build
strong vendor programs, raise the money they need to be
effective, and earn the respect of their communities,
we have the opportunity to rethink our own systems and
freshly challenge the assumptions we hold.
If we’ve learned anything over the last dozen years,
it’s that there’s always room for improvement.
We’re a work in progress, and always will be.
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