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Deadline: The news Tucson needs, needs your help now

Give to real local journalism that matters — your donation TRIPLED before midnight!

Posted Dec 31, 2021

Dylan Smith
TucsonSentinel.com

Give to real local journalism that matters — your donation tripled before midnight! Support the nonprofit independent watchdog reporters of TucsonSentinel.com.

Crunch time! The news you need, needs you now - NewsMatch deadline @ midnight

TucsonSentinel.com's award-winning, in-depth reporting provides details and context — and your investment in authentically local news could be TRIPLED!

Help us bring Tucson even more fearless independent journalism.

Ever since TucsonSentinel.com began publishing full-time in early 2010, we've worked hard to bring you news you can trust. And we'd venture to guess that you've come to rely on our reporting because no one covers Tucson & Pima politics and border/immigration news with the same persistence and integrity as we do.

Now we're relying on you.

Approaching the end of the year, we've been blown away by the generous outpouring of support by our readers! Since the start of this year's NewsMatch challenge campaign, we have seen so many of you step up, and give to support the important work of TucsonSentinel.com's nonprofit newsroom.

All gifts matched 2-1

We're excited to share that we have this incredible opportunity to increase the impact of your donation with NewsMatch, a call to action to support nonprofit news organizations around the country, including the Sentinel.

The Loud Hound Partner Fund has made a special matching grant to selected nonprofit independent news organizations in Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania — which means your gifts to the Tucson Sentinel through Dec. 31 can be matched!

That effort is backed up by the leaders of our Community Challenge Fund, who've contributed a total of $20,000 to the Sentinel as part of our year-end campaign, in a challenge to other Tucsonans to meet a goal of another $20,000 in donations before the end of the year.

That means every dollar you give before midnight can have triple the impact.

Those Challenge Fund leaders include: Edna Gray, Stephen Golden & Susan Tarrence, and David & Joy Schaller, with contributions of $2,500 to the Challenge Fund; Bill Roe, Marsha & David Irwin, Lorraine Glicksman, Bonnie Kay, Mari Jensen, Michael Racy, Sharon Bronson, Beth Borozan, and David Burke, each giving $1,000; Nina Trasoff, Jim & Shirley Kiser, Matt DeRienzo, JD Wallace, Andrea & Derek Rickard, Ann-Eve Dingell, and Joel Smith, with $500 gifts.

With this 2-1 match, every dollar you give means another $2 to support local watchdog news. And the $3 your donation becomes can have the impact of $6, because of Report for America's support for our local journalists who are members of that program.

But, as they say on late-night TV, wait: there's more.

If you sign up to give monthly, NewsMatch and our local Community Challenge Fund mean your monthly gift can have 36x the impact over the course of 2022 — the entire annual value of your monthly donation is eligible to be matched. Whether you give a one-time donation, or subscribe as a member of the Watchdog Club with a monthly contribution, donations of up to $1,000 per individual are eligible to be matched.

Plus, with a just-announced bonus grant, the Google News Initiative will add another $1,000 to our year-end fundraising if we have 100 new, first-time contributors during NewsMatch. And we've got just 9 to go to meet that goal! Sign up for the Watchdog Club today and you can help us reach that finish line.

Today is the LAST DAY to donate and have your gift count toward our 2021 NewsMatch goal!

Won't you help us cross the finish line?

If you haven't already done so, please give your tax-deductible gift today. If you have supported our work, we're very grateful for your contribution.

Yes, I'll maximize my impact today!

We're in the final hours of the special NewsMatch campaign, and we're ever-so close to our year-end fundraising goal. We still need to raise about $4,500 before midnight.

But even when we meet that initial goal, it's not over yet.

We're also working to raise the local contribution necessary to fund our new Cultural Expression & Community Values reporter from Report for America next year. That new full-time Sentinel staffer will join our other RFA corps member — IDEA reporter (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity and Access) Bennito L. Kelty — in digging into even more truly untold stories about this special place we call home — with half of their salary covered by the national nonprofit program. But we (and that means all of us in Tucson) need to step up and cover the other costs of that big step for our nonprofit watchdog newsroom.

Every contribution from a donor right now — whether you sign up for a monthly gift of $20 or a make a one-time contribution of $50, $200 or $1,000 — counts toward that goal.

Because of RFA's support for a large portion of the salary of our new IDEA reporter, and the leverage from NewsMatch and our Community Challenge Fund, every dollar you give now can mean a total of $6 supporting journalism in Tucson.

And meeting it will mean the Sentinel receives a special bonus grant from NewsMatch to help us keep digging into what really matters here in Tucson — and it'll mean you're a member of our Watchdog Club group of supporters who sustain journalism in Tucson.

Will you give today to invest in the real reporting that Tucson needs? This news can't wait.

Our reporters strive every day to bring you and your neighbors hard-hitting, fact-based journalism that provides deep context — and it's this mission that has driven us throughout our entire first decade of reporting at TucsonSentinel.com.

Won't you join the Sentinel in standing up for journalism that makes a difference?

If you sign up to donate monthly, NewsMatch and the Community Challenge Fund will match the entire yearly value of your gift. So when you give $20 each month, our nonprofit newsroom will get $720 to fund local reporting.

No matter how much you contribute — in a one-time gift or every month — know that we're very grateful for all of the support we've received.

At TucsonSentinel.com, our job is to bring you the truth. And the truth is, dogged reporting costs money — and keeping a free press free to read for everyone means we need our most loyal readers to pitch in.

That's where you come in.

We count on readers like you to help us pursue these important stories. If you value what we're doing and want to see TucsonSentinel.com continue and grow, please make your gift today.

Please join fellow Sentinel readers like our Community Challenge Fund leaders, plus Judith Wood, Dennis & Patricia DeConcini, Melinda Correll, Rose Forbes, Randi Dorman, Shawn Pendley Fichtner, Jacquelyn Jackson, Joe Ferguson, Ben McNitt, Edward Notz, John Bernal, Susan Carmody, Dev Sethi, David Yetman, John Meyer, Michael Piccarreta, Jonathan Rothschild, and so many others, and join the WATCHDOG CLUB today to support real local news.

By giving today, you are making sure that TucsonSentinel.com continues to report on Tucson and Pima County with the integrity and tenacity you've come to expect from us.

On behalf of the entire Tucson Sentinel team, including Maria, Gene, Paul, Bennito, Blake and Julie: Thank you very much. We hope your holidays are warm and merry, that you have a very happy New Year in hopes of better days ahead, and that you're staying safe & healthy.

Dylan Smith
Editor & Publisher
TucsonSentinel.com

Just one more thing:

Do us a huge favor and help spread the word about TucsonSentinel.com by telling your friends and family about us, and why you believe truly independent local news is so vital. Thanks!