Who Follows and Who Supports Orcas Issues?

— by Lin McNulty —

Following is the statistics chart from our Orcas Issues internet host showing our impressive visitor traffic. We continue to be pleasantly gob-smacked by these numbers.

It is apparent, viewing these statistics, that Orcas Issues, Orcas Island’s only locally-owned news service, is a valuable resource for our readers. Just look at the extra jump in traffic numbers generated in March during our Fire Levy coverage!

And not all of our readers are Orcas Islanders or county residents. We have readers who check in from all over the world! And let’s not forget to couple these stats with our Facebook followers which number in the hundreds per day!

As stated before, it is not our policy to institute a “paywall,” whereby site visitors must pay to read Orcas Issues stories. We simply refuse to go that route and choose to remain an open Community Journalism news source.

Yet, this policy comes at a cost. A very small percentage, about 10-11 percent, of our readers contribute financially to our work. Every month, we look at the numbers and wonder how to better entice our readership to help us with the financial realities of continuing our work.

While money is not the main driver of our endeavor, making a living by providing a valuable, core information service certainly is vital to our ability to continue.

Each of us needs to supplement our income from Orcas Issues with other earnings. We think it’s realistic, however, to work toward a living, median-income wage from this professional community service as we continue to provide in-depth, up-to-date stories about life and issues on Orcas Island, because we, too, cherish community involvement and acknowledgment.

Yes, this is a plea. If you can, please consider a monthly subscription, a one-time or recurring donation, and/or advertising your business or service on our popular site. Many of our advertisers relate a direct correlation between an increase in business and advertising on Orcas Issues.

Help keep us going by CLICKING HERE to make a contribution to our continuing work.