Real Change people are the most giving people around. Every year, readers like you put more than a million dollars directly into the pockets of our vendors.
Many of you buy Real Change every week. Some of you even more. And you do it because you want to help. If we know anything about our readers, it’s that you want our vendors to succeed.
This newspaper is much more than just a job to our vendors. It’s an opportunity to build positive relationships out on the street; to make a difference in their own lives and in the lives of others. To be a part of a caring community that’s much bigger than themselves.
This community means as much to our vendors as the money they earn. Our readers offer encouragement during hard times and reason to hope for something better.
On May 5, you have an opportunity to extend your support of Real Change and to make an even bigger difference.
Through a generous challenge match from the Wyncote Foundation NW, all gifts made to Real Change through
GiveBIG will be matched dollar for dollar, up to a total of $50,000.
That’s a lot of money in one day, but we have a lot of friends.
Every week, 12,000 readers buy Real Change to help their vendors and get the news they need.
Each month, 325 vendors find work and build relationships selling Real Change.
Last year, 1,817 generous donors provided 55 percent of our annual budget. Our work would not be possible without the thriving community that makes us strong.
With each of you doing what you can, we know we’ll get there.
Here is what your GiveBIG gift to Real Change will help us achieve in 2015 and beyond.
Opportunity and innovation
Real Change has launched a new, mobile-friendly website and invested in a social media strategy to increase the reach of our award-winning newspaper. Combined with the release of the Real Change app, which introduces cashless payment for a digital edition of the newspaper, we will reach thousands of new readers and create new opportunities for vendor success. Real Change will also reach more vendors by partnering with other programs that offer opportunity to those who face significant barriers to finding full- or part-time employment.
A stronger voice
Real Change takes action on the issues that most affect our vendors and gives them tools to build support for the change we all need. In 2014, Real Change’s OutsideIN campaign to make 1,000 people safer by 2015 played a major role in placing the unsheltered homeless issue high on the city’s action agenda. This year, we need to keep the pressure on for housing affordability in Seattle, along with new solutions to the emergency shelter crisis. Real Change’s organizing strategies include vendor leadership development, expansion of our Homeless Speaker’s Bureau and new activist tools to make staying informed and taking action easy.
Economic, social and racial justice
Real Change has set out to become a model organization working at the intersection of race and class, and is backing this up through our newspaper and activism. This work faces both inward and out, with new allyships that promote race and class equity, progress toward policies that support full inclusion, support for initiatives that dismantle structural racism and commitment to greater diversity in vendors, readership, board, staff and volunteers.
In every way, Real Change’s community of supporters is making a difference today while we build for a better tomorrow. Please see the GiveBIG ad on page 7 for more information on how to extend your impact on May 5.