My board member, Alisa Gravitz of Green America, taught me a lot about how to do that (I was used to giving away money, not asking for it). And I used my foundation background to bring in foundation funds. From then on, it was learning by doing. Fortunately, Sarah knew a lot about putting a magazine together and was tenacious in turning out a visionary publication every quarter. Our fulfillment manager, Sally Wilson, was valiant in fulfilling subscriptions. But developing our reach and impact and making it work financially fell to me and some remarkable people we brought in, including Audrey Watson and Rod Arakaki. So I was on a steep learning curve. And given the rapidly changing face of media, I still am. Fortunately, learning keep me young.
JB: Your foundation background came in handy AND you knew whose brains to pick, an excellent mix! YES! started very small, in staff and circulation. You've experienced substantial growth on both of those fronts since then. Can you give us an idea of the current scope, circulation, and work force?
FK: Indeed. We have grown tremendously. It's clear there's a real hunger in the world for solutions to the big challenges of our time--and that has propelled our growth. When I joined YES! in 1998, we had 5,500 magazine subscribers, a very rudimentary web presence, no email newsletter, and of course no social media.
We now have 40,000 magazine subscribers. We publish stories every day on the web and and get 220,000 web visits a month. Our YES! This Week e-newsletter has 77,000 subscribers and on Facebook and Twitter we have a total more than 66,000 fans and followers.
To extend our reach even further, we put all our articles in the Creative Commons and encourage others to use them. Many sites repost our articles including the Christian Science Monitor, Truthout, Reader Supported News, Common Dreams, and others. The Utne Reader regularly republishes our articles.
We're also eager to inspire young people with the sense of possibilities and their own role in shaping their futures. So in 2002 we developed an education program helps teachers use YES! materials in their classrooms. That too has grown tremendously, with 27,000 self-selected educators now subscribing to our education newsletter. In 2011, we launched our National Student Writing Competition, in which students write essays on YES! articles. So far more than 3,000 students have participated.
We also give away copies of YES! to organizations that work on the issues we write about. For example we gave away about 7,000 free copies of our cooperatives issue to organizations that are educating people about cooperatives.
And since 2011, we are holding a celebration at Seattle's Town Hall each year. This year, on September 12, we will feature renowned biodiversity and global justice advocate Vandana Shiva. Vandana has been an outspoken critic of Monsanto and genetically modified organisms, which makes her visit particularly timely. In November, Washington voters will decide on an initiative to require food containing GMOs to be labeled.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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