Dear Streets.mn community,
For the past dozen or so years, Streets.mn has been dedicated to fostering thoughtful discussions about transportation, housing, urbanism, climate change, communities and land use in Minnesota. Your support through donations has been the lifeblood of our organization, enabling us to maintain our website and pursue our mission.
But we want to do more, and like many things in life, that costs more. Today, we’re reaching out to share some news about our plans for growth and to be transparent about the changes that will help us achieve these goals.
Introducing Banners on Streets.mn
Starting the first week of December, we will conduct a six-month trial run of advertisements on our website. These ads will be delivered by Google AdSense and will appear on our home page and within our stories.
This decision wasn’t made lightly, but after careful consideration, we believe it’s a necessary step to support our growth and expand our impact. We’re also open to trying local banners. We’re figuring this out as we go.
Why This Change?
- It Costs More to Do More: We want to grow Streets.mn’s influence and bring our mission-driven content to a wider audience. This includes showing up in communities where we haven’t been as visible in the past.
- Community Engagement: We plan to increase our presence at local events. For instance, we recently staffed a table at Cedarfest, which provided valuable insights and connections with community members. We image tabling at more local events in the future.
- Supporting Contributors: We plan to run more contributor workshops, like our summer 2024 event in Rochester, to nurture new voices and perspectives in our community. Duluth, St. Cloud and Mankato: You’re on our radar for a workshop.
- Sustainable Growth: Although donations have been crucial, diversifying our revenue streams will allow us to fund new initiatives and ensure the long-term sustainability of Streets.mn.
Our Commitment to You
This change will not affect the quality or integrity of our content (we hope to learn from this trial). We remain committed to our mission of expanding the conversation about transportation, housing, urbanism, climate change, communities and land use issues in Minnesota. The revenue generated from these ads will be reinvested into improving and expanding our services to you and the broader community.
What This Means for You
- You’ll start seeing ads on our website; we hope they don’t interfere with your reading experience. Mobile readers in particular (about 65% of you), let us know if the banners aren’t working as you’d expect.
- Your support through donations remains as vital as ever. These ads are supplementary, not a replacement for your contributions.
- We’ll be transparent about how this new revenue is used to benefit our community and further our mission.
- Clicking an ad is always a personal choice. A click on an ad on our site may indirectly generate some revenue for us in the long run (it gives our site a higher click rate and more impressions), but Google will track you. So whatever ad you click on may appear more frequently when you go to other sites. It’s Big Data, folks! If you were paying to reach the sort of urbanist readers to whom Streets.mn appeals, you’d want ads that get viewed and clicked.
Your Feedback Matters
We value your input. After the six-month trial period, we’ll assess the impact of this change and decide on our path forward. If you see opportunities we’re missing, please write a letter to the editor, a new way we’re connecting with readers in our community.
If you have any immediate questions or concerns, please reach out to us at [email protected]. We’re here to listen and address any thoughts you might have about this new direction.
On behalf of the Streets.mn team: Thank you for your continued support and for being a part of the Streets.mn community. Together, we’re working toward more livable, sustainable and connected communities across Minnesota.
Note: The featured image at the top of this article was lifted from the page https://www.semrush.com/blog/above-the-fold/.